Chapter 5

KARI’S POV

I panicked when the carriage got to the lodgings that were located above a large clock in a narrow, soot-stained alleyway.

But then we moved past it, the carriage hurtling forward at a steady pace until we turned into a much prettier, brighter street.

My eyes found the stranger again, and I couldn't help but admire just how beautiful he was.

So devastatingly beautiful, he looked like what I imagined ancient gods looked like. Perhaps Bathos? Apollo?

“Are you all right?” He suddenly asked, his hooded gray eyes straying to my face.

My mouth went dry, and I suddenly felt suffocated.

“Um,” I swallowed, “yes. I am.”

He nodded, “we're almost there. Just a few houses down.”

Our eyes locked and I suddenly felt the urge to duck under the bench and hide from the intensity of his.

“You haven't told me your name, Milady?”

“Kari, the first daughter of the Alpha of Silvermoon.” I licked my lips. “What is yours?”

He tipped his head in a slight bow, “it is my pleasure to meet you, Lady Kari. I'm Viktor.”

I frowned, “Viktor…?”

He shook his head, “just Viktor.”

I nodded, feeling like my head was under water. “Thank you, for saving my life, Viktor.”

“You're welcome,” he sighed, blinking softly. “I had a feeling your heart wasn't into it anyways. Please don't ever do that again.”

Not knowing wether to smile or frown, I bit the inside of my bottom lip and shrugged.

“I prayed to Ayha, and I told her that if I failed on this second attempt, I would never try to harm myself again, no matter how hard life gets.”

His cheeks dimpled as he smiled ruefully, “then I suppose I have nothing to worry about. Do you have anyones looking for you, Kari?”

I couldn't look away from him, even as my cheeks burned under his scrutiny.

“No,” I murmured.

Viktor nodded his head, sighing again as he leaned back in his bench. “Then you shall stay with me until we figure something out.”

Wringing my fingers, I gave him a smile that was a mix between grateful and nervous. “Thank you.”

                              ***

The air inside of Viktor's cottage smelled of cedar, old parchment, and the underlying metallic tang of oil.

There was no doubt that this was bachelor’s abode, a wealthy bachelor's abode.

The furnitures, although scarce were  impeccably clean, just as the house was. It was also stiflingly quiet in the nice neighborhood.

After I left Silvermoon, I simply shifted into my wolf form and ran.

I lost count of how many days I ran, I only know that I had collapsed from exhaustion and woken up to a group of children poking me with sticks.

They all screamed and scampered away when I stirred and rose up.

I was lucky it wasn't the adults who found me first.

But then I thought, what difference would it make? I'm not going to be alive by the end of today anyways?

Well apparently, I'd thought wrong. Because I was still alive, and currently in the home of a man whose energy I couldn't read.

Viktor closed the door behind us, the heavy bolt sliding home with a finality that made my heart hammer.

I stood in the center of the small, well furnished parlor, clutching his oversized wool coat around me. The warmth of the room began to thaw my skin, but it only made the sting of the hundreds of cuts on my skin, worse.

“You may sit,” Viktor said, gesturing to a high-backed velvet armchair near the hearth. He moved with a predatory grace that made me utterly too aware of him.

So much so that I followed his movements with my eyes as he knelt to light the fire.

Then stood as he slowly undid the buttons of his waistcoat.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked, my voice still trembling. “A man does not pluck a ruined woman from a bridge without expecting a price. And you... you are no human gentleman, Viktor.”

He didn't look away from the flames. “You’re right, I am no gentleman, I haven't told you otherwise. And I have no interest in any ‘price,’ Kari.”

He shrugged, “I simply don't want you to ruin your life because of a cur like Titan.”

“How do you know Titan?” I asked, feeling a bit foolish for not asking him that earlier.

He was obviously a werewolf, I could immediately tell the instant his hands wrapped around my waist as he lifted me off the ledge of that bridge.

Viktor stood and walked to a cupboard, pulling out a bottle of amber liquid and a single glass. He poured a measure and handed it to me. “Are you with child?”

I furrowed my brows and stared at him incredulously. “What? No!”

“Then drink this,” he offered me the glass, “it will settle the tremors.”

“Answer my question.”

He sighed, “in due time, I will.”

Silently, I took the glass from him, deciding to let it go for now.

“You have rules here, I assume?” I looked at him over the rim of the glass, and he was watching me with an intensity that made me shudder with awareness.

“Three,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “First, you do not touch my desk or the papers upon it. Second, you do not leave this room after nightfall without me. This city is not like the Silvermoon woods, the monsters here wear silk and carry canes.”

And I took a sip, grimacing at the burn that trailed down my throat. “And third?”

“Third…” He replied, his gaze dropping to my lips before snapping back to my eyes.

“Do not mistake my hospitality for a desire to be your savior. I am a man of many sins, Kari. Do not think of me as your hero, for I am not.”

“Noted. Anything else?”