chapter 5

Elara

One week later, I was standing in front of a palace. An actual palace. White stone walls. Towers. Huge iron gates with giant wolves carved into them. Guards who didn't blink.

"Close your mouth, girl," said the woman beside me.

"You look like a fish."

Mrs. Greer. The head maid. Tall and thin, with grey hair pulled back so tight it made her eyebrows look permanently surprised. I closed my mouth.

"Rules," she said, marching me through a side door.

"I'll say them once. You clean what I tell you to clean. You speak when you're spoken to. You never, ever go into the east wing. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And most important." She stopped and turned to face me.

"You never look the royal family in the eye. Not the King. Not Prince Lucien. They're Lycans, girl. Not men. Remember that and you'll live a long and boring life." I nodded fast.

"Is the King here?"

"His Majesty has been at the eastern border for a month. And that's the last question you'll ask about him."

We walked down a long hallway full of paintings of wolves and kings. As we passed a pair of tall open doors, I heard laughing. I looked. I shouldn't have, but I did.

A young man was sprawled on a velvet couch with a glass of wine hanging from his fingers. Three other guys sat around him, laughing at something he'd said. He was gorgeous in a lazy, careless way. Golden hair falling in his eyes. Shirt half unbuttoned. The kind of smile that probably got him anything he ever wanted.

He looked up. Our eyes met. I looked down so fast I almost tripped over my own feet. But it was too late. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his smile spread, slow and wide, like a cat that had just spotted a mouse.

"Keep walking," Mrs. Greer hissed, yanking my arm.

I kept walking. I could feel his eyes on my back the whole way down the hall.

"That," Mrs. Greer said when we turned the corner, "was Prince Lucien. The King's son. If you have a single brain cell in your head, you'll stay far away from him."

"Why?"

She didn't answer. She just gave me a look that was almost like pity.

My room was in the servants' wing, at the very bottom of the palace. It was small, with two narrow beds, one window, and a girl sitting cross-legged on the other bed eating a chocolate bar. She looked up. She had wild red curls and freckles all over her face.

"Oh thank God," she said.

"A human. Finally. I was starting to think I'd have to share with one of the wolf girls, and they snore like trucks. I'm Rosie."

"Elara." I put my small bag on my bed. It had everything I owned inside. Two uniforms they'd given me, some underwear, a toothbrush. And one man's shirt, folded very carefully at the bottom. Rosie broke her chocolate bar in half and held out a piece.

"Welcome to the madhouse. Want some?"

I took it. I almost cried, because it was such a small, nice thing, and I hadn't had a nice thing happen to me in a week.

"So," Rosie said, chewing.

"Greer gave you the speech? Don't look at the royals, don't go in the east wing, blah blah?"

"Yes."

"Did you look at the prince?" My face went hot.

"Maybe. By accident." Rosie groaned and fell back on her bed.

"Oh no. Oh, honey, no."

"What? What's wrong with him?" i asked unable to resist.

"Nothing's wrong with him. That's the problem." She sat back up.

"Lucien is the King's adopted son. Gorgeous. Rich. Bored out of his mind. He goes through maids like I go through chocolate. Last year it was a girl called Sarah. He sent her flowers, took her for walks in the garden, told her he loved her. She thought she was going to be a princess." Rosie's face went serious.

"Then one day he just stopped talking to her. Like she didn't exist. She cried for a week and then she quit." My stomach turned.

"That's horrible."

"That's Lucien." She pointed her chocolate at me.

"So whatever he says to you, whatever he does, don't fall for it. Promise me."

"I promise," I said.

"Trust me. I'm done with men," I added. Rosie raised an eyebrow.

"Done with men? You're like twenty."

"Twenty-two. And yes. Done."

"Who was he?" she asked.

I looked down at my lap. At my hands. I thought about silver eyes in the dark, and a deep voice saying, 'Don't hide from me.'

"Nobody," I said. "Just a guy I met once."

"Mm-hmm." Rosie grinned.

"The 'nobody' face. I know that face. You're totally still in love with nobody."

"I am not!"

"You are so red right now."

I threw my pillow at her. She caught it and laughed so hard she fell off the bed. And for the first time in a long time, I laughed too.

The next three days were the hardest work I'd ever done. I scrubbed floors that were already clean. I polished silver until my arms burned. I changed sheets in guest rooms that nobody ever slept in. Every night I fell into bed so tired I didn't even dream.

I didn't see Prince Lucien once. I was starting to think Rosie was wrong. That he had forgotten all about the new maid.

Then on the fourth night, Mrs. Greer sent me to the linen room with a stack of fresh towels.

The hallway was dark. Only every third lamp was on. My footsteps echoed on the stone.

I was almost at the door when somebody stepped out of the shadows right in front of me. I yelped and nearly dropped everything.

Prince Lucien leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. Up close, he was even better looking. Taller than I'd thought. His eyes were warm honey gold, and they were looking at me like I was dessert.

"You looked at me," he said.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness." I stared hard at the towels.

"It won't happen again."

"Who said I wanted it to stop?"

He pushed off the wall and walked toward me. I backed up. One step. Two. Until the cold stone wall was against my back. He put one hand on the wall beside my head and leaned in.

He didn't touch me. He didn't have to. He was so close I could feel the heat coming off him. He smelled like wine and expensive cologne.

"What's your name, little human?"

"Elara," I whispered.

"Elara." He said it slowly, like he was tasting it.

"Pretty. Do you know what else is pretty?"

"Your Highness, I really need to..."

"You blush all the way down your neck." His eyes dropped to my throat.

"I wonder how far down it goes." he said in a low voice.

My face was on fire. I pressed the towels against my chest like a shield.nHe leaned closer. His nose almost touched my neck. He breathed in slowly. My whole body went stiff.

"Hmm," he said. He frowned a little.

"You smell strange."

"I... I'm sorry?"

"Not bad." His lips curved up.

"Interesting. Like somebody else was here first," his words made my heart jump.

My heart slammed against my ribs. He pulled back and looked into my eyes. For a second his smile was gone and he looked almost serious. Curious.

Then the smile came back, wide and easy, and he stepped away from the wall.

"Goodnight, Elara," he said.

"Sweet dreams."

He walked off down the dark hall with his hands in his pockets, whistling.

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold floor with the towels in my lap. My hands were shaking.

'Don't fall for it,' I told myself. 'You promised Rosie. You promised yourself.'

But it wasn't Lucien I was thinking about when I finally went to bed that night. It was a hotel room. White sheets. Silver eyes. Like somebody else was here first.

Lucien

"Well?" Jasper said when I walked back into the game room.

"What's she like?" I dropped onto the couch and picked up my wine.

"Shy," I said.

"Pretty. Scared of her own shadow."

"Human girls are boring," Mason said, yawning.

"This one isn't." I thought about how she trembled against that wall. Those big green eyes. And that smell on her. Faint and old, like a wolf had touched her once and she didn't even know it.

It made me want to find out who. It made me want to take her from them.

"Bet you a thousand gold," Jasper said, grinning,

"you can't get that one into your bed." I laughed.

"Into my bed? That's too easy." I swirled my wine.

"I'll make her fall in love with me. Really in love. Crying, begging, the whole thing. One month."

"And then?" he asked, I smiled before replying.

"And then I'll throw her away." The boys laughed and clinked their glasses.

None of us knew that at that very moment, three hundred miles away, my father had just cut his trip short and was on his way home.