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“He doesn’t consider me family,” I add, which is actually true. “My mother was unmarked, and I’m illegitimate, so he never considered me his kin. He was just... my guardian.”
My warden is more like it, but I keep the thought to myself.
“And he never gave you a name? No one in your pack did?” he asks, and I can’t quite make out the emotion behind his tone.
I glance up at him from where I’m huddled on the bed. He’s standing a few feet away, completely still, watching me with an unreadable expression on his face. The softness, openness, and curiosity that were there a few minutes ago while he held me in bed are gone. But he is also no longer glaring at me in anger.
I shake my head no.
“What did they call you?” he asks, his voice guarded and his words measured.
Nothing kind. Nothing worth repeating.
I shrug, lowering my eyes again, not wanting to see the disgust that surely fill his. I fidget uncomfortably, feeling the heat of his gaze on my skin. I rub at the birthmark on my chest absently, but there is no pain there. Whatever I felt earlier is gone, and all that remains is this tension filling the air, clouding the space between us.
After a while, I look up at him again, but he seems farther away somehow, like he’s retreated into himself. I bite my lower lip, wondering if I’ve ruined everything.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before; when you asked my name, I didn’t know what to say,” I try to explain. “I’m sorry for running away at dinner. And sorry for waking you up tonight. I’m sorry I—"
“Don’t,” he says, his voice still quiet, but there’s something firm and commanding behind the word. He stops for a moment, considering what to say next. His gaze tickles my skin like an invisible caress, and I feel suddenly exposed in nothing but a shirt and underthings.
Even in the darkness of the room, I feel as though I’ve somehow bared myself to him, and I cannot stand to imagine what he must think of me. I cannot stand the thought of that familiar disgust and disdain that comes from seeing the broken pieces of another person. Of seeing me.
I tuck my legs into my chest, turning away from him to reach for the tangled pile of blankets by the edge of the bed.
After a long moment, Tristan sighs and says, “You don’t have to apologize. If there was anything for me to forgive, I would. But there isn’t.” With that, he turns away once again. He lingers in the doorway, tearing his attention away from me to glance down at the door handle with a sudden frown. “You can lock the door if it makes you feel safer,” he tells me at last. “But at least for tonight, I’m glad that you didn’t.”
I wonder what he would have done if I had. Would he have knocked down the door to reach me when he heard me scream? Or would the enchanted house simply have opened it for him?
“Get some rest,” he says, and he closes the door behind him.
I crawl back under the covers, but briefly consider getting up to lock the door behind him. After a few minutes of lying in the darkness, I slip out of bed and head for the door, the floor cold under my bare feet.
Eventually, I go back to bed, and I sleep soundly the rest of the night, the door of my room left slightly open.
Chapter Thirteen
Tristan
When she screamed, I thought I might lose my mind. I thought I might tear through the world to reach her and make sure she was safe, and I hated myself for it.
Is this truly the will of the Goddess? For wolves and men to lose themselves to a bond they did not even choose, a bond they might not even believe in?
My wolf claws at my insides in protest, but I push it down deep within myself. I will not be a slave to my urges nor place my trust in something as fickle and fragile as a heart. I will not bend or break for a girl I barely even know. I refuse.
When I found her door unlocked and rushed to check on her, she clung to me as if her life depended on it. Even after she woke, she stared at me with those haunted eyes, wide and violet, impossibly beautiful.
I roll over onto my side, kicking off the bedcovers. I’m back in my own room down the hall from hers, unable to stop thinking about the way her fingers grazed my skin, soft as an angel’s breath. I’ve been with my fair share of women before, but I’m a warrior. A king. A Rogue Alpha. I’m used to things hard and fast, rough and strong. But the girl’s touch had been impossibly soft, her skin like petals brushing against mine. No one has ever looked at me the way she did, with that quiet sort of wonder. No one has ever been gentle and timid and so fucking beautiful in the moonlight that it made something ache inside me.
Then when I kissed her, she yelped and crawled away, looking back at me with fear in those lovely eyes, and everything that had warmed and softened beneath her touch froze solid.
I bury my face in the pillow, biting back a frustrated growl. I am not made for sweet and tender. I could have stormed out of the room and never looked back. I should have.
But she asked me to stay. Fuck. She asked me to stay, and I was unable to leave her, not even when she revealed that she was Viktor’s niece and rage had threatened to rip me apart. She was the ward of an Alpha I despised, and her own cousin threw her at my feet. She’s so tiny, so thin and meek, but she still fought back, and Oscar nearly beat her right in front of my eyes for it.
I’ve always known the Banes are savages, but this is a new low. My stomach churns at the thought of that girl trapped in Viktor’s “care.” Oscar could probably crack her like a twig, and from what I know of the Alpha’s son, I certainly wouldn’t put it past him. Men like him like stepping on small things to make themselves feel big.
Viktor himself called her a mutt, a mongrel, a freak. Is that what she’s always been called?
