1

IMPORTANT GUESTS would be arriving today.

News of their arrival, unbidden to Parisa, would not have had much of an effect had she not woken to an eerily silent mansion at dawn. 

Lying corpse-still beneath the layers of blankets, she peered at the ceiling in a drowsy haze, her consciousness still drifting beneath a permeable membrane of sleep. 

The ritualistic sound of children thundering on the grounds had been replaced with a noiselessness that bordered on empty. Was it morning yet?

Her head lolled to the side as she inquired the time with a puzzled expression from the clock. The design was minimalistic: a wooden square frame with white luminous numbers.

7.50 AM

Drawing a hand from beneath the sheets, Parisa rubbed her eye while rising on her other elbow to squint at the window obscured by dregs of sleep.

It was the only window in the room: a square frame with fitted burglar grills that overlooked the driveway below.

 As a gift for her sixteenth birthday, he had a carpenter extend a small platform beneath the window and purchased a miscellany of cushions that were arranged in an appealing tumble for her to sit on while reading or gaze out listlessly into the moving world below. 

Each year on her birthday he would alter something in her bedroom— furniture imported from colonies she had only ever seen on the globe in his study room, exotic tapestries, beddings, and carpets that still held the faint brine of oceans they had traversed at his will. 

Once, on her twelfth birthday, he had the walls painted over with a fresh coat of beige and pure gold that limed the corners such that it seemed to shimmer every sunrise and sunset like stardust. His generosity had beguiled her as a child, but no amount of gifts could conceal the true nature of her room.

A gilded cage was still a cage. 

Parisa gazed in dull bemusement at the golden slants of light falling past the curtains to cross her beddings and the floor. The faint chirping of birds could be heard sequestered beyond the window.

It’s Morning, she realised then paused, cocking her head to one side like a curious bird as her lupine ears strained to listen for movements below. There was none.

Had they not woken up yet?

Drawing her knees from beneath the covers, Parisa swung them over the edge and rose, her feet instantly sinking into the lush carpet he had imported from the East. A country in Europe he had once told her in an almost conspiratorial tone. He fell silent shortly after, and she knew he wanted her to press him further for the country, to plead in a way that made the back of his eyes darken in pleasure.

Persia.

Silently padding barefoot towards the window, Parisa reached for the curtain and drew it just enough to peer down at the driveway. The main car was gone. Two more remained parked beside the spurting fountain shaped into three wolves. A driver, one she did not recognize, was ducked beneath the car’s hood, the sleeves of his dress shirt had been rolled past his elbows revealing tanned forearms stained with grease and oil. 

Pari studied the grounds while soaking in the morning warmth.

The day was still bright despite the dregs of summer eddying along the western horizon. 

It had been a depressingly hot season, and with his disallowance of her partaking in outdoor activities for fear of her pale skin tarnishing to something darker, Parisa had spent the majority of her days sequestered in different rooms: reading books, learning etiquette, practising her French, playing the piano, actively avoiding his wife and children or dreadfully counting the days to her birthday.

Parisa reached forward, her slender hand easily slipping between the grills, and closed around the window’s latch before she twisted and pushed.

Sounds of the free world were sharper now. She listed forward, savouring every call from matings to warnings of bugs and birds. A breath of cool, crisp air swept through the space and curled over the skin on her neck marbling it with goosebumps. 

The mansion was situated on the quiet side of the colony amidst other properties owned by elite wolves, members of Lupus Deus, and the Alpha. A twelve-foot wall with barbed wires at the top encompassed the home that floated on a sea of undulating green.

At the forefront, a flag of the Lupus Colony —velvet black with the mark of a wolf turned to a full moon— sighed on a pole.

Parisa lingered there, gazing out into the world from her cage until an unfamiliar sound cut through nature’s noises. It was a musical tune whistled so adeptly she could guess the musician, Chuck Berry.

Her eyes scrutinised the vicinity, skipping from the trees to the front gates where guards patrolled the grounds beside wolves whose tongues flapped like labradors, and finally lowered towards the parked vehicles. 

The moment her eyes snagged with a pair of brown ones, Parisa froze.

A face, sun-burned by days spent working beneath the glaring sun, was tilted up at her. The hood of the car remained open but the driver had turned and leaned against it with either of his hands casually dipped into the pockets of his slacks. With his back no longer facing her, Parisa could make out the features of his face despite the distance. A high forehead and slightly round cheeks still held from his youth not long ago, locks the hue of a wet tree barks fell carelessly over his face giving it a boyish quality.

Somehow captivated by the tune that drifted past his puckered lips, it took Parisa longer than necessary to realise that he was whistling… at her.

And then he smiled– a flickering tilt at the corner of his mouth so subtle she would not have noticed it had she not been so focused on his lips.

