Chapter 30: Skate On Thin Ice

I zipped up the last bit of the small bag as quietly as I could. My hands were steady even though my heart was hammering against my ribs. I didn’t have much anyway. The Northern Wastes had taught me that a long time ago. You learned to move light or you didn’t move at all. A couple of changes of clothes, a small knife, some dried meat I’d stolen from the kitchens earlier. That was it. Enough to get me and Mael out of here and into the trees.

I slowly let go of the zipper.

I eased the bag off the vanity, careful not to let the brass buckles clink against the stone.

I tiptoed toward the door, every step careful, testing the floorboards with the ball of my foot before I put weight down. The fire had burned low, casting long shadows across the room. Riven was still on the bed behind me, breathing deep and even. I was done. Nothing was stopping me this time. Not the High Council, not Kaelen, and definitely not the arrogant warlord sleeping twenty feet away. Not the memory of his hands or his mouth or the way he’d left me shaking and empty. 

I was taking my son and disappearing into the dark where no one could use either of us again. 

I made it halfway to the door.

Grrrrrrr.

A deep, bone-rattling growl suddenly erupted from the center of the bed.

My stomach completely dropped out of my body. It felt like stepping off a cliff in the dark. 

I froze, every muscle locking up. The bag slipped from my fingers and hit the floor with a soft thud right beside the bed frame. I tried to shove it behind the wood with my foot, but it was too late. His eyes fluttered open. Golden, even in the low light. He sat up slowly, turning his head toward me where I stood frozen next to the door like some guilty child caught sneaking sweets.

I plastered myself against the nearby stone pillar, my hands pressing flat against my thighs to stop them from shaking. 

Riven sat up slightly, the heavy blankets pooling around his waist, exposing that massive, violently scarred chest to the cold air of the room. He didn't jump awake like a normal man. He simply turned his head toward me, his movements lethargic but terrifyingly precise.

I was standing awkwardly near the door, a heavy travel cloak draped over my shoulders, looking completely out of place in the middle of the night.

Riven brought a massive, calloused hand up to his face, rubbing his eyes. He let out a long, heavy yawn. Even that simple, mundane action was terrifying—his jaw stretched wide, the firelight catching the lethal, elongated points of his fangs. His inner beast was practically bursting through that yawn, a groggy monster momentarily disturbed from its rest.

His molten golden eyes, half-lidded and heavy with sleep, locked onto my frozen form.

"Where are you going at this time?" Riven’s voice was a gravelly, sleep-thickened rumble that vibrated straight through the floorboards into the soles of my boots. "It's late, isn't it?"

‘Think,’ I screamed at myself. ‘Think, Liora, you stupid girl. Form words.’

I had to think fast. My mind scrambled for something — anything — that sounded believable. Something that would work on him and on the part of me that was already starting to second-guess this whole thing.

"I am... going to see my child," I said.

My voice shook slightly on the first syllable, but I quickly stabilized it, lacing the words with the bitter, defiant anger I had been choking on all night.

"He needs to be fed," I continued, taking a deliberate half-step away from the wall to make myself look casual. "Maren took him hours ago. He’s a newborn. He needs his mother."

I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him through the darkness. I had to go on the offensive. If I acted like a cornered prey, he would smell the deception.

"Surely you are not also heartless enough to refuse to allow a mother to see her starving baby right now, are you?" I challenged, my face a mask of defiant indignation, completely ridding my expression of the sheer, suffocating fear trying to paralyze me.

Riven stared at me for a long, heavy second.

The silence in the room stretched until my lungs burned. He was analyzing me. I could feel those golden eyes stripping away my defenses, weighing my words against the scent of my skin.

And then, the tension broke.

Riven let out a low, vibrating laugh. It was a rich, dark sound that echoed off the stone walls. He dragged a hand through his messy black hair, shaking his head slightly before he rolled onto his side, letting his massive body sink back into the mattress.

"I don't know why you call me heartless, woman," Riven murmured into his pillow, his eyes sliding shut. "I'm the sweetest man you'll ever come across on this continent."

I stared at him in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.

The sweetest man. The audacity of this warlord was actually mind-bending. The same man who had literally folded five elite guards into bloody meat-cubes just hours ago. The same man who had forcefully triggered my wolf's submission to make me beg for him, only to roll over and go to sleep.

I gritted my teeth, keeping my voice perfectly level. "Is that a yes, then? You won't follow me? You won't pester my little bit of freedom to walk the halls?"

"Be back before sunrise," Riven mumbled. He pulled the thick fur blanket up over his broad shoulder, completely turning his back to me. "My wolf wants to cuddle."

He was so utterly nonchalant. So completely out of this world. Within ten seconds, his breathing had already slowed, evening out into the deep, rhythmic cadence of sleep. He didn't suspect a thing. He actually believed he had broken me so thoroughly that I was just going to blindly obey his curfew. Hmph!! 

I let out a very heavy, silent sigh, my shoulders instantly dropping an inch.

That was close. That was way, way too close of a call. My hands were slick with cold sweat.

I glared at his broad back, a venomous hiss escaping my lips.

Cuddle? I thought, absolute disgust turning my stomach. A grown-ass man. A beast. The ruthless, blood-soaked Lycan King... asking for a cuddle?

He could get a cuddle from the devil in hell for all I cared.

I gave the Lycan King one final, lingering look. The man who was supposed to be my mate. The man who had promised to protect me, and then handed me right back to my abusers. I memorized the line of his spine, the dark mess of his hair, burying the image deep in the vault of my mind so I could use it to fuel my hatred when the nights in the wilderness got too cold.

Without another word, I turned the heavy iron handle, slipped through the gap, and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.

The air outside the royal bedchamber was drastically different. The biting chill of the stone instantly seeped through the soles of my boots. The Valrok fortress at night was a cavernous, terrifying labyrinth. Massive iron braziers lined the walls, but only every third one was lit, casting long, wavering, monstrous shadows across the vaulted ceilings.

My steps were quick but silent as I moved through the packhouse. The halls were mostly dark, only a few torches still burning low. I kept to the shadows, my heart still racing from how close I’d come to getting caught. 

This world wasn’t for me. It never had been. Not with Kaelen. Not here with Riven and his games and his bond that made my wolf stupid and my body weak. Maybe out there, in the places the abandoned wolves hid, I could find something that actually belonged to me. Camps where abandoned females, escaping slaves, and wolfless anomalies hid from the rigid, suffocating laws of the packs. 

I would rather be a nameless rogue eating scraps in the dirt than a decorated prisoner in a King's bed! Perhaps, that was my fate!

I turned the corner toward the hallway that led to Maren’s quarters. Almost there. Just a little farther and I could grab Mael and…

“Stop right there!”