SELAH’S POV
I woke up thinking about Lord Garrick, and that was the first mistake of the morning.
The second was remembering the kiss.
I stared at the ceiling for minutes on end, wishing my mind would move on to literally anything else.
Maybe what I would have for breakfast, or the stupid crack in the wall near my window.
Even the strange sound the pipes made at night would have been better.
But no.
My mind went straight back to the kiss yesterday, and then, most of all, to the way he had reacted afterward.
I groaned and pulled the blanket over my face.
Stupid.
I was so stupid.
How many times did I have to learn the same lesson?
Trusting people got me hurt, and trusting men got me killed.
It has literally gotten me killed once.
I had already made that mistake with Asher.
I had loved and trusted him, and believed every word he had given me for three years, and look where that had gotten me.
A dagger through the heart.
And somehow, after everything, I had allowed myself to start trusting another man again.
I dropped the blanket and sat up.
“Stupid,” I mouthed to myself.
It was not like I had planned to kiss him.
It had just happened.
One moment I had been standing there, angry and confused, and the next—No.
I was not going there again.
I pushed myself out of bed quickly.
That was enough thinking for one morning.
I grabbed the bowl of water sitting on the small table and washed my face.
The water was cold, which was exactly what I needed.
I rubbed my cheeks and looked down at the bowl, catching a faint reflection of myself in the surface.
The silvery-white hair and gray eyes that didn’t belong to me
I sighed and set the bowl down.
At least this face had the good sense to be unrecognisable.
When I opened my door, a guard was standing outside, and he straightened when he saw me.
“Lady Selah.”
I looked behind me, wondering if there was another “Lady” Selah standing somewhere.
There wasn’t.
The guard cleared his throat.
“Lord Garrick is requesting your presence.”
Of course he was.
I pointed at myself, and the guard nodded.
“Yes. You.”
Wonderful.
I followed him through the corridor.
I had never been inside Lord Garrick’s private chambers before, even though I had once stood outside it to eavesdrop.
The guard led me through a set of double doors, and the first room I entered looked nothing like I expected.
It was a dining room.
A large table occupied the center, already covered with breakfast.
There were plates of bread, fruit, eggs, meat and several things I couldn’t identify.
Sunlight came through the tall windows, falling across the polished floor.
Lord Garrick was sitting at the head of the table.
He was wearing a white linen shirt, the sleeves pushed slightly up his arms.
His dark hair had been packed up, leaving his face completely uncovered.
His moustached mouth moved as he chewed.
I stopped walking, staring at me.
He looked like a foreign angel, a very intimidating foreign angel, one who enjoyed ordering people around before breakfast.
Lord Garrick lifted his eyes from his plate.
“You’re here.”
I stared at him.
What did he expect me to do?
Applaud?
The guard bowed and left, closing the door behind him.
Then I turned my attention back to Lord Garrick, who motioned toward the chair opposite him.
“Sit down.”
I sat, and he took another bite of his breakfast before speaking.
“So, you’ll be moving rooms. You’ll move into my quarters today.”
I looked toward the other side of the room.
There were two doors standing side by side, and he pointed toward one of them.
“The room on the left is yours, while the other one is mine.”
I glared at him, waiting for him to take his words back, but he didn’t appear to be joking.
Angrily I reached for the notepad I normally carried, to tell him there was no way I wanted to move into his chambers.
But my hand found nothing.
Right—I had left it in my room.
Of course I had. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Lord Garrick watched me closely, probably sensing my thoughts.
“You’ll have everything moved before nightfall, I hope?”
I frowned, and he picked up his cup.
“This is for security, I hope you know that. It’s certainly not because of what happened yesterday.”
I almost laughed.
Security?
That was what he was calling it?
Yesterday, he had kissed me, and then reacted as though he regretted the entire thing.
Now, suddenly, I needed to move into his private quarters.
I knew better….
something had happened yesterday, something about that kiss had changed the way he was thinking.
I studied his face, but he gave me nothing.
Of course he didn’t.
Lord Garrick probably had a special talent for keeping everything locked inside his head.
I looked toward the doors again.
So I was moving into his quarters.
What exactly was everyone in this household going to think?
The servants already watched me whenever I walked past them, I’m sure the guards and everyone else guessed that I was his mate.
And now I was going to sleep in Lord Garrick’s private quarters.
People were going to assume we were sleeping together.
Wonderful.
Just wonderful.
I looked back at him.
Lord Garrick was still eating as if none of this was of any importance.
Then I pointed toward the breakfast table, and he looked up.
“The food? What about it?”
I gestured to myself, and he seemed to understand.
“You’re asking whether you should eat first?”
I nodded.
“No.”
My mouth fell open, while Lord Garrick took another drink.
“You can eat after you move your things.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
This man was unbelievable;
He set his cup down.
“And you’re dismissed. Leave, so I can eat in peace.”
Angrily, I pushed my chair back and stood up, then his voice stopped me.
