Page 32 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

I was bored.

After my dinner with the fae king, I had been assigned new guards, and these ones dogged my every step, and refused to let me leave the castle grounds.

My one and only attempt to near the main gate when I had wanted to visit the town had ended with them taking hold of one arm each and forcibly turning me around, albeit rather gently.

When I had asked whether I was confined to the castle, they had nodded.

It might not have been so bad if my shadows had been talkative, but neither of them had spoken a word in all the times I had tried to strike up a conversation.

Neither of them would tell me where their king had gone.

He wasn’t in the castle, I knew that much.

The pressure of his presence had disappeared the morning after our dinner, soon after several boxes had appeared on my bed during breakfast, each one containing one of the gowns I had admired in the seamstress’s window.

He had given me presents I knew he wanted to see me wearing and then he had disappeared on me.

Confusing king.

I strolled around the garden, keeping to myself, studying the beautiful blooms and the wildlife. Every visit to the garden had me finding something new and different. Yesterday, I had wandered to the orchard side of it and had found a stunning tree with white bark and blood-red leaves.

The air cooled as I neared the ponds. Each was more beautiful than the last, but my favourite had a broad lip just high enough to comfortably sit on and a small waterfall that tumbled into it from the higher level of the garden, filling the quiet with its soothing melody.

I picked up the path that took me to that wilder area of the garden, where plants grew where they wanted and a brook glittered over crystalline pebbles.

This was my favourite spot in the garden.

This slice of wilderness that felt like a paradise, an oasis of calm and beauty that sank warmth deep into my bones and eased my mind and my body. I could feel nature here, as if her presence was a tangible thing I could reach out and touch in the air, and could draw into me.

A peacock called, the sound echoing around the stunning gardens, so familiar to me.

The colourful birds were definitely the same species I had seen back in my world, at a zoo my parents had taken me to when I had been a pup, one of the rare times they had taken me somewhere before they had begun travelling less and had grown determined to keep me close to Harper pack lands.

I smiled fondly as I recalled my visit to that zoo, and how excited I had been to see all the birds and animals. As a child, it had been enthralling. Now? I knew what it was like to be put in a cage and stared at, and to long for freedom and returning to my home where I belonged.

My shadows closed in as I stooped to run my fingers through the brook, startling the colourful fish that called it home and watching them dart away.

I glanced at the two males, both dressed in fine tunics similar to the one Riordan had worn, with fitted trousers and knee-high boots.

Both armed with a sword. Neither looked at me, their eyes fixed straight ahead.

My gaze drifted to the woods just a few hundred feet away from me, where the trees grew denser and the shadows thickened, and then back to the guards.

What would they do if I shifted and ran?

Would it surprise them enough that they would lose precious seconds in pursuing me and I could slip their grasp?

The thought I could run for a while made me want to do it, had me itching to shift and feel the wind in my face, but the repercussions of these men losing me kept me firmly in place and in my human form.

Kaeleron would punish them if he discovered I had escaped their watchful gazes.

It was clear they had been assigned to me to keep me safe, and I only had myself to blame for the increase in security.

If I hadn’t told Kaeleron about what had happened in the garden that day with the unseelie females he wouldn’t have changed my guards and locked me in the castle grounds.

He also wouldn’t have cleared the garden of nobles.

Now I didn’t even have the highborn to watch when I was bored.

I hadn’t seen a single one in all my visits to the garden and I was beginning to suspect they had been banished from the castle, or at the very least they were removed the moment I made it clear I wanted to leave my room and go for a walk.

There had been a few milling around when I had been on my balcony this morning, enjoying the warmth of the twilight-sun and the view of the town.

Forgetting my desire to run in the woods in my wolf form, I followed the path that crossed the brook, soaking up the beauty of this place.

The orchard stretched below me, each tree a different colour, some heavy with fruit while others were bright with blooms. The air was sticky and sweet, perfumed in a way that reminded me of the buns.

