Flaring my magic that sustains the candles, I let the glow touch her skin, play over the cinnamon dusting of freckles on her face and the red curls over white pillows. She makes a murmur, a barely there sound that has me returning to the shadows. “I’ll leave her. It’s the only way.”
Bess snorts the bovine equivalent of a chuckle. “Don’t be such a drama bull, sire. You’re the only one she has met here.”
“I terrified her.” I scare everyone who doesn’t belong to my kingdom, so it shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
“What’d you say to scare her?”
“It wasn’t what I said. Or at least I don’t think it was. She seemed fine while we talked. Brave and gutsy.” Exactly the qualities I admire in a woman. “I should’ve asked more questions and given fewer answers until I knew how little information she’d been given. She had no idea magic or monsters were real—”
Bess stops wiping down already-clean surfaces. “We are not monsters.” Hurt laces her tone.
I’ve offended her without meaning to. “You aren’t.”
“Neither are you.”
Rather than risk frightening another woman tonight, I stay silent.
Bess isn’t deterred. “If she didn’t know about our world, then why did she agree to the match?” She sniffs the air and tucks her tail, seeming to suddenly realize how intimate the question she’s asked may be. While matchmaking is an old and respected industry, the bargains struck between the parties include very personal, very private details about expectations and limitations. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay.” I keep my tone calm and kind, stopping her before she can fret herself into a panic. Much like actual cows, Bess and her shifter kin can take twenty minutes to calm down from the slightest scare. It’s a downside of being prey in the presence of a predator—me. “Meg signed the contract without understanding the implications. I don’t know what Theo told her.”
Bess’s ears prick and rise above her hair. “Can’t trust those dealing demons. No better than that one who won’t leave her bed.” She shoots a look at Oggie, who licks his paw as if daring her to move his way.
“Still, she didn’t consent.” As much as I want Meg, I won’t take advantage of whatever trap Theo set to lure her here, but I can’t promise to control myself around her. Not when both the beast and the man in me crave her with the ravenous hunger that destroyed me for so long. If I slip and give in to that insatiable appetite, no matter how much magic I’ve lost in the realm’s decline, I won’t be able to maintain the civilized mask that allows me to lead through respect rather than conquest. “I received a message today that the western border wards have cracked and need repairing.” Yet another sign that the kingdom’s collapsing. “I’ll head out tonight and be back before the new moon.”
“Is there no one else who could reinforce the shields?” Bess asks, worry thick in her voice.
“Belaya could’ve done it once.” Part elf and part something unknown, the woman’s abilities must’ve been a force before her realm gave out and I brought her here for sanctuary.
“Poor dear,” Bess said. “She doesn’t leave her tower workshop, even though her powers have abandoned her. Night and day, she recites the same spells in her home language. The nurse has to remind her to eat her meals.”
“Are you suggesting we assign her a new room outside the tower?” I don’t want to. The drunk goose shifter who babysits her might be the only person not affected by the elf’s madness. Hell, I’m not sure that Belaya could function around the noise and overwhelming bustle of the castle. She came to us broken. I’d rather not break her further.
Bess seems to take in my reluctance. “We can leave her be for now, but too much time alone’s not good for anyone. We herd for a reason.” Reminding her that not everyone’s a shifter won’t do any good. She gestures toward my mate. “Which is why you shouldn’t be leaving her alone with strangers.”
“It’s not as if she knows me. Hell, she screamed at first seeing me. Leaving her’s the kindest thing I can do.”
“You won’t send her back?” Bess sounds as if she wants to make that a command but has enough of a brain to not risk it.
“No. Locking her in the castle will teach her the consequences of signing a demon contract without reading it. She’s lucky she didn’t land a match who would beat her into submission.” Plenty of other monsters would.
“But sire, if you would ease the girl into it, things might go differently. She’s your match for good reason, but you can’t discover that reason if you’re not here. As much as I don’t like him, Darnell could patch the shields.”
“Perhaps.” The last refugee to seek sanctuary in our realm from the human world, Darnell’s warlock magic is rooted in the earth element—the same as mine—so he still has some power. “We’re lucky he still has his magic when everyone else has lost theirs.”
“Luck’s got nothing to do with it. That warlock must’ve banged the right demon,” she says with a snort. “Just as long as he didn’t sell us out in any deals. I don’t trust him.”
“He’s been a loyal subject for decades.”
“If he’s so steadfast, then why did he get chased from his realm?” she asks.
We’ve had this discussion a hundred times, and yet I try once more to explain, adding the latest evidence to support my argument. “For the same reason that Meg didn’t know magic exists, the reason that caused the rift in the realms. Humans don’t have faith in what they can’t prove with their science. They stopped believing in us, and when anyone practices that which the humans can’t explain with logic and reason, they persecute them. Look at the witch trials.”
“Those were women. Not too-pretty-for-their-own-good men who chase skirts, like Darnell.”
I’ll need to remind him again to be more discreet in wooing whichever maid has caught his attention this week. Bess protects those in her care like they were her own daughters. “He has done nothing to suggest he’s anything but loyal to me.” Or I would’ve found a portal and tossed him through it.
“If he’s so devout,” she says, “then perhaps you should give him the coordinates through the labyrinth and send him to the western border.”
And we’re back where we started. I glance at Meg, studying how peaceful she looks in sleep. She deserves better than being trapped in a mating contract she doesn’t want, and I’m not sure I can stay away from her if I’m at the castle. Plus, a tiny part of me doesn’t trust anyone with the secrets of the labyrinth. The maze keeps us safe. “No, I’m going. My decision’s final.”
“What do I tell your human when she asks why you abandoned her?”
“She won’t ask. She’ll be happy that I’m gone.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
My temper sharpens my tongue. “Then tell her this realm doesn’t need a coward for its queen.” As Oggie settles in next to Meg, I wonder how much tenacity and toughness it’d taken for her to follow a sentinel demon into the unknown. But I don’t change my answer, even though it makes me the coward.