Page 21 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

Within the castle walls, and even within the city beyond it, people came and went, their clothing far different from what I was used to back home.

They all looked antiquated to me, many of the females wearing dresses similar in fashion to what I had worn last night, albeit more suited to the daytime, while others dressed more plainly, in clothing made of a more rugged material.

There were finely dressed males too, wearing dull coloured embroidered tunics and trousers and riding boots, either escorting some of the beautifully dressed females or talking with other males of their standing.

I chewed on a piece of bacon as I studied the ones I suspected were the highborn Kaeleron had mentioned last night.

The females walked with elegant precision, their posture perfect, acting as if they were unaware of the way the males watched them as they passed, or how they were silently judging each other as they pleasantly nodded in greeting to every female they met.

I hoped to the gods the fae king didn’t expect me to act like these females. No amount of lessons could transform me into something akin to them and I didn’t want to be like them. Even when watching them made me feel even more like a fish out of water.

I didn’t belong here.

Or at least, I didn’t belong in this castle.

My gaze tracked back to the town that hugged the hill, each building different in scale and design, and I ached to explore it and be among those people who looked as if they were greeting each other, hands waving at whoever they had spotted or being shaken by men who saw someone they knew.

This place of lofty highborn wasn’t me. That place of warmth and laughter, of smiles and joyful greetings was me.

An ache started deep in my breast, my eyes stinging as my wolf instincts howled for my pack. For that comfort and warmth, and being surrounded by friends and family.

I looked back at my room, with all its lavish finery and carved wooden doors and black marble floors that were inlaid with patterns of gold metal that reflected the magical lights.

I bet it was real gold. I traced my fingers over the edges of the table I sat on, feeling the carvings there too.

Everything here was finely crafted, even the table and chairs I had seen in the dining room last night.

The king’s craftsmen were incredibly talented, but I doubted they lived in the fine houses below me.

I shifted my focus to that town beyond the highborn houses, to the smoke that rose from some of the chimneys and the sound of metal striking metal ringing out.

People moved between buildings with small carts of goods, and one of the houses closer to the gate to the highborn area was putting out what looked like baskets of bread as people gathered there, a mixture of the finely dressed and the others.

The heart of this castle town was there, among those craftspeople and commoners.

I wanted to go there.

Maybe I would ask Kaeleron to allow me to visit it.

I needed to get in his good graces first though.

I nibbled at a piece of buttered toast as I shifted my focus to beyond the walls of the town, to lands that called to me more fiercely than the bustling streets below.

A great swath of farmland and forests stretched as far as my eyes could see.

Hazy mountains rose beyond them like great onyx teeth.

And above them… the most incredible sky I had ever seen.

My handmaidens had called this morning, but the sky did resemble twilight, with faint shifting aurora that stole my breath.

If I had needed proof I wasn’t in my world any longer, if the landscape and the shimmering air wasn’t evidence enough, this sky was it.

My eyes tracked the rippling hues of green and purple.

I had seen aurora before, but not like this. Golden stars glittered among the dancing ribbons, moving with them, and if someone had asked me to paint magic, and I had been capable of creating something so beautiful and bewitching, this is what I would have drawn for them.

I watched them until my food was stone cold and my teapot was empty, and then I watched the town, but as the minutes ticked past, I found myself drawn to the window that overlooked the lake again, my mind turning to the one thing I had on my agenda today.

Swimming with the king.

Trees lined part of the lake and bordered the garden, and gathered thickly off to my left, where there seemed to be an entire forest within the confines of the walls.

Those trees called to me, pulling on my instincts, filling me with an urge to shift and explore them.

What scents would be in that forest? What new creatures might I encounter?

How would the leaf litter feel beneath my paws?

There were clearings in places where the dark canopy of the trees fell away.

I frowned.

Stared harder at that dense canopy, trying to peer through the leaves to confirm I wasn’t imagining things. I lowered my gaze to the nearest trees and my eyes widened. The bark of the trees were lined with violet glowing veins, just like my dreams.

