Page 11 of Traitor Wolf (Bonded by Fate Duet #1)

Chapter Nine

T hat night I slept restlessly. Before bed, Cassian and Kaelric got into an argument about how to best protect me from a night attack.

Kaelric made it sound like it was all but a guarantee that an attack on my life would come.

Every sound woke me, every creak. By the time the morning light shone through the curtains, I felt half dead, having gotten barely forty-five minutes of straight sleep.

After showering and changing into some athletic clothes that had been left for me, I made my way into the living room.

The pants and t-shirt were probably supposed to be tight on Fiona, but I kept having to pull them up, as they swam on my thin frame.

Cassian was gone, and Kaelric was in the kitchen… cooking .

“Where are the servants?” I asked.

Each bonded pair was given a maid and cook to make all our meals and do the laundry, and housekeeping, while we focused on training before the first trial.

Kaelric stood over the giant black stove, hair in a topknot as he scrambled some eggs. His tunic strained against his flexing biceps, and I found myself mentally remarking at how nicely his clothes fit him—compared to mine.

“I don’t trust anyone to cook for us and not poison us,” he grumbled.

Wow, this guy was paranoid.

“No one attacked in the night. Which means I tossed and turned for nothing,” I snipped, going to grab a piece of bread.

He reached out and stayed my hand. “Sit. I’ll serve you.”

It was a command, but being served food was not something I minded being commanded on.

I normally didn’t do breakfast, so this was going to be a big change for me.

Something I didn’t want to get used to. If I lost the trial and somehow returned to the Dregs alive, I’d have to go back to one to two meals a day.

I sat there quietly for another five minutes just watching him work. He moved around the kitchen like he was used to it .

“Do you cook for yourself back home, too?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Hmm, he was really good at the one-word responses.

“No family?” I mean, we might as well try to get to know each other. My mother did most of the cooking. I didn’t know how to fry an egg because we rarely got eggs, and boiling rats was disgusting, so she did it.

“None left alive.” He set a plate before me, shocking me with his words.

None left alive…? What did that mean? They were killed? Or died in some accident? Or of natural causes?

I glanced down at the plate and my eyes widened.

“Are we sharing this?”

There were at least four scrambled eggs, two pieces of bread slathered with thick butter, and two huge hunks of cheese, as well as fresh fruit!

“No, we are not. And the ham is still cooking, but will be ready soon. You need to bulk up, get stronger,” was all he said before going back to the stove, where I could see he was frying some thick ham slices.

Bulk up . I peered nervously down at my skinny arms, and even though he didn’t mean it, his comment hurt.

“I’m not even hungry,” I told him. “I’m still full from the big dinner last night. ”

His body tensed, and I wondered if I had offended him. He gripped the wooden spatula so tightly that it snapped in half.

He sighed, setting the broken kitchen utensil on the counter.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, shocked by his anger.

He turned to me with glowing yellow eyes, and I leaned back a little. “You shouldn’t still be full. You shouldn’t be so thin. Your people last night shouldn’t have cheered for hours in the streets over a loaf of bread!” he growled.

My mouth opened in shock. “And what, you think food should just be free? Because where you come from, they don’t use coin?

Well, that’s not how the world works here, Kaelric!

Things cost money, there is a hierarchy, and a class system.

Poor people are… brace yourself: POOR!” I screamed.

“So yes, free fresh bread excites us. Not having to work that third shift to keep the family fed is something to celebrate.”

Kaelric reached up and rubbed his temples as if I’d given him a headache.

He lowered his hands and looked at me. His eyes were green again.

Leaning across the kitchen island counter, he got right in my face.

“I know how things work here. You don’t understand.

I’m saying your system is broken. I’m saying I want to burn the entire class system to the ground!

” He shouted it, and I slapped my hand over his mouth, looking at the front door of our dorm.

My eyes were wide, my hand pressed tightly over his mouth. “You can’t talk like that,” I whispered. “It’s treason, punishable by death.”

I lowered my hand, expecting to see some sort of fear in his eyes, but instead, he looked excited. “Where I come from, you can say whatever you want. Let them try to kill me.” He gave me a half-cocked grin, and my throat went dry.

“Well, this isn’t Fenmyr. So play by the rules, or I won’t have a guardian for the trial.”

He pulled a hot piece of ham right off the skillet and popped it into his mouth, scarfing it down. “Playing by the rules isn’t really my thing.”