I shivered, heat coursing through me as I recalled how Kaeleron had taken a bite of the bun I had dared to throw at him, how a deep moan had rumbled from him, steeped with pleasure that roused fire in my veins.

Some wicked part of me wanted to hear him moan like that for another reason.

I shut it down, slamming the lid on it. This cursed heat was only growing stronger, my hungers only growing bolder, and I felt as if a clock were ticking down and soon I wouldn’t be able to control these needs that were only getting more and more overwhelming.

I wasn’t sure what I would do when the full force of it hit me.

Locking myself in my rooms sounded like a good start, but it wouldn’t help, not here in this place where the people could teleport. If Kaeleron summoned me and I refused to go to him, he could simply appear in my room. And then what would I do?

Possibly pounce on him.

I breathed deeper, inhaling the cool, crisp air, struggling to quell this rising beast within me.

My wolf side had never felt so unsettled.

So wild. I crouched and ran my hands through the grass, feeling the dew coating my fingers, trying to root myself in nature and calm my wolf side and my primal instincts.

It was slow, painfully slow, but gradually, little by little, I pulled back on the reins and found calm again, the heat falling away and the hungers fading.

I lingered, my hands still in the grass, savouring that connection between myself and the earth.

And just breathed.

I felt I could breathe here in a way I never could back home.

My gaze lifted from the grass to the mountains and that slice of sea beyond the castle.

And calm flowed into me.

A sensation that all was right in the world.

Strange that I so often felt that way here, in a world that was not my own.

I took my favourite path back to the main formal garden, passing under a series of beautifully carved white wooden arches studded with glittering black jewels that seemed to hold the universe within them.

My gaze lingered on them as I passed, catching the stars that sparkled and shifted in their depths, my eyes growing heavy.

I stifled a yawn as I descended the worn steps to the main garden and picked up the wide paved path that led to the elegant circular fountain.

The sound of the water trickling from one tier to the next lulled me as I passed, only making me more tired, but I pushed on, determined to make the most of my freedom, heading towards the lake-side edge of the patio.

The water glittered in the aurora-kissed light, beckoning me to swim in it.

Perhaps I would do that tomorrow. Although I wasn’t sure how my shadows would react.

Birds flitted across my path as I banked right, towards the pergola that led back to the castle, and I breathed in the scent of the spears of lilac flowers.

And stifled another yawn.

“I’m tired,” I murmured to my shadows as I neared the castle. “I’m returning to my room and if you follow me there, I won’t be responsible for what happens to you.”

I gave them my best withering look, one I had been practicing in my mirror in my room so I could act as haughty as the highborn should I run into one again.

Neither male looked inclined to leave my side.

So I huffed and stomped towards the side entrance of the castle.

When we neared it, they suddenly peeled away from me, and I twisted to look at them, unsure why they had stopped following me.

They stood with their heads bowed and hand pressed to their chests.

Crushing pressure slammed into me.

The scent of a wild storm swept me up in it.

Kaeleron.

I pivoted in the direction I had been heading, turning slightly more to my left, so I was facing the main gate, and froze right down to my breathing.

The fae king strode towards the castle with purpose, dressed in striking black and gold armour that made him look like a dark knight, his handsome face etched in vicious lines as he tugged his gauntlets off and handed them to Jenavyr where she hurried to keep up with him, wearing her usual leathers.

Here was the true fae king, and he was commanding. Breathtaking . The epitome of power as he barked orders at the males on his heels and his sister.

And then he noticed me.

I couldn’t breathe.

Every inch of me locked up tight as awareness of him battered me like a storm, his silver eyes holding me immobile, deep under his spell.

Heat poured through me, hunger rising rapidly as he strode towards me, the distance between us narrowing until I couldn’t bear it, wanted to claw my way out of my skin to reach him.

Something inside me aching in response to the sight of him.

Tugging me towards him.

Before I realised what I was doing, I was standing at the front of the castle, near the main entrance.