Page 17

Chapter 17

House of Shadows

VANESSA

“W ay bigger than a lake! Bigger even than that mountain over there.” I point at the mountain range surrounding the city of Wolf-Haven on two sides.

“No way!” Ebony says, her small hand in mine, her feet skipping as she picks her way on the path.

“Way,” I insist. “And I live right next to the largest one on the planet.”

I keep an eye on Winter who rushes ahead to attack a hapless tree branch before falling backwards onto the trail. He leaps to his feet, shakes the pine needles from his fur and races ahead.

“Can I see the ocean, too?” she asks, looking up at me with such sweet longing I nearly promise to take her home with me.

I’m about to tell her she can come visit if her parents say it’s okay, when I’m interrupted by two white wolves, a smaller one with a black patch over the ear, and a huge one with familiar yellow eyes. It takes me a moment to realize one is Sarina and the other is Keenan. It strikes me that the pair look stunning. I wonder what his other brothers look like in wolf form.

I don’t have to wonder long as two more wolves join us. I can’t be sure, but I think they’re probably Lock and Rush. One is black and the other is rust coloured.

Sarina paces in front of me, whining before nudging my arm with her snout.

“Sarina! What a fuss for nothing,” I scold her. “I’m perfectly fine.”

She shifts to human, her expression anguished as she seizes my finger. “You were bitten! There was blood!”

I pull my finger out of her grip. “Yes, people do tend to bleed when cut, but it was just a small nip, nothing big.”

Winter, still in his wolf form, whines guiltily and licks my ankle.

I reach down to caress his ears, “You did nothing wrong. We played a little rougher than I’m used to.”

Ebony tugs on my hand. “You’ll be okay?”

I smile brightly and hug Ebony against my side. “I’m more than okay, look at all the friends I’ve made and how much you all care. It melts my heart.”

Ebony frowns. “Isn’t a melted heart bad?”

Keenan shifts from wolf to human and takes my hand in his, inspecting it. There are two small puncture wounds that well with blood when he squeezes my finger. Frowning, he lifts it to his mouth and licks the wound.

I try to tug my finger away, but he resists. “My saliva will help you heal faster.” He draws my finger into his mouth and sucks hard, wrapping his tongue around it.

“We’ll go up to the castle,” Sarina says, somewhat shamefaced. “Where I will lock my wild children in a cage until they can be trusted. I’ll also read up on human anatomy as it appears I’m woefully misinformed.”

Laughing, I pat Sarina’s arm. “Thank you for showing me the lake, I really did have a wonderful time.”

Sarina takes one child by the hand, the other by the scruff and lectures Winter as they walk up the path toward the castle. Lock swings his large wolf’s head to look at Keenan who nods and says, “She’ll be fine. A minor injury for a human. We’ll meet you up at the castle.”

Lock and Rush take off, running through the woods back toward the castle.

Keenan sucks my finger back into his mouth, so I shyly tell him, “I think the bleeding has stopped.”

He continues to suck, his heated gaze locked with mine. What had been a healing lick has turned into something more, something sexual. Heat courses through me as his tongue rasps my skin. I inhale sharply, leaning toward him.

Finally, he stops sucking, kissing the end of my finger before saying huskily, “We should go back to the castle.” Before I lay her down in these woods and fuck her like an animal.

“I heard that,” I whisper, my cheeks heating.

“You were meant to.”

We stare at each other, torn between duty and desire. Keenan still has his meeting to attend and I need to find a Band-Aid then a quiet corner to process everything I’ve seen and experienced since arriving in Wolf-Haven.

He takes my hand and together we walk out of the woods and into the clearing behind the castle. Keenan says, “I have to go back to my meeting. Can you find our room alone?”

“I know my way.” I peck him on the lips, drawing a growl from him.

He reaches for me and I skip out of the way.

“Go to your meeting. We have all the time in the world later and only one bed.”

He grins, showing me his teeth. “I noticed.”

“They probably assumed…” I’ve never been overtly sexual while Keenan is so earthy and sensual. He doesn’t have a problem calling a spade a spade.

Which he proves by finishing my sentence with, “We’re fucking?”

I nod, cursing the heat staining my face. Vulnerability washes over me. I’m a human in a castle full of wolf shifters who were raised in an atmosphere of sexual freedom and easy nudity. I can’t seem to wrap my human brain around their way of doing this.

Keenan chuckles. “You’ve been here less than a day. Give it time and you’ll fit right in.”

“You should get to your meeting.”

He scowls. “We shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“Take your time,” I tell him. “I’ll be in our room resting.”

He kisses my forehead and leaves me alone in the main hall. Turning in a circle, I orient myself and head for the staircase that leads to the guest suites. Somewhere along the way, I take a wrong turn. I can tell by the insignia on the door that I’m outside the royal residences.

Curious, I trace the outline of the bronze ornament with my finger before leaning in for a better look. There are five wolves twisted into the metal and they’re enacting a battle scene. A crown with a ruby inset is emblazoned atop the battle scene. There are words inscribed into it, but they’re in another language.

A noise startles me and I look guiltily over my shoulder. I shouldn’t be near the family residences. Assuming it’s a guard or servant approaching, I wait to ask them for directions, but no one comes around the corner.

I move toward the noise, catching the low rumble of two men’s voices. I’m about to leave so I don’t accidentally eavesdrop, but the sound of my name roots my feet to the floor.

“It was a small injury, but it’s part of the larger problem,” one man says, and I quickly place him as Lock.

I decide to make myself known, but then the other brother, Rush, adds, “Yes, the reincarnation problem.”

I freeze, barely daring to breathe as I stop pretending not to listen and lean closer.

