Watch Your Back

Edrian's POV

A tall man with broad shoulders led the way through the east wing of the palace, quietly. His feet were heavy and confident, mine were soundless and unsure, and the marble floors balanced the reality of our inequalities. He came to a stop in front of a tall oak door and turned to me in a more gentle attitude of face than I was prepared to receive.

"This is your chamber," he said, calmly, almost kindly." When you want anything, be it...food, or clothes, or directions, you call on me. My name Korran.”

I looked at him blankly in surprise.

"You are nice to me!" was all I could manage to bring say.

"People confuse gentleness with weakness." He laughed, his enormous arms clasped. "You saved the life of a prince, and that does not necessarily mean that serving him as an assistant will be a piece of cake. He is not a simple man.” 

His eyes passed over me as if he were considering whether I was tough enough to last here. 

"You will grow to tolerate it, however." 

After he had left me alone, I entered my chamber, and the air caught in my throat at the view.

I have never owned anything before. Not cloth, and certainly not a room.

I had slept in dirty rooms all my life.  

The light in the room was golden, the walls were creamy, the bed large enough to absorb me, the wardrobe full of finely folded garments. I touched the smooth and expensive clothes, as compared to the rags that I was wearing. My wolf was uneasy within me and proud.

I now had a room of my own, the first in my life. My own bed, my own garments, and still…there was something more heavy than any poverty that I had ever known, and it's the weight of Xander's rejection.

Later, that night, after reminiscing about the day, being freed from a slave to going down on my knees to suck a ruthless alpha, sleep caught me.

The next day, I was to report to Xander as I was to accompany him to the training grounds. I straightened my new clothes anxiously and knocked on his chamber door.

No answer.

I repeated it a little louder. Still silence. When I opened the door, no one was in the room, and the bed was perfectly made up, as if he had never slept there.

I flared with panic. I simply could not afford to fail my first task.

I quickly ran out, even though I didn't know where I was going.

Luckily for me, there are two guards guarding his chambers. 

"Can you point me in the direction of the training ground?" I asked one of the.

Without a word, he pointed in the direction. 

I ran out as fast as my legs could take me. 

I heard the clash of metal striking metal way before I got the full sight of the ground.

I stood frozen in my tracks as I got the full view of the training ground.

A lot of warriors.

Warriors fought in two, with skin streaming sweat, roaring so that the morning air trembled. And in the middle of them all, dominant, inaccessible was Xander.

I drew breath. His body was a weapon, deadly and swift, his attacks quicker than the human eye could trace. 

His body was a weapon, lethal and fast, his attacks were faster than the human eye could follow. 

His black hair and wide-set shoulders flashed in the sun, and every muscle of his body worked him with defeating one opponent after another. His wolf was pouring out of him, and although he was not fully transformed, it was beastly, overpowering, and could not be neglected.

I was standing on the edge, and was afraid to go a step farther, and I was even afraid to breathe too loudly. Something that I was not able to place, perhaps admiration, yearning, or hunger, tightened my chest.

And then I saw her

She stood on the other side of the training ground and was gazing at Xander with a look more scorching than mine. 

She had golden hair like the morning sun, a gown that followed her figured lines, and in her hands a white towel. When Xander finally lowered his sword, she rushed to him.

“Xander,” she said, her voice sweet as honey. She pressed the towel into his hand, then quickly opened a bottle of water for him.

He took it without hesitation. Without thought. As if it were a ritual they’d done countless times before. He drank, and his throat throbbed, and something in me burst.

The snarl of my wolf rumbled in my chest, and I could not restrain it.

Mine.

One crazy thought flashed through me, fierce, wild. I caught my lip between my teeth in a bid to trap it, but it tore through to the surface anyway, and, as if she heard it, like she could read all the ugly thoughts that turned in my mind, the woman turned her head.

Her eyes found me across the distance, pale blue and cold as ice. For a second, I thought she’d look away, but instead, her lips curved into the smallest, cruelest smirk.

She knew.

She knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew what was going on in my mind.

My fists clenched at my sides.

At the end of the training, warriors scattered. 

Xander didn’t spare me a glance. Not even one.

Even though I was sure he knew I was there. He strode away with his head raised and the towel still on his neck, and I was left to the bad taste of invisibility.

But she, she came directly to me.

Each move was calculated, as her scent was slicing the air even before she got to me. She stopped in front of me, a step away, her head tilted, and looked at me as if she was looking at an insect in a spider-web.

“You must be Edrian,” she said smoothly.

“And you are…?” I swallowed hard. 

Her smile widened, sharp enough to cut.

“Amber Valtris.” She extended her hand as if we were equals, then pulled it back before I could even think to take it. “Xander’s fiancée. Soon to be Luna of this pack.” Her eyes gleamed, and her voice dropped to a whisper sharp enough to pierce bone.

“And you, wolf, are nothing but his slave.”

My face flushed with heat, and as I was about to say something, she leaned over, her lips almost touching my ear.

“Watch your back,” she murmured.

And she turned her back and walked off like a queen already enthroned, and I stood trembling there, my wolf raving within me.

Her words lingered long after she was gone, burning into me like fire I couldn’t put out.

Slave. Watch your back.