Page 19 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

“You’ve barely touched your food.” I waved a fork at his plate and the terribly balanced meal he had selected for himself.

Far too many vegetables. Not enough meat.

I had thought someone with so much honed muscle would be packing in the protein at mealtimes.

I cut a piece of the pie, placed it in my mouth and almost moaned as the salty pork hit my tongue, denying it so he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of hearing it.

As I chewed, I looked at all the food on the table, enough to feed my entire pack.

“This is wasteful. At my pack, we never waste anything.”

I hesitated as words rose on my tongue, my heart demanding I voice them.

“Speak.” Ever the king, Kaeleron waved regally in my direction.

I added observant to his list of qualities, ones Neve had failed to mention, mostly because she had spent a lot of our time together trying to make me believe he wasn’t a monster.

“I need to contact my pack.” The sound of my fork hitting my plate was loud in the heavy silence, jarring me, and I struggled to hold his gaze as his eyes darkened and his fine brows lowered, narrowing them on me.

“No.”

I bared fangs at him and shoved back from the table. Or I had intended to shove back from it. Rather than my chair moving, the table did, shooting towards the fae king as the legs scraped loudly over the marble floor.

He braced one hand against it and arched a brow at me.

It hadn’t been an act of retaliation.

My body locked up tight anyway, bracing for his wrath.

Rather than punishing me for apparently trying to hit him with a table, he gently eased it back into place and continued to study me, the scrutiny making me want to squirm in my seat.

“I will not allow you to contact your pack.” His words were careful, coming out slowly, as if he was considering what he would allow as he spoke and hadn’t quite decided which course of action to settle on yet. “But I will consider writing to them to let them know you are safe.”

It was more than I expected, but I still said, “Will you let them know where I am?”

“No.” That word was hard and unyielding, a flat denial that I knew I wouldn’t be able to bend into a maybe let alone a yes.

He set his glass down on the table, shadows forming across his broad shoulders as he gazed at me, his expression as cold and firm as his denial had been.

“I will not disclose your location. I will not be responsible for your family attempting to navigate Lucia to reach you and getting themselves killed.”

I hadn’t even considered they might try to find me, but as I absorbed those words, it hit me that they would. My parents would do as I asked if I told them I was fine and safe for now and would return to them, and explained the dangers of where I was.

But Chase and Morden.

They would seek out a way to reach this world in order to take me back.

Morden in particular.

He took his position as my protector seriously, and if he discovered what had happened to me, what Lucas had done to me, he would feel responsible for my predicament.

He would want to save me, even when I wasn’t sure I needed saving.

I had a way back to my pack, and I could do it.

No matter how long it took to pay off my debt to Kaeleron.

It was time I learned to stand on my own two feet and take care of myself rather than relying on my family and my pack.

And some small part of me that was growing louder each day wanted to stay here and see more of this world.

“The little lamb grows quiet,” Kaeleron murmured, canting his head to his left. “Do you tire of my company?”

“No.” My denial came out quickly, and it wasn’t a lie.

This evening with him had been pleasant, almost normal, and I wanted more of it, wanted to stay right where I was and see what happened next.

Was that selfish of me?

That deep-rooted part of me that missed my pack said that it was, that I wasn’t where I belonged and I should be finding a way to escape and return to them.

That part of me that craved adventure, had longed to see beyond the borders of my family’s lands, wanted to scream a denial and plant my feet to the stones of Lucia and refuse to leave until I had seen what was out there.

“Would you answer some questions for me?” I asked.

He poured himself another glass of wine.

I took that as permission.

“The chandelier in the stairwell… is it magic? It was beautiful. Like all of this above us.” I looked there, watching the flecks of golden light dancing across the ceiling and the globes of the chandelier wind around the vines. “This is magic, isn’t it?”

His eyebrows lifted, as if he was surprised to hear I found something in his world beautiful.

“A simple use of the power of this land. We often use magic to illuminate our homes, especially those in the highborn families, where magic runs stronger in our veins.” He pressed the tip of a pale finger to the rim of his full glass and I gasped as the wine drained from it only to appear in my empty one. “Magic has its uses.”

“And it comes from the land?” I couldn’t imagine what kind of world had magic laced through everything in it, there for people who could wield it to use as they saw fit.

Witches had innate magic, a limited well of it inside themselves that they could draw on, but Kaeleron made it sound as if there was magic for the taking here and the fae could draw it to them.

He nodded. “Lucia grants us power, and we feed that power in return, performing rites that restore some of the magic to the land and also to us.”

Rites. I wanted to know more about those, and would ask about them later, because in my head, I was picturing him in a white druidic robe chanting at the sunrise over monolithic stones.

I highly doubted that was the kind of rite he was talking about.

Another image flashed in my head, this one of him bare-chested and stood before an altar, and upon it was a bloody sacrifice.

I shoved that right out of my head, refusing to let the vision unfold, not wanting to see what my mind put in the position of sacrifice.

“And highborn families have more of it? Does that mean you have the most?” I sipped the wine and it tasted the same as it had when I had poured it from the jug.

