“I’ll bring you your garment,” the witch says, also with a smile on her face. “I’ll make sure to knock first,” she adds.
“There’s really no need,” Kaitlyn replies, following the innkeeper out of the warmth and up a set of stairs.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever been upstairs here before. I usually stay by the fire in a chair, toasting my wings…and shedding.
The innkeeper likes my shed. I suspect he’s the only one.
I keep close to the pair of them as we’re led along a gallery and to a door which he opens, turning back with a smile and ushering us both inside.
There’s a bed at one end and a fireplace at the other. The fire is lit and there are candles dotted around the room. Next to the fireplace is an armchair, and I drop into it.
“Um,” Kaitlyn says, “there’s only one bed.”
“Yes,” The innkeeper says with an even bigger smile. Turning his face to me, he closes one eye really tightly.
I dislike it intensely, but he swiftly unscrews it and goes to the door.
“It will suffice,” I call after him, still puzzled.
“There’s only one bed,” Kaitlyn says.
“I noticed.”
She stares around the room and looks up into the rafters. I’m not sure what she’s looking for.
“I’ll take the chair. You can have the bed; you’re bigger.”
My head swims. Something within me is screaming. I get to my feet, but the room is spinning and spinning, like the time I was flying and hurt my wing.
I close my eyes to stop the movement.
When I open them again, Kaitlyn is bending over me, her hands on either side of my face, her soft skin on mine, her scent in my nostrils, and I wonder if I have finally, finally died.
And she is my reward.
KAITLYN
Ireally don’t know why the innkeeper, Max, and his wife, Joanne, seem to think Linton and I are in any sort of relationship.
I mean, I accept I’m wearing a white nightdress and a pair of white fluffy slippers. But it’s clearly a nightdress. Also the way Linton behaves, aside from his earlier pronouncement I belong to him, is anything but that of a loving husband.
More weird mothman with an emphasis on theweird. However they’ve persisted, and it means we’ve ended up in a bedroom with one, admittedly large, bed.
Panic rises within me as I look at it. I’m doing my level best not to be transported back to the day in Lord Guyzance’s castle when, with dread in my stomach, I was shown into a room with only one bed by a surly Redcap guard, one of the Faerie Lord’s personal security.
“He’ll have fun with you,”the guard leered.
Lord Guyzance was a predator, pure and simple. It was only when he discovered I was on my period he recoiled like I’d turned into a snake and bit him. I ran from the room, myclothing in tatters and the sniggers of the Redcaps following me all the way back to the kitchens, where Gloriana was waiting.
The Lord didn’t try again. I don’t know why. I only know I kept as far from him as I could, and once I heard what the Barghest did, I knew I would never let myself end up in the same situation.
And I thanked whatever remained of my lucky stars that it wasn’t my little sister, Hazel, in the situation.
The swell of terror which is rising in me seems unstoppable as I gaze wildly around the room.
“I’ll take the chair. You can have the bed; you’re bigger,” I say, my voice shaking so hard I’m surprised the words are even intelligible.
Linton rises from the chair, his face a strange mask of emotion I’ve not seen there before. It’s not fear, and it’s not anger. He takes three paces towards me and then his eyes close.
