Chapter 4: The stray he bought

The Blackwood castle looked even bigger in the morning.

I woke up in a bed so soft that I thought I was still dreaming, in a room with tall windows and a stone fireplace and a view of a forest that went on forever. For one happy second, I forgot where I was. Then I saw my mother's locket on the bedside table, where I had put it down to sleep, and everything from the night before came back at once.

I picked it up and put it back around my neck, just as Kaiden had asked.

"Oh good, you are awake!" a loud voice called from the doorway. A round, rosy woman in a white apron marched in carrying a tray piled with bread, eggs, and fruit. "I am Mira, the housekeeper, and I have been told to feed you until you stop looking like a ghost. Sit. Eat."

"I am not really hungry," I started.

"Sit," Mira said again, and I sat.

She watched me eat the way my mother used to, with her hands on her hips and a little frown that said she would not leave until the plate was clean. By the time I finished, I had learned that the castle had two hundred rooms, that the Alpha King had not smiled in years, and that every servant in the building had been talking about me since dawn.

"What are they saying?" I asked, because I knew it could not be good.

Mira's face softened, and she gave up pretending. "Some of them say you are a stray he bought. The rest are waiting to see what you are really like." She leaned closer. "Do not let the council scare you, child. They bark loudly, but most of them have never bitten anyone in their lives."

"The council?"

"They will all be at the welcome dinner tonight." She patted my hand. "Wear something nice."

I did not have anything nice. All I had was the white dress from my birthday and the clothes in my bag, so when Mira showed me a wardrobe full of dresses that had been delivered while I slept, I just stood there staring at them. Kaiden had not said a word about it. He had simply done it.

I chose a dark green one, and then I asked Mira if the castle kitchen was free.

"Free?" She laughed. "It is yours, Luna. The King gave the order himself."

It turned out that when I was nervous, I did not just bake. I baked like someone who was trying to outrun a storm. I spent the whole afternoon in that huge kitchen with flour up to my elbows, and Mira and two cooks helped me carry bowls and trays, and by evening I had made a tall lemon cake with white frosting and tiny sugar flowers, the same recipe my mother used to make on my birthdays.

It was the first time in a week that I felt like myself.

The dinner hall was long, golden, and loud when I walked in, and the noise stopped the second I stepped through the doors. A hundred pairs of eyes turned to look at me, and I felt every one of them land.

Kaiden sat at the head of the table in a black suit, and he rose when he saw me. Just that, he stood, and the whole room noticed. He pulled out the chair beside his own and said nothing, but the message was clear enough. She is with me.

I sat down with my cake box in my lap and my back very straight.

"So this is the girl," said a voice from the far end, and a tall woman with sharp cheekbones and a silver necklace leaned forward. "Councilwoman Odette Raine, my dear. We have all been so curious about you."

"I hope I live up to it," I said politely.

"I am sure you will try." She smiled with all her teeth. "Tell me, where exactly did His Majesty find you? Someone mentioned an auction, though I could not believe it."

A few of the women around her giggled behind their glasses. One of them, a young blonde in a gold dress who had been staring at Kaiden since I walked in, murmured loud enough for everyone to hear, "A wolfless girl as Luna. The pack will be a laughingstock."

My hands tightened on the box in my lap. I could feel my face getting hot, and for a moment I was back in that gathering ring with the whole pack watching me fail. I wanted to shrink down in my chair. I wanted to run.

But I had made a promise to myself on that stone path. I was done being quiet about it.

"You are right, Councilwoman," I said, and my voice came out calm and clear. "I was sold at an auction three nights ago for ten million. I suppose that makes me the only person at this table who knows exactly what she is worth."

The hall went completely silent.

Odette's smile froze. The blonde in the gold dress opened her mouth and closed it again. At the head of the table, Kaiden made a small, strange sound that might have been a cough, though I thought I saw his shoulders shake.

"Now," I went on, in the same soft voice, "I baked a cake today, because my mother taught me that you should never come to someone's table with empty hands. I would be honored if you would try it."

I stood up and opened the box. The cake sat there in the candlelight, tall and perfect, with its little sugar flowers glittering. Nobody moved at first. Then Mira appeared out of nowhere with a knife and a stack of plates and started cutting, and she gave the first slice to the oldest man on the council, a gray, grumpy elder who had not said a word all night.

He took one bite, and his eyes closed.

"Hm," he said, and then, to everyone's surprise, "Give me another."

It spread through the room like a wave. Plates were passed down the table, forks clinked, and little by little the whispering turned into something else. Someone asked what was in the frosting. Someone else asked if it was true that the Luna had made it herself. By the time the blonde in gold had finished her slice and looked up at me with a sulky, reluctant face, I knew I had won something small but real.

Kaiden leaned toward me, so quietly that only I could hear. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Make a room full of wolves eat out of your hand."

"It is a lemon cake," I whispered back. "Not a miracle."

"I would argue with that." And there it was again, the smallest smile, gone as soon as it came.

The rest of the evening went by in a haze of music and polite conversation. By the end of it, three of the council members had asked me for the recipe, Odette had stopped looking at me like I was something stuck to her shoe, and I had a feeling I would be sleeping better that night than I had in years.

I was almost right.

Mira walked me back to my room after midnight, tucked me in like a child, and promised to bring me a hot drink before bed. When she returned, she set a small silver tray on my table, a teapot with a single cup, and went out again to get honey.

I was reaching for the cup, with the steam still curling up from it, when the door slammed open so hard that the whole room shook.

Kaiden stood there, breathing hard, with his gold eyes blazing and one hand stretched out toward me as if he was trying to stop time itself.

"Do not drink that," he said.

I froze with the cup halfway to my lips. "What? It is only tea."

He crossed the room in two steps and knocked it out of my hand. The cup hit the floor and shattered, and the tea splashed across the stone, and where it touched the silver tray, the metal began to hiss and turn black.

I stared at it. My heart was pounding in my ears.

"That was meant for you," Kaiden said, very quietly, and the look on his face made my blood run cold. "And whoever sent it already knows exactly who you are."