Good night , he was attractive. I wanted to hate him, or at least be annoyed by him, but I liked the things he was saying. I liked that he hated the class system and thought food should be free.

But the second I found myself liking him, I peered downward to the exposed skin of his chest and the X mark scar that lay there.

Traitor wolf .

No matter how much he might say he was here to help me win, he was here for the sword, and he was here for himself. He had his own motives and his own lands to get back to, so I needed to remember that .

I tucked into my food, forcing myself to eat as much as I could before feeling sick. What was left on my plate he finished, and nothing was wasted.

We made our way to the private training room that Cassian had readied for us, and I brought Valkaryn. On the way to the room, we turned a corner and ran right into Magistrate Corvessa.

I froze, the breath in my lungs hitching. Kaelric tensed beside me.

Corvessa seemed nonplussed about meeting us, her gaze narrowing slightly. It was at this moment that I realized I’d killed her heir.

“Hello, Brynn.” She didn’t move to the side, and her body was smack dab in the middle of the hallway, so it would be hard to try to pass by without bumping her.

“Hello, Magistrate.” I bowed slightly.

Her gaze flicked to the sword on my hip, and I found myself wanting to address the elephant in the room.

“I’m sorry about Mercy. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even touch her.”

Corvessa sneered. “You weeded out the weak. Did me a favor, really. My niece never would have lasted in the Trials.”

I gasped. That was an awful way to speak about the dead. But I was grateful she didn’t seem too upset .

She then flicked her gaze to Kaelric, eyes narrowing. “Too bad you bonded a traitor, or you might have had a shot at surviving.”

Kaelric’s growl sent the hairs standing up on my arms.

The temperature in the hallway plummeted until I could see my own foggy breath before me.

“If you’ll excuse us, ma’am, we have to get to training,” I told her.

She stepped aside, keeping her eyes on Kaelric the entire time.

“Oh, Brynn?” She called out after me in a twinkling singsong voice.

“Yes, ma’am?” I turned.

“Cremation or burial?”

I frowned. “Excuse me?”

“When you die in the trial, would you like your remains buried or cremated? Aerlyn pays for all the funeral costs, so your family won’t have to worry about that.” She smiled, and the sight made me sick to my stomach.

I spun, not giving her an answer. Whatever guise Corvessa gave off of possibly not caring that I was in the trials had just been dashed.

She wanted me dead.

When we finally made it into the training room, I peered around.

It was a room with four walls, padded mats over a stone floor, and some weapons. Nothing fancy.

“Okay, I need to know what I’m dealing with. Have you had any sort of training in physical combat?” Kaelric said, completely ignoring the fact that the Magistrate of Aerlyn was planning my funeral.

“No.” Obviously not.

His jaw twitched. “But you’ve grown up in the Dregs. Did you get into fights, have to steal to survive, that kind of thing?”

“I survived by working two jobs since I was twelve and three jobs since I was sixteen.” I tipped my chin high. I didn’t fight anyone. What would be the point of that? We didn’t steal from each other in the Dregs, only from the Elite if we were willing to risk our lives for it.

“What jobs?” he asked, some compassion in his voice.

I sighed. “I sort metal scraps in the morning shift and put them in the melter.” I held up my fingers. “Burned the prints off years ago.”

His eyebrows raised as he examined my fingertips.

“Then, in the afternoon, I work in the sewer processing plant. I’m small, so I crawl into the shaft tunnels and add vinegar or… remove blockages.”

All that magic and the Elite couldn’t figure out a way to make their crap disappear.

He nodded, not seeming phased by one of the most disgusting jobs in the Dregs. “And the evenings?”

Shame burned my cheeks. It was the most gruesome job among us, but it paid well. “A few nights a week, I retrieve corpses and bring them to the morgue. I’ve had the pox, so I’m immune.”

He reached up and stroked his chin. “You have a helper with that?”

I shook my head. “It’s all me for the night shift.”

“So you can lift a lot of weight?”

I remembered trying to get Mr. Hannah into the wagon after he died. Nearly broke my back.

“Yep.”

He reached out and squeezed my arm as if checking for muscle, but I pulled away, growling, which only caused him to grin.

“You’re strong. I didn’t expect that. And small, so you can hide. Are you fast?”

“Fastest in the Dregs, second to Mason McCorory.” We raced every summer festival, and I always came in second.