The realisation was like a string attached to the centre of her spine– it sharply jerked her away from the window and out of sight as the curtain drifted back in place.

He saw me.

Her pulse quickened, battering up the growing tightness in her throat.

He saw me.

Unless it had been a trick of the sun. The thought offered little comfort as she stared at the curtain buffeting gently in the morning breeze. Beyond it, the whistling had subsided and seemed to shift about in pitch due to movement on his part. 

He hasn’t seen you. Her mind reasoned in an attempt at lulling the panicky rush of blood to her cheeks, If he did he would have gone into the house and reported the incident. 

Drawing comfort from the morsel of thought, Parisa stepped forward and reached for the curtain once more, intent on confirming her dreaded suspicion when another unbidden voice coerced through her.

Unless he’s waiting for evening to report the matter. 

Her hand stilled inches from the fabric, fingertips grazing the softness that fluttered about and between. 

He had to report if he had seen her. The last man that decidedly kept it secret had disappeared before daylight the next morning, and no one spoke of him. All Eliza offered was a heedless shrug to his absence, and the dreadful guilt of it lingered faintly like a shadow on Parisa’s shoulders. 

Poking her tongue against the mauled flesh of her inner cheek, Parisa clutched the curtain and slowly drew it to the side as she leaned forward, nervously peeking through the space like a shy courtesan.

The driver’s back was turned to her. He still whistled but the song had switched to Elvis Presley as he drummed his grease-stained fingers on the car’s engine while working.

Parisa released a long, quiet breath, her shoulders slumping as the weight lifted only to tense once more at the sound of approaching footsteps: a heavy amble with the slow drag of one foot along the hallway’s carpet. 

Darting across the room quick as a sparrow, she nimbly rearranged herself on the bed and drew the sheets over herself once more, sinking into the pillow just as a key slid into the keyhole of her door and turned.

Click. Parisa held her breath as the door swayed open and the figure entered. She strained her ears in search of movement but the person seemed to hover at the entrance, the weight of their gaze landing like a shadow over her body, watching.

Waiting.

“Child,” the deep, familiar voice sounded fatigued yet amused as it reached for her. “My dead cat feigns sleep better than you.”

The comment had caught Parisa so unawares, her lips twitched with the urge to giggle. Instead, she lifted a hand from beneath the sheets and arched it across the air, and with a forced yawn that mimicked someone waking up, Parisa peered with half-shut eyes at the maid standing by the doorway.

“What time is it?” Parisa mumbled, covering her mouth with her other hand to hide the smile that was invariably curling her lips. 

Eliza dropped her hands to her saddlebag hips and stared at the girl, arching the remnants of greying eyebrows that stood starkly against her wrinkled, sallow dark skin. “Mmh,” she hummed as her eyes slid horizontally towards the window which was still ajar, the curtain billowing inwards.“And I suppose someone opened the window as you slept?”

Parisa dropped the guileless act as a sheepish smile overcame her, “I thought you were someone else,” shifting her legs from beneath the covers, she crossed them and watched patiently as her caretaker began their routine.

Crossing the room, the maid drew the curtains with a sharp jerk and squinted as sunlight bathed the room in a burning golden glare. The air along her walls shimmered when touched by the light, particles that spun suspended momentarily giving the room an ethereal texture. 

Eliza’s focus was directed at the ground, her lips pulled taut in displeasure. “Damn boy keeps whistling at this ungodly hours–”

“It’s only eight,” Parisa wasn’t sure why she had jumped to an excuse on his behalf, “I’ve noticed the manor is silent,” she hastily added, dropping her eyes to the sheets crumpled in her fists when the maid’s attention drifted to her. “Did they… are they gone?”

“Mmh left ‘bout an hour ago.”

“Church?”

“Mmh.”

“Oh,” she murmured, flattening her palm on the sheet and smoothening it out in one stroke. The next question lingered on the tip of her tongue like a sour drop. She sucked it, testing the degree of bitterness, and pressed it into her cheek hesitantly, “Why–”

“Up.”

Obediently, Parisa rose to her feet and directed her gaze past Eliza’s face at the wardrobe behind her. She reached for the hem of her nightgown and slowly lifted it over her head. Her nudity was revealed in pieces: the curve of a hip, a slender waist that caved outwards into a ribcage that resembled fingers pressing insistently against skin so pale, she seemed to be burning like foxfire in a darkened wood.

The gown whispered to her feet in a puddle.

Though they had performed the same ritual since she was four, the burn of embarrassment hot as steam crossed her cheeks and magnified with each passing day that saw some new development on her physical body.

Parisa cemented her gaze to the floor, watching her toes coil and uncoil in a bout of eagerness to have the operation over and done.