Neve.

The dragon held some kind of power and she had influenced my dreams. The more I thought about them, the more certain I felt. I had seen glimpses of the aurora in my dreams, of mountains and the great crashing sea. She had shown me these things.

Teased me with what I would find beyond the bars of my cage.

My gaze remained rooted on the trees, something about them speaking to me, not just calling to me but actually speaking to me, as if they wanted me to run among them.

They beckoned. Filled me with a sense that I belonged there, among those stunning but strange trees.

Not just the trees though. Everything in this place spoke to me on some primal level.

I had never felt more as one with nature than I did now, here in this strange new world.

Something about this land whispered to my wolf side.

Made me feel light and warm.

Comforted.

As if I had been born to be here and had finally found my way home.

I shook off that sensation, because my home was back in Canada with my pack, far away from this court of dark fae and this world of magic and shadows.

Yet I wanted to go out there and explore it all, to soak it all in and fly free of my pretty, gilded cage.

And that was the reason I was excited about meeting the fae king for a swim. Adventure. Not Kaeleron.

I needed to break free of these walls and breathe for a moment, to immerse myself in nature and let the pain and the fear and all my feelings fall away for a time while it filled me up.

My quarters might be bigger than my family’s cabin back home, but the more I looked at those trees, the smaller it felt, until the black stone walls were closing in on me and I couldn’t breathe.

I needed to run.

I needed to be out there.

Whether or not it was allowed, I no longer cared. I needed to run and feel the wind on my face. I needed the space and the freedom, because I couldn’t breathe in this castle. I needed to be outside, among nature. If Kaeleron punished me for it, so be it.

I washed up in the bathroom and dressed in the leathers and blouse I had been given, and strode back into the bedroom to find my boots.

There was a black box on the foot of the bed.

I frowned as I went to it, unsure when someone had entered my room to place it there because I hadn’t heard anyone enter and my wolf side was on high alert, so eager for freedom that it was hyper-focused on the world.

Unless someone had used magic to put it there.

I slowly inhaled, catching the scent of a wild storm on the black cardboard.

Kaeleron.

He had sent it to my room.

My heart picked up pace, drumming rapidly against my ribs as I edged closer to the box, bracing myself for what might be inside. I had asked for a swimsuit but hadn’t specified what kind, and now I imagined it would be a flimsy and revealing bikini.

I whipped the lid off.

Revealing a boring black one piece.

Surprise swept through me as I stared at it, together with a little thread of disappointment.

I shook that off. A one piece was perfect.

I wasn’t looking to expose myself to the fae king or put ideas in his head with a revealing bikini.

Although, showing a little skin might have encouraged him to agree to my request to see more of the castle town or those woods.

I shut down that line of thought. It would also encourage him to think he could order me into his bed or that I wanted him.

Beneath the plain black swimsuit was a matching black sarong, as if Kaeleron wanted as much of me covered as possible. Or perhaps the moody fae king was trying to give me some modesty while I walked through his castle. He probably thought I was delicate and afraid of others looking at me.

A brittle scoff escaped my lips.

He had a lot to learn about wolves.

I changed into the swimsuit and didn’t bother bringing the sarong with me as I marched towards the doors and opened them.

One of my handmaidens, the younger of the two, appeared before me, as if she had been somewhere in the ether, waiting for me to emerge from my room. Or she had been guarding it and ordered to stop me if I attempted to leave, which seemed far more plausible.

The servant gave me a once over and then glanced into the room behind me, at the bed—at the discarded sarong.

I tipped my head up and strode down the hallway, heading in the direction we had taken last night when I had gone to dine with the king.

She hurried ahead of me, taking the lead and guiding the way down to the curving staircases to the ground floor and out into the garden.

Curious gazes tracked me as I paraded through the neat formal garden, my chin tipped up and shoulders squared.

Let them look.

Let them see what their king had brought into their castle.