“And perhaps tonight you won’t refuse dinner when I ask you to join me.”
Oh, so he remembered that.
I rolled my eyes so hard I was surprised they stayed in my head.
This man was so full of himself!
I pointed at him, then toward the door, making it clear that I was leaving.
If my voice still worked, I would have had plenty to say to him.
I was going to have to fix that.
I hurried back to my room, shutting the door behind me.
For a few moments, I simply stood there.
Now what?
Mira wasn’t coming until later to teach me more sign language.
My room was already clean, and the clothes I had were arranged.
There was nothing to do.
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the window, then at the door, and at the ceiling.
This was going to be a very long day.
I had barely started wondering how I would survive the next few hours when I heard footsteps.
Someone was coming.
I sat up expectantly, maybe it was Vera.
That made sense, Vera was always appearing without warning, usually with some strange story or question.
She could distract me for a few hours before Mira came.
The footsteps stopped outside my room, and the door opened.
But it was not Vera.
The woman standing there was beautiful.
Her clothes were elegant and they looked expensive.
The fabric flowed around her body, and the jewelry at her neck caught the light.
Her posture was straight, her chin lifted slightly.
She looked like a princess.
A very angry princess.
So it was a huge surprise to me when she suddenly stormed into the room and grabbed my arm, yanking me forward.
“YOU DON’T BELONG HERE!”
I raised my hands, trying to explain, but then she grabbed my arm again, this time even more painfully.
I jerked away, but her fingers tightened.
“You don’t belong in this house,” she snapped.
“You witch, what are you doing here?” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
I pulled against her grip, but she stepped into my path when I tried to move around her.
“WITCH!” She screeched, her eyes as wide as an owl’s.
She suddenly didn’t look so beautiful anymore.
“WITCH! WITCH!”
I shoved her hand away.
Her face changed, and that was when I knew I had made a mistake.
Her nails lengthened, and wolf claws slid from her fingertips.
With all of my survival instincts, I reacted.
My wolf reared its head and screamed instructions at me: Run.
Fight.
Survive.
The woman raised her hand, and I braced myself to attack.
Then a blood-curdling roar came from the direction of the hallway.
The sound was so loud that the woman froze.
I turned just as something large came rushing toward the room.
For one horrible second, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
Then the beast bounded through the doorway, past the bright window.
It was a wolf.
A huge one.
My body hit the wall as I scrambled backward.
No, no, no, no, no.
This was how I was going to die?
I had survived Asher and that Blood Moon Market.
I had survived being bought by a terrifying Lord who could crush a man’s head with his bare hands.
And now I was going to be eaten by a wolf in my own room!
The beast moved forward, and I squeezed my eyes shut, praying against death, when I heard a scream.
I opened my eyes to see that the wolf had gone past me, straight for the guard at my door—the same guard who had brought me to Lord Garrick that morning.
He barely had time to draw his weapon before the beast hurtled itself onto him.
The guard hit the floor, and then the wolf started to tear him apart.
There was blood everywhere.
The sound was guttural.
The woman who had attacked me herself stumbled backward, putting as much distance between herself and the beast as she could.
I couldn’t move, nor could I look away.
The beast attacked the guard with a violence that made my heart fill with horror.
And then suddenly, it stopped.
The room went silent.
The wolf lifted its head, blood covering its mouth and fur, the dead guard lying beneath it.
I pressed myself harder against the wall as the beast turned toward me.
My heart jumped, and I couldn’t breathe properly.
I waited, but it didn’t attack.
It walked toward me slowly.
MOVE!
A voice screeched inside my head, but I was rooted to the spot in trepidation.
The wolf stopped in front of me, and then it sat on its hind legs.
It looked at me calmly, as though it hadn’t just torn a man apart in front of me.
What in the name of all the gods was happening?
TOUCH ME, the voice of the wolf whispered in my head.
It was distinctly male.
Without knowing what I was doing, I reached toward its head.
The wolf stayed still.
My fingers touched its warm, soft snout and I slowly ran my hand over its fur.
The beast lowered its head slightly beneath my palm.
Okay, I thought to myself.
I didn’t know why I was doing this.
I didn’t know why it was allowing me to.
But somehow, I wasn’t afraid of it anymore.
Just then, the woman who had attacked me, moved from somewhere close by.
The wolf’s head suddenly snapped toward her, and a low growl rolled from its throat.
She paused with her eyes wide open.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” the woman said placatingly to the beast.
I doubt that, I thought to myself, still feeling the sting of her fingernails on my forearm.
Then the doors behind her opened, and Lord Garrick walked in with several guards following behind him.
He stopped, and I stared up at him, wondering what he thought about all of this.
His eyes moved over the room, from the dead guard to the blood covering the floor, down to the woman standing against the wall, and the beast sitting beside me.
Then his eyes returned to me.
Lord Garrick then stepped over the dead guard’s body and moved further into the room.
His face hardened.
Then he looked around the bloody room and growled:
“What in the Seven Moons just happened here?”