“Nothing here to be ashamed ‘bout,” Eliza said while leaning forward, the scent of laundry softener and baked bread wrapping around Parisa. “Everything you got, I got… just more youthful and less saggy like stretched bubble gum in some places.”

The compliment was meant to put her at ease, but the spots only duplicated as she raised both arms slightly to accommodate the measuring tape that looped around the smallest part of her waist. 

She shivered slightly at the first touch of the cold material on her skin then held still as the tape loosened while Eliza made sounds of approval at the measurement. “Did you eat supper?”

“No.”

A moment of silence as the tape loosened and circled her hips then each of her thighs. The lower she went the more Parisa fidgeted. “Child–”

“Sorry.” She whispered, her ears growing warm.

A deep sigh resonated as the maid straightened, “Y’know at some point you’ll have to get accustomed to showing what you have,” their eyes met and her voice softened to a pitiful warmth. “Most men… they ain’t as patient as me.”

Parisa knew who Eliza was talking about. Him. Her protector. Her provider. The man that bid ten million euros so that she may live, but neither without reason nor purpose. The time for him to claim what was his had been narrowed to less than a fortnight, specifically on the day of her birth date.

“I know,” Parisa finally spoke, breaking the bracketed silence that stretched between and dropped her eyes as if in search of something on the carpet.

She felt the weight of the gaze that shifted between measured pity and final resignation. Eliza took out a pen and small leatherbound notebook from the front pocket of her apron and jotted down the measurements. “He said you should remain,” Parisa shifted her stare halfway up the woman’s torso, dark eyebrows knitting at the centre. “That’s why they left for church without you.”

“Why?”

Eliza stepped back to pocket the items and rolled up the tape whilst keeping her stare fixed on her hands, actively avoiding Parisa who suddenly felt cold and exposed. 

“He intends to present you before important visitors,” as if the statement had sprung upon her some forgotten information, the maid straightened and gestured for the nightgown limp on the bed. “Which is why you should dress quickly and head down for breakfast, we’ve got a long day of preparations.”

The information hardly had time to sink into Parisa when the gown was placed in her arms and a calloused palm closed around her bicep, already leading her naked towards the door. “How many guests are coming?” Her words were muffled as the gown slipped over her head. Despite the warm weather, a chill lingered faintly over her skin.

Ushered out of her chambers, Parisa waited with her arms wrapped about herself, warily watching the maid lock her door. “I ain’t sure, seven… maybe ten… all I know is she’s gone and so is them kids… and I don’t think they’ll be coming back today.”

Her brain absorbed the information like a sponge— in one long soak until her mind seemed to expand and press against the soft rind of her skull. Trailing behind the woman, Parisa began to establish a hierarchy of wolves mentally then eliminating them as she progressed to the top. 

The elite wolves were considered aristocrats of society, but they were not of his level.

That could only leave–

Goosebumps fleshed out on her exposed forearms and her steps faltered at the epiphany. “The Lupus is coming?” It was not a question.

Eliza had moved on ahead by a few feet. She could see the woman’s broad shoulders tense slightly as if the question had crossed her mind as well. Instead of a reply, Eliza turned into the dining room and began to fuss over the small breakfast platter set out for Parisa.

Had it been another day, another time without the looming realisation that the most powerful lycanthrope council would be visiting their home to see her, Parisa would have been enraptured by the sight of the food placed out for her: a bowl of greek yoghourt, two tablespoons of balanced hybrid feed and a strawberry just washed, a small puddle of water pooling beneath it.

Fruits were forbidden due to the amount of sugars that could compromise her digestive system. However, special occasions warranted a small charitable act on his part. Positive reinforcement when she behaved well.

Standing behind the seat, Parisa observed the food laid on porcelain plates,her appetite abating as dread filled the void of hunger. “Eliza—”

“Sit down girl.”

Lips pressed in an apprehensive line, Parisa lowered herself onto the seat and picked a spoon then placed it in the bowl and lifted it to her mouth automatically– tasting nothing but eating everything. She tracked the maid’s movement like a wary animal, watching as she paced the dining room in search of a dish cloth only to find it slung over her shoulder. 

Her caretaker cursed in French and snatched up a silver fork from the tray of cutlery, polishing it in a vigorous blur as if the question had been etched on the handle and if she rubbed it hard enough, it would disappear.

Parisa lifted another spoonful, her stomach tying in knots as myriads of thoughts rattled around her mind like dice. 

The clink of a spoon being set firmly on the table drew her attention from the plate to the maid. 

“It’s Not just the council he intends to parade you in front of…” refusing to meet her eyes, Eliza picked a knife from the stack and began to polish it slowly, herstrokes mechanical beneath the strain in her voice. “The Alpha as well.”