“I’m sure.”
A beating? Did Kassian beat his servants? I was unsettled. Surely he didn’t.
Or did I know even less about my childhood friend than I thought?
“Excellent.” Jeremiah offered me his arm with a flourish and a smile. “Let me dazzle you with the grandeur of this mostly forgotten level of the house.”
He was charming, and he kept a light-hearted stream of banter running between us the entire walk down the hall.
“This wing,” he said, “like many of the floors of this house, is rarely used. As you can see.” He glanced at a cobweb trailing down one of the walls. “Maybe they’ll have you cleaning that later. I’ll save you a chore.” He wiped it away with his hand and grinned at me like he’d done something clever.
“Why does Vixor live in this massive house if he doesn’t use half of it?” I asked, craning my neck to look at the ceiling.
“Don’t let anyone hear you call his lordship Vixor, or you’ll be punished for sure,” Jeremiah said with faint alarm. “And, well, the house belonged to his father.”
“I thought he was adopted.” The words slipped out amid my fluster over accidentally referring to Kassian by his first name instead of calling him Lord Rae. I was going to give myself away if I wasn’t careful.
Jeremiah shrugged. “He was. Hence, the lord was his father.”
Rage rolled through me like a wave, hitting me hard in the chest. Kassian’s father was the librarian in our town. A kind man who liked to tell jokes to everyone he met on the road and in town. A man who dearly loved books, and detested the taste of cheese, and who had once been stung by a bee and swelled up like a balloon. That was Kassian’s father. The enemy lord who adopted Kassian after he was captured, brainwashed, and kept a prisoner was not, and never would be, his father.
We kept walking, Jeremiah making little jokes about the house and about Vixor—sly jabs that might go unnoticed if one wasn’t paying attention.
I was.
Jeremiah didn’t like his master.
I didn’t blame him—I didn’t think I’d have much loyalty for anyone who kept me in servitude—but it seemed out of keeping with the attitudes of the rest of Kassian’s household. Everyone else appeared to be devoted, based on my scant exposure to them.
I had made up my mind to ask him why when we rounded a corner and nearly repeated my experience with Jeremiah previously. Jeremiah grabbed my arm and yanked me to a halt just in time to prevent me from smacking into a black-clad chest of the master of the house.
I looked up and saw a sharp chin, an unsmiling mouth, and a pair of smoldering gray eyes.
Kassian.
CHAPTER NINE
“YOUR LORDSHIP,” JEREMIAH stammered, flustered at the lord of the house’s sudden appearance. “My deepest apologies. I didn’t expect—”
“Clearly not,” Kassian said crisply. His eyes were fixed on the place where Jeremiah was still holding my arm.
“It’s just that you never come below the third level, or above the seventh—”
Kassian’s mouth pressed in a line. “Perhaps I should, if only to disrupt your obvious cataloging of my movements within my own house. And perhaps you should return to your duties.”
His voice was cold and cutting.
No wonder Jeremiah didn’t like him. I didn’t understand why he was so cruel to this friendly young servant, but it was inexcusable from where I stood.
“Red,” Kassian said to me. His gaze was still on my arm, and Jeremiah’s fingers. “What are you doing here?”
“I was exploring,” I began.
“She was with me,” Jeremiah tried to interject.
I didn’t miss the way Kassian’s mouth thinned, or the way his eyes glittered like shards of glass.
I pulled my arm away from Jeremiah’s grasp. “Were you looking for me?”
“I was unaware that I needed to be,” Kassian said. “I believe Ollan had strict instructions—”
Jeremiah looked between us, confusion on his face.
“That will be all,” Kassian said to him in a tone that promised punishment, and the young man threw me one last look of reluctance and sympathy before he turned and trotted down the long hallway away from us.
Kassian loomed over me. He wore no silver armor today—just trousers and a shirt made from rich black fabric, with a black cloak slung over his shoulders. His hair was tousled from the wind outside. His eyes matched his cloak. They sparked as they finally met mine, and my stomach dropped.
He was fearsome like this. Like a panther on the prowl. Heat pooled in me, threaded with a sense of dismay.
But I was angrier than I was intimidated.
“Is there a problem?” I demanded as soon as Jeremiah was out of earshot. “If you intended me to be a prisoner in your house, you should have put me in chains.”
A muscle in Kassian’s jaw twitched. “I—”
“So, a nice servant decided to show me around after I bumped into him. He was friendly to me. Friendlier than you’ve been, I might add. And then, you show up, and you’re cold as frozen steel to him.”
“He was sneaking around in a never-used part of the house with my new mate. And he isn’t a servant.”
He reached out and touched the back of my neck, his brow furrowing. The brush of his fingers sent a shiver down my spine. I ignored it. My attraction to him was not going to sidetrack my outrage.
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous. You wanted nothing to do with marrying me; you’ve made yourself clear. You can’t have it both ways, Vixor.” I emphasized his Sworn name with disdain, and a muscle in his cheek twitched as if he were holding in angry words of his own.
“I am not jealous,” he replied stiffly, his lip curling with scorn in a way that made him look every inch the dark werewolf prince that he was. He withdrew his hand from my neck and stared down at his fingers as if they were now tainted. “You are correct; I did not want this marriage, Meredith. But that doesn’t mean I want to see you harmed. In fact, I’m doing what I can do ensure that you are safe.”
Meredith.
Was he trying to hurt me, or merely matching my use of his name with mine?
At the moment, I didn’t care why. I was too angry.
“Do you beat your servants?” I demanded as another thought jostled to the forefront of my furious mind.
Kassian’s face contorted with anger. “I don’t know what lies he told you—”
“He didn’t say you did. But he was quite concerned that I might be punished for slacking on the job. He thought I was a servant, see.”
“I do not beat my staff,” Kassian said. His hands flexed at his sides. His shoulders were stiff. “And I have no enslaved people serving here. All are paid well and are happy to work.”
“Is anyone else beating them? The housekeeper? The cook? You don’t know everything about the way things are for humans here. Like how Mother Shade treats her Chosen girls.”
He scowled. “I am certain that no one is being mistreated in my household. Come. I don’t want to continue this conversation in this area of the house, and we have pressing matters to attend to.”
~