Phaedra

“I

don’t even understand why I need to pay you at all,” whined Mrs. Marigold Rider, a slender woman with a pretty severe resting bitch face. She had her hand in her coin purse and was counting out my pay for the day. “You’re a shiftless disgrace, not even worth ten dollars.”

I tried to keep my face expressionless, but she’d hit me in the spot where I was most tender, most bruised. My inability to shift into my wolf form had caused me to lose everything. It was the reason I was standing here now, enduring this abuse.

Maybe you should worry more about your own problems, like the fact that your son isn’t your husband’s. That was wanted I wanted to say, but I said nothing. Pointing out Mrs. Rider’s dirty laundry would only raise suspicion. She would ask how I knew she’d been unfaithful, and that was a question I could never answer.

“Here,” she said, dropping the coins and crumpled dollars in my waiting hand. “Now, get out of my sight.”

She walked off, and I turned to walk down the stairs, but I hated the idea of leaving without taking some kind of revenge. Earlier, her newborn son had spit up on one of her favorite dresses. A dress I’d had to clean. It had put her in a bad mood, and she was obviously taking that out on me, but knowing why she was being so cruel didn’t mean the words hurt any less.

So, as the door to her son’s nursery shut, I snuck into her bedroom. There were a pair of maroon silk socks I’d never once seen her wear in the four years I’d been working for her.

I stuffed the socks into my pockets. I knew a certain pix who could put them to good use. Revenge taken, I crept out of the room and out of the door to leave the Riders’ den. Climbing the sand stairs that had been packed tight from years of use by the family, I let out a long sigh as I went topside.

Outside, I removed the baby blue bandanna I kept wrapped around my hair so that I didn’t return home covered in dust. I flapped it out a couple of times on my way home. My days weren’t much different than this: getting on my hands and knees to scrub floors, and sneezing from dusting high-up places. Occasionally, I also played nanny. That was the job I hated least.

As I left Mrs. Rider’s place, another maid passed me. She and I made eye contact briefly before we both focused on the path ahead.

She took over for the Rider family when my shift ended. Her name was Leonora, and while I’d never had a negative experience with her, I wasn’t sure what she thought of me. From what I could tell, she, like me, kept to herself. The only times I saw her were in passing between shifts and in the market, but I liked her.

She and I had been together once for a few minutes after Mrs. Rider’s son was born. She’d wanted to go over new house rules now that the baby was here. When she started talking about not making too much eye contact with the baby otherwise he’d cry, Leonora had given a subtle roll of her eyes. I’d had to hide my smile. I’d liked her ever since.

I didn’t intend to get close to her, though. Why would I try and make friends after all these years? Fated mark or no fated mark, I was going to leave the island soon. There was no reason to try and be social now.

Things could have been a lot worse, though. If I wasn’t working as nanny/housekeeper, I didn’t even want to think about what I’d have to do to make money. I was just grateful I wasn’t selling my body for sex or more exhausting manual labor. But honestly, it was hard to feel grateful for what I had when I also had to deal with the meanness of my employers. The Riders were one of two families I worked for.

On days like these when I had to bear the brunt of my employers’ rage, I wished I could be somewhere far, far away. For now, I could only wish. I didn’t have the funds to make it a reality.

And while I was on the subject of funds, I had another job to do later that night. Until it was time to head in that direction, I went to my den to change out of my work clothes and wash them. Those of us who lived in Den City, the Riders included, lived in dens underground.

Den City was located on Wilcox pack lands. These small cities held tight-knit communities where there were few secrets, and everyone knew each other. That made it difficult to stay hidden, but I managed. Most of the time the wolves ignored me altogether, which suited me just fine.

Lower-class wolves usually dug out their own dens, which included the entrance tunnels and however many rooms they wanted—usually around two or three. Digging out the foundation meant all they needed to pay for was electricity and a few modern appliances. The dens were wired to a main generator that provided enough power for light and electricity, and there was an underground aqueduct that conveyed water to each den.

I hadn’t made my den. My human hands weren’t suited for digging, so I claimed an abandoned den as my own. I didn’t have a washing machine or a dishwasher the way other dens did, so I didn’t use a lot of electricity. The only power I needed was for my radio, but I used rechargeable batteries for that. For light, I used candles. The wolf that had lived here must have been single, since there was only one room, a bathroom, and a kitchenette with a wood-burning stove. The smoke went up the chimney and safely drifted away on the fresh air. Not having a fridge meant I could only cook enough for myself, but after years of living this way, I’d gotten used to these few resources.

I felt reasonably safe in my little den, and I’d decorated the walls and empty shelves with fabric flowers and pretty bobbles that I bought from the market on the rare days I had off. It felt as close to “home” as I could afford to make it. The walls were red brick, packed tightly into the dirt.

I changed into a more comfortable set of clothes—a pair of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt—then tied my dirty blonde hair up in a bun. A pile of wood was stacked up by my wood-burning stove. I was hungry, but I didn’t feel like prepping the stove to cook. Instead, I opened a can of peaches, added a dash of cinnamon, and grabbed a fork to eat them right out of the can.

While I munched on the fruit, I filled the tin bucket with water and detergent, then dumped my clothes in and started scrubbing. Five years ago, I hadn’t known how to wash my own clothes, or how to clean or cook. It had taken weeks to teach myself how to do those things well enough to get hired. And now it was all I did.

I turned on the radio. Sometimes it picked up on the radio stations that played on the mainland, but today all it gave me was static. Great. Guess I’d be working in silence.

“It’s fine,” I muttered. “It’s not like this is the only time I’ve had to keep my own company.” Ew. I wish I hadn’t said that. It made me feel even worse.