Soren
“What are you doing here? How did you find this place?” I sneer.
Maeve blinks up at me, her expression relaxing into what I can only describe as relief. She gives me a rough shove, but I tighten my grip, arching a brow in challenge. “Don’t fuck with me right now, Maeve.”
“I’m sure you’d love that,” she replies hoarsely, the corner of her wide mouth pulling into a smug smile bordering on… seductive. I’m seeing things, obviously. There’s nothing about her I even remotely desire. Especially her company.
“Why are you spying on me?”
“I’m not.”
“Then why–”
“My powers,” she grits out, shoving me again, but her hands hold on my chest. “They’re not coming back.”
“You said all you needed was food and rest–”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
I ease my grip on her throat but keep my arm pinned over her breasts. She’s soaking wet, water droplets gliding down her collarbones and seeping into the bodice of the dress. I look into her eyes, scanning them for any threat, anything that would make me decide against letting her go, and see nothing but… exhaustion, maybe a shred of disappointment and fear.
I lower my arm and step away from her, shrugging out of the jacket Patton loaned me when I arrived at his cabin. “Here. Put this on. You’re trembling.”
She nods, lowering her gaze and allowing me to help her into the thin, but waterproof coat. Her skin is like ice, again, and I’m starting to feel that guilt and regret burrow through my chest once more–the same way I felt leaving her in that shitty little village by herself.
With a hand on her arm, I guide her beneath the cover of a tree, glancing over my shoulder to ensure I wasn’t followed. “Explain it to me, then. Everything.”
Maeve grimaces, shrugging my hand off her arm, and scowls up at me. “Like you care–”
“I left you behind because I thought you could get yourself home. Obviously, that didn’t happen. So, you either need help or you purposefully followed me here, which I find hard to believe because we’re over fifty miles away from that village now.”
Her cheeks flush as she looks down at her mud-stained sneakers. I lick my lips, struggling with not only words but action. I have no desire to coo at her, to stroke the top of her head and tell her everything's going to be okay. That’s what a normal person would do, right? Empathize, sympathize, rest my knuckles under her chin and tell her to buck up, buttercup, then offer to personally escort her home?
Maeve isn’t a damsel in distress. She’s a fucking demon in a sundress. A whimpering, miserable looking demon, but a creature from my wildest nightmares nonetheless.
“I tried to jump home,” she admits, sniffling before closing her eyes and turning her sorry-ass expression back to cold, hard steel. “I thought I made it, but I woke up in the woods nearby, soaking wet, freezing cold and… I think I’d been lying there for hours. For the entire day, actually. I was just… I can’t do it yet, Soren. I didn’t follow you. I wouldn’t waste my time on you like that.”
There she is.
“How long until you can?”
She purses her lips, the column of her throat bobbing as she swallows hard. “A few days–”
“A few days?” I hiss. “Why didn’t you tell me–”
“What would you have done? Nothing, Soren. I didn’t want your help, anyway. You got me into this mess–”
“You got yourself–”
“Don’t. I don’t have the energy to fight with you right now. You are so far below me, Soren. I don’t think you realize that. You’re nothing. I’ll be queen in a month. I would never have even turned my head in your direction had you not stolen from me.”
“That’s a lie,” I say, my voice a hushed whisper over the rain.
Her eyes–those strange, polished sea-glass eyes–lift to meet mine.
I step into her, arching a brow as I wait for her to react to the way I’m closing her in against the damp bark of the tree, but she doesn’t swing on me like I expected her to. “You were there both times I broke into the castle. You saw me in the hallway while in your cat form. You had to know then that I wasn’t supposed to be there, that I was snooping around. The second time, I was actively stealing from you, yet, you did nothing. You let me take that collar off. You didn’t even react.”
She swallows again. I follow the motion against my will, feeling a twisting, unsettling kind of heat flame to life deep in my body, and it’s her powers. The rain sparkles on her skin. I reach for her, swiping my thumb across her collarbone to collect the shimmering droplets on impulse, and I swear on the Goddess, she leans into my touch.
Something… sharp echoes through my chest, and I pull away from her, wondering if she does, in fact, have enough power left to create this heat, that sharp pang echoing through my heart, but she just stares at me, silently.
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Why were you at the tea shop that night?”
Thunder booms in the distance as I conjure the memory. “I lived nearby. Moonrise was too quiet that day. I couldn’t take the silence any longer.” It strikes me then that she would have been reeling from what she believed to be the loss of her sister during that first encounter.
She doesn’t have to say she felt the same way, felt the same pull to the sanctuary of yellow walls, hot tea, and barely functioning TVs as I did, but there we were. Together.
“Why were you at the diner?” I ask to break the sudden silence.
“I lived nearby,” she echoes, the softest, saddest smile touching her lips. “And… and that night, my sister got married, and I gave away the only person who ever saw me for what I am, the only person who ever understood me and loved me anyway.” Her eyes meet mine, but shed that softness I’d just witnessed a moment ago. I realize how rare that look must be, and maybe she hadn’t meant for me to see it–that vulnerability. “Why were you there? In Veiled Valley?”
