Page 29 of How to Claim A Shadow King

Aveline's laugh falters as she looks over her shoulder at me, and I do my best to smile back at her to ameliorate the fear and uncertainty radiating from her. Fear, I realized belatedly, that I have caused. She doesn't remember me. It hurts. It burns, it stings like a lightning bolt straight to my heart. And for the first time, I put myself into her mud-stained, ripped silken slippers and realized wholeheartedly that I had done grievously wrong by her.

She doesn't remember me. She doesn't remember us. She doesn't have any experience with witchcraft. This is the first time she's met her coven, and from the—the way she's looked at the other males, the first time that she's met with anyone who wasn't human either. My bride has led an incredibly sheltered life and is now being thrust into the thick of it with no preparation other than her own steely determination. I'll have to make it up to her. I'll have to make this right.

"The plumbing is magically hot," the blonde witch is explaining to my Aveline.

"Do I need to cast a spell on it?" Aveline asks, and the blonde witch gives her a long look. “Some kind of special word, or chant?”

"You really don't have any experience with magic, do you?"

"I really don't," Aveline agrees, and my heart breaks at how defeated she sounds.

I did this to her. I did not prepare her for any of the things that she's now having to cope with, and neither did her parentage, despite the inevitability of this very day.

"There's no spell," the witch tells her kindly.

I decide at once that I like this coven of Aveline's. They are not mean-spirited in the least. She could not—she could have done much worse than these witches.

"I can take care of her," I tell the blonde witch.

She turns to me with an affronted look on her face. "Yes, I can see exactly what your version of taking care of her has led to," she says, waving a hand at Aveline's extremely unkempt state.

Aveline's cheeks heat at the words, and I'm surprised at the emotion I feel welling in my chest. Not anger, no. This is something newer, something I hardly remember the name of—shame.

"I will do better," I say, and my gaze doesn't leave Aveline's as I say it. "I will do better by you, Aveline. This, I swear." I go down on one knee in front of her, my hand at my heart, and I gaze up at her. "If you will let me, I swear to protect you and to take care of you for as long as we both shall live."

Aveline regards me not unkindly but carefully, as though she's trying to avoid being trapped the way a deer might when they sense a snare.

"I accept," she finally says. "Now stand up," she snaps. "I'm tired and I want to go to sleep."

A hint of a grin washes along Wren's face as she unlocks the one door at the very end of the hallway. Inside, there's a well-appointed room, fire already crackling on the hearth. A large bed—that's not nearly as nice as the one back in my castle, but nice enough that I'm sure Aveline will be comfortable—done in shades of reds and oranges, nearly garish after the solemn blacks and blues that I prefer.

"The bathroom is through there. There's fresh towels, and I'll bring up some clothes that should be about your size, Aveline. They're not as fancy as⁠—"

"I really don't care about fancy," she tells Wren. "I can't thank you enough," she stumbles over the words, "for how kind you've been to me, and I don't understand really what's going on yet, but..."

"It's going to be all right," Wren interrupts her, placing a slim hand on Aveline’s shoulder.

I bristle at Wren touching her.

"We're going to figure this out." She takes a step back as I walk through the door, following Aveline, whose shoulders have drooped with fatigue, and gives me a long, cutting look. "If you touch her tonight, if you even think of touching her tonight..."

"...we'll kill you," Caelan interrupts with a gleeful smile.

"I would never hurt her," I tell them both.

With that, I slam the door in their faces and turn the lock.

When I turn back around, Aveline is face down on the bed, feet hanging off it. Several toes peek out of the thin excuse for shoes she was wearing, and I stare at her for a long moment, trying to figure out where to go from here, how to apologize for the way I've behaved, how to make her understand that I would never hurt her, that that is the last thing that I want, that her happiness is all that has mattered to me. The problem is I don't know how to say that because I don't remember what it's like to even have a shape.

"Aveline," I say, desperate to give it a go, to at least say something. "I just... I shouldn't have..." I pause, pacing back and forth.

Aveline stays quiet where she lays on the bed, and I consider that to be a good thing—her sharp tongue temporarily dulled by her fatigue or perhaps compassion for my plight.

"I have been a fool," I tell her gravely. "I have let you down, and in so doing, I've let myself down and the entirety of the Wild Oak Woods, the Elder Forest, and the Elder Gods. And I should have been much more clear about everything, and I didn't know how to do that."

A small sound interrupts me and I whip towards where Aveline lays. She's asleep. She's not listening at all. She's snoring. Her foot twitches and my gaze draws downwards to that poor, torn-up slipper. It's not just dirty, I realize, fresh anger rising in me. Her blood has soaked through several parts of the silk during her flight from the castle.

They told me not to hurt her, not to touch her, but they can't stop me from taking care of her.