“She’s safest in the castle.” Rush’s low growl reaches around the corner. “He’ll have to keep her here until we’ve found a solution.”

“Agreed,” Lock replies. “If he takes her back, the mating call will muddle his senses and make it more difficult for him to keep her safe. We can’t allow him to lose another mate. I don’t think he’ll survive it. When Delilah died, I thought we’d lost him. With each dead mate he grows more despondent, more distant.”

My heart aches for Keenan, but I don’t love the direction this conversation is taking.

“Magdalene is looking for answers in the Shadow Realm, but time moves differently there. It could take days or weeks or longer before we get any answers.” Rush’s voice begins to fade and I risk a peek around the corner. They’re moving away, heading in the direction of the Great Hall.

As silently as I can, I ease around the corner. They’re backs are to me so they won’t see me unless they turn around.

“What about her career?” I have to strain to hear Lock, whose voice is lower than Rush’s. “Keenan says it would devastate her to take her away from the film she’s working on.”

“Her life is more important and Keenan knows it,” Rush says dismissively. “He won’t fuck around with the life of another mate. If she needs to be bubble-wrapped and kept here in the castle…” His voice fades as they move too far away for me to hear.

I stand in shocked silence. Would they really try to trap me in the castle? Would Keenan allow it? The man I’ve come to know over the past month has been nothing but kind and accommodating, perfectly willing to allow me to make decisions about my own life. But was he acting that way to lure me to the castle? Now that I’m here, will he force me to stay? Was this his plan all along?

I decide to do something I haven’t tried yet. I reach out to him using our mating connection. I’m not good at mating telepathy yet, but Keenan has been teaching me. If I want to reach into his thoughts without him knowing, I’ll have to disguise my aura, which he describes as a ball of fire, like the sun. He says his is blue, like his brothers.

Try as I might, I can’t detect any kind of aura inside myself, let alone figure out how to disguise it. I screw my face up and try harder, this time reaching toward him.

I feel his presence, strong and sure. He’s inside the castle. I do as he taught me and try to see the room he’s in through his eyes. After a moment, I get a visual of a large round table and a screen, which he seems to be pacing in front of. He’s alone.

I push harder, trying to hear his thoughts.

…does the dead shifter have anything to do with the anti-shifter movement? Did they somehow get hold of him… Vanessa? Is that you?

I panic and close the connection, but he quickly reengages.

Are you okay? Do you need me?

I try to calm my speeding heart so I can project calm emotions at him. I’m perfectly fine! Just practicing talking to you in my head. I decide my fumbling attempts at telepathy aren’t conducive to addressing my concerns about the conversation I overheard. I also don’t know how involved he is in the trap-Vanessa-in-the-castle scheme his brothers are cooking up. I’d better keep it to myself in case I need to find a way out.

You’re doing great, he reassures me, but I don’t want you listening into this .

It’s about a dead shifter, isn’t it?

The more we speak to each other, the clearer his voice is in my head. It is , he admits, but the details aren’t nice. I’d prefer you not hear this .

A moment of vulnerability washes over me. What if he’s lying? What if they’re talking about me? Discussing how to keep me at the castle? I shove the thoughts away before he picks up on them. I’ll go back to our room and wait for you , I tell him.

He answers with an affirmative, but his words are drowned out by another voice.

“Do you need the toilet?”

My eyes pop open and I find myself staring into the chest of a very tall man. I look up and up.

“Keenan?” But I was just talking to him and he was definitely not standing right in front of me. Besides this guy is clean shaven.

“Lennox,” he says, amusement colouring his tone. “Keenan’s twin.”

I examine him as I absorb the idea of yet another Wolven-North brother. “Um, you asked me something?”

He chuckles. “I asked if you need to use the toilet. Your face was screwed up, thought maybe you needed a washroom.” He offers me his hand. “You must be Vanessa.”

I take it, squeezing. “I am and I do not need a toilet.”

“What were you doing out here in the corridor? Are you lost?” He glances around. “It’s a big castle, I wouldn’t blame you for getting turned around in here. I can escort you to wherever you need to go.”

His concern and warmth remind me so strongly of his brother that my doubts surface again and a feeling of wanting to go home washes over me. “I was… I just…” The urge to cry is nearly overwhelming and I sniffle, trying to hold it in. “I want to go to my room.”

He offers his arm. “Of course. I’ll take you to the guest wing.”

I take his arm and we walk in silence for a few moments. Me doing my best not to cry and ruin my first meeting with Keenan’s twin. Of course, like Keenan, he’s very observant.

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” he ventures as we ascend a set of stairs.

I nod, but don’t say anything. I don’t know what I should tell him. What if he’s like the others? What if he wants to lock me up too?

He stops and turns to me, his eyes glowing with warmth. “I’m not sure what Keenan has told you of the mating bond, but in shifter world, twins are often closer to each other than other family. We frequently share emotions and thoughts through our familial connection, more so than our other brothers.”

I smile tremulously, the threatening tears receding. “Human twins can sometimes feel each other’s emotions too.”

He nods. “The connection also extends to a twin’s mate.” He pauses, allowing me to absorb his words. “I can feel your turmoil, Vanessa.”

“Please don’t tell Keenan,” I whisper, my smile falling away.

“Of course not,” he assures me. “I assume if you want Keenan to know, you’ll tell him yourself.”

“Thank you.”

We continue up the stairs until we reach the guest floor. I point out the correct suite and he pauses at the door. “If you need anything, Vanessa, please come to me. I will always help you.”

The tears rush to the fore again, but this time I don’t try to stop them. “I will,” I promise. “Thank you.” I slip into the suite, closing the door behind me.