“I was visiting friends who live there,” I say, and it’s a half-truth.
We seem to be at an impasse. This is the calmest, and longest, we’ve actually spoken without beating the shit out of each other. I suck in a breath and glance around the darkened forest, needing to come up with some solution. Being the princess’s personal bodyguard wasn’t something I ever anticipated, but here I am, and here she is, totally and completely at my mercy.
“Are you going to be able to trust me?”
“No,” she replies without skipping a beat.
I ignore her, asking, “If I get you to the nearest depot, will you go home without a fight?”
“I want to make a deal–”
“I’m not making deals. There’s nothing you can offer me–”
“Your friends have silver bands, like you did. I know they hurt, and I know none of you can shift. If I… if I rest for a little while, get warm, and what-not… I could remove them, with my powers–”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d be putting them in the same kind of danger you put me in.”
She bites her lip. I glance down, noticing the raindrops shimmering on her lower lip, biting down on my own to stop… some feeling I find hard to describe from taking over. I can readily admit she’s beautiful–stunning–an absolute work of art, carved by the Goddess Herself, but I have other options if I’m really feeling that desperate.
And I’m not a desperate man. I never have been. Love and companionship has never been on my radar.
So why the fuck is she getting under my skin and making me feel like… like…
“Are you going to be sick? You’re pale,” she asks, stepping away from me.
I suck my teeth, glaring down at her and running a hand through my wet hair. “I’ve been drinking.”
“I saw.”
The glare deepens. “I’m thinking about what to do with you tonight. Can you shift back into a cat, maybe?”
She shakes her head. Her lips are tinged blue, which makes me nervous. She’s cold, even under the cover of my jacket.
I have one option as it stands, and I don’t like it.
I tilt my head, beckoning her to follow, and guide her back to the cabin.
It takes all of thirty seconds for Patton, my friend from childhood, to recognize her.
“Where’s Duke?” I ask, keeping my fingers curled around Maeve’s upper arm.
Patton’s blue eyes widen as he braces himself in the doorway, glancing from me to Maeve, who smiles kindly up at him.
“Uh, what the fuck is going on?” he says nervously, his eyes meeting mine again. “Soren?”
“This is Maeve,” I say, shrugging the tension from my shoulders. Under my breath, I rasp, “She’s a little lost.”
“Fuckin’ Princess Maeve?”
“Yes,” Maeve grins.
Patton’s lips part before he slowly straightens, his eyes on mine, unblinking. “Soren, can I talk to you for a moment?”
“No.” I sigh, yanking Maeve into the cabin, forcing him to step out of my way. Maeve’s head swivels as she takes in her new surroundings. It’s not much, but Patton made himself a home here out in the middle of nowhere, smack dab on the border between two Alphas who either don’t know they have a rogue in their midst or don’t care. Patton isn’t a threat, never has been. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time a decade ago. Just like me.
I let go of Maeve’s arm and turn to my friend, who bows deeply to her, his cheeks flushed pink. But his eyes narrow on mine, his mouth pulled into a tight line as he tilts his head toward his bedroom on the first floor in a silent command to speak in private.
I ignore him, turning to Maeve. “There’s a bedroom upstairs in the loft. There’s some dry clothes in the closet, something to sleep in at least. Pat, you got hot water, right?”
Patton nods stiffly, his eyes shooting daggers in my direction.
I turn back to Maeve. “Take a bath or something. Warm up. We had dinner already, but there’s leftovers. I’ll heat them up.”
Maeve glances between me and Patton before nodding, giving Patton another kind smile that betrays who she is, at least to me, and goes upstairs, her footsteps light on the floorboards as she disappears from sight.
Before Patton can get a single word out, I snatch his arm and drag him into his bedroom, kicking the door closed behind us.
“What the fuck, man?” he says in a whispered hiss, his eyes going wide. “Why is the princess of Eastonia in my fucking cabin?!”
“It’s a long story–”
“Well, you better start talking!”
“Where is Duke?” I ask sternly. “Is he here?”
“No. He said he had to meet up with someone. He’s on a job and was just stopping through.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. I’ve known Duke for a long time, but he’s a hot head, and I don’t fully trust him, not like I trust Patton.
“Look, I fucked up in Moonrise. That final job I was talking about a few weeks ago didn’t go as planned–”
Patton gapes, glancing at the ceiling. “You better not be saying your final job was kidnapping the princess–”
“Why the fuck would I need to kidnap her?” I ask in all seriousness. “I was robbing her, dumbass. And at first, I was successful, but she’s… she’s not letting me go. If anything, I’m the one being kidnapped right now!”
“So she followed you here?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I try to explain, but I’m tired. I had a long ass day just trekking here. “Look, she just needs a roof over her head for a few days, and then I’m taking her to Twin Rivers. I need to go there anyway, and she’ll be able to take the train back to Moonrise from there if she’s not better by then.”
“What’s wrong with her?” he asks, genuinely confused.
Where do I even begin?
“Just–just be cool about this, all right?” I turn for his bedroom door, my entire body screaming at me to go check on her for some reason. “And if Duke comes back, wake me up. I want to talk to him about this directly.”