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“What happened here?” I asked, setting my bread back onto the plate in my lap.

She folded her legs against her chest and wrapped her arms around them, hugging herself into a ball and casting her sad gaze to the floor.

“There was a plague. Little by little, everyone died. Everyone but me. They said I was immune.” She shrugged and let out a nervous giggle. “It’s lonely at the end of the world.”

When I offered her a sympathetic frown, her attempt at amusement fell like a dead fly, and she returned to staring at me.

“H—” I paused for a moment, debating on the most delicate way to phrase the question. “How long ago did that happen?”

She shrugged and chewed on her bottom lip. “A little over a year ago.”

My throat tightened. She’d been alone in this castle for over a year? I couldn’t imagine such a tragedy. Watching as everyone you loved died around you and being left in isolation to fend for yourself. As a wolf, that was the most terrifying prospect of all. The pack was everything.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. And I was. Though it was to our benefit that the plague had left the kingdom barren and ready to welcome our return, I truly felt sympathy for this kind girl.

“Why didn’t you just leave?” I asked. “You could’ve wandered to a neighboring kingdom and sought help, sought a new place for yourself.” I liked to believe that our pack would’ve helped her.

She shook her head fervently. “I could never leave Varinya. My subjects may all be dead, but I still have a duty as princess. Varinya is my home. This castle is where I belong.”

I struggled to keep my eyes from widening. Princess? She was the last living descendant of the royal line who’d slaughtered countless members of my pack?

It was my sworn oath to destroy her.

And yet, she’d saved us. She’d welcomed us into her home and patched us up. I sat here now, dressed and fed, thanks to her. She’d shown me nothing but kindness. She was innocent. I could see that. But I didn’t think the rest of my pack would see it that way, especially not Jax.

If he woke up at all...

Perhaps I could get her out before they came, convince her to move on. It was the least I could do in return for her kindness.

I cleared my throat. “I can understand your sense of duty, but that doesn’t mean you have to be alone for the rest of your life. You owe it to your people to continue your line. You could marry a prince of another kingdom, forge an alliance.”

The muscles of my chest squeezed around my ribcage, an irrational sense of rage flaring inside me at the thought of her marrying anyone else.

Where the hell did that come from?

She chewed on her lips again, her pretty face crinkling with conflict. “I have no way to send word anywhere to arrange any such alliance, and making the journey on my own would mean certain death, especially after seeing the wounds the two of you endured.”

She had a point there. An image of her being torn to pieces by a cusith flashed in my mind, forcing a powerful protective urge to ignite inside me.

What was this? These feelings came out of nowhere. She was nothing to me.

Unless...

“Besides, even if I did make it to the next kingdom, who would believe I was a princess?” she said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I mean, look at me.”

I did, and she was right. In her current state, she was a far cry from a princess. But she was still beautiful, in a wild, feral way that drew me in. She looked like a forest nymph, like a goddess of the hunt.

“Without the proper appearance and going through the official channels, I can’t prove my pedigree without carting heaps of lineage books.” She shook her head. “It’s just not possible. Varinya is the safest place for me.”

Not for much longer.

When the rest of my pack showed up and discovered who she was, she would never be safe again. They’d lock her up as a prisoner of war or publicly execute her for the crimes committed by her forebearers. And every fiber of my being sizzled in rejection of either outcome.

I didn’t like these foreign and compelling emotions I felt toward her, and I feared what it meant. Suspicion whispered in the back of my mind, but I denied it, shoving it deep down. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t one of us. She was our enemy.

She unbent her legs and scooted to perch on the edge of her armchair. “You must be tired after what you went through. Would you like me to make up a room for you?”

I shook my head and looked at Jax. “No. I should stay with him. I want to be close when he wakes up.”