“Is the magnitude of your magic the reason why the aura of power that surrounds you grows so strong at times that I feel I can’t breathe and I’m being squashed? ”

He slowly nodded.

“I have the most in this court, and Jenavyr is second to me.” His gaze narrowed on me, a flicker of curiosity in it. He wanted to see where I was going with my questions and it was amusing him.

I had the feeling not many people in his court bothered talking with him like this.

Or he didn’t allow them to speak so freely with him.

“The most in this court.” I frowned at his choice of words. “Other kings are stronger than you?”

“Our high king is the most powerful,” he said and refilled his glass. “But few others match my strength.”

“How many courts are there?” I leaned towards him and rested my elbow on the table, propping my chin up on my palm. “I take it a high king reigns over all the other kings?”

“So curious. I could believe you a cat if I did not know you were a wolf.” He smirked and sipped his wine. “There are nine courts of the unseelie and the high king presides over all.”

“And how many do the seelie?—”

His scowl and the sudden shadows that loomed behind him, sucking some of the light and warmth from the room, and turning those motes of magic near the ceiling into tiny shards of glittering darkness, halted my tongue.

I filed away that he didn’t like anyone mentioning the seelie and tried to think of a different topic of conversation.

“You bespelled me so I can understand your language. Is that a permanent thing? You said it was easy to maintain. So you could stop renewing it and I wouldn’t be able to understand anyone? ”

He inclined his head.

“So if I want to remain able to talk to you and Neve, I need to remain on your good side.”

He grinned, flashing straight white teeth. “I have no good side, little lamb. You simply need to remain obeisant to me.”

“Fine. This spell of yours, does it work both ways? Like… is what I’m saying coming out as fae rather than English?” I hadn’t considered it when I had been in the dungeon, but both the king and Neve, and my servants could understand me too.

“I speak your tongue, but for others, they would hear your words as if you spoke fae.”

Fascinating. “So it’s kind of like a universal translator?”

Chase had made me watch several different Star Trek series during one very long snowy winter and when I had asked how all the different species understood each other, he had explained about universal translators.

I doubted this fae king knew about them, and secretly enjoyed knowing something he didn’t and idly bringing it up in conversation.

“I would suppose so.” He swilled his wine, watching it run around the glass, and then his eyes lifted to lock with mine, the corners of his lips curving. “Imagine what it might be like to have that taken from you.”

A chill skittered down my spine at the thought of being here in this strange world, unable to understand anyone or have anyone understand me.

Except for him.

“Do you like threatening people?” I pushed my plate away, my appetite gone, and leaned back in my seat, mimicking him.

“Threatening would insinuate it is done to intimidate. I merely state facts.”

“To keep me obedient. Feels like a threat to me.” I was half-tempted to hurl my wine glass at him as the air between us took a turn I didn’t like, but it seemed like a waste, so I drained the contents instead. “I’m tired. Are we done?”

“So curt.” He tapped the pitcher of wine and my glass refilled. “We are not done.”

“Fine.” I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him.

The fire crackled and popped, showering sparks up the chimney, and silence stretched between us. His gaze remained fixed on me, sharp and focused, as if he was attempting to slice and peel back my layers to discover how I ticked. Or he was waiting for me to break.

When I had been a pup, Chase had mocked me over something I could no longer remember but had cut me to my heart, and I had given him the silent treatment for close to five days. It had taken him apologising in front of my parents and half the pack for me to speak to him again.

Minutes ticked past, neither of us willing to break the heavy silence that began to feel oppressive the longer it went on and I realised why I had stuck to my guns with Chase as a pup.

It was because this unnatural silence and battle of wills made it harder and harder to speak as it dragged on, as if it was a living thing that was wrapping around my body and constricting me.

“I intend to take a swim in the lake tomorrow.” Kaeleron pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, looming like a shadow at the other end of the table, his striking silver eyes as dark as storm clouds.

His deep voice wrapped around me, more crushing than the silence had been as he stared me down, his handsome face cold and devoid of emotion. “You will join me.”

A clear-cut order rather than a suggestion.

Suspicion jangled those alarm bells in my mind again.

A swim in a lake.

The last time I had swum in a lake, I had been naked.

“I want a bathing suit,” I blurted.

His eyebrows pitched low. “A bathing suit?”

“It’s a covering mortals wear when bathing to protect their modesty.” And would probably require someone to make a trip to the human world to get me one judging by how confused he looked.

He inclined his head. “I will see to it. Your handmaidens will bring you one and you will meet me at the lake before the light reaches its brightest.”

So agreeable. Those alarm bells rang a little louder, but I muffled them, sure that a swim wouldn’t be the death of me and doubting he would try anything at the lake given the clause he had added to our contract for me.

Not only that, but I would be allowed to leave the castle.

To see beyond these walls.

And the part of me that was sure he was up to something was drowned out by the part of me that grew excited at the thought of seeing what was out there.

Kaeleron strode for the double doors behind me, shadows sweeping outwards like a living cloak, brushing against me as he passed me and sending a shiver down my limbs.

His deep voice reverberated within me as he growled.

“Do not be late, my little lamb.”