The banquet passes in a blur. I haven’t seen so much food in ages… which can’t be right. How long ago did Valen carry me away from home? It can’t have been more than a week or ten days at most. I find myself eating too fast, grabbing the meat with my hands, and laughter finally registers.
When I look up, I find people staring at me and pointing.
Lord Eorl is giving me the stink eye. “What in the hells are you doing?”
“Apologies.” I wipe my greasy fingers on a napkin. “I was hungry.”
“You are to be my wife. Don’t you dare tarnish my good image.”
“That’s overdramatic,” I whisper. “Surely this isn’t so important?”
His face darkens. “What did you say?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek and scrunch up the napkin in my hands. “Nothing, my lord. Again, I apologize.”
“Use the utensils provided,” he hisses. “We’re not animals.”
A silence has spread around us. I can feel it pressing on either side of me. Gazes are locked on me, some shocked, some reproving. Shame fills me.
“I’ll do better,” I promise.
“Yes, you will.” He goes on cutting his meat with his knife in sharp, precise movements. “I said no to marrying your stepsister, but I could still change my mind.”
I can’t think of anything to say to that. “My stepsister?”
“I won’t do it, of course,” he says with what I suppose is a reassuring tone. It does nothing to reassure me. “You’re the one I agreed to marry. The real heir to the Briar estates. So eat. Just be more circumspect about it.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
VALERIAN
Hells, I can’t sit here for one moment longer, watching her beside him. They’re talking, and he’s chastising her for her manners.
She’s unhappy. I can see it, hear it. Feel it.
The urge to throttle the man, grab her, and then leave is not letting me breathe. I tug on my collar. I need to get out of here.
Nobody is paying me any attention. Everyone is staring at and gossiping about the lord of the manor, Rosamund, and the sudden betrothal announcement.
Because this is what tonight is, I realize. They never met before, and now he’s announcing that they are betrothed to one another already.
In two weeks. They will be married in two weeks.
Fuck.
I kick at the wall as I stride out of the hall, then slam a door against the wall for good measure.
It’s not cutting it. I need to run, but if I shift now, someone might see me. I’d give myself away. I’m lucky the manservant I almost wolfed out on when we arrived hasn’t told on me.
Cursing a blue streak under my breath, I stomp outside, past servants coming and going with platters of food and decanters ofwine. I head toward the kitchens, crossing them and surprising the cooks and kitchen maids. Stepping out of the back door, I find myself in the backyard of the manor.
Finally, I’m outside. Bracing my legs apart, I draw the cold, crisp air into my lungs and let it clear my head.
The scents of the night enter my senses—I smell the soil, the outhouses, the stables, the pigs and chickens and rabbits in their pens.
And then I get the smells from beyond the manor—the trees, the grasses, the animals roaming the meadows and groves, and…
Werewolves. I smell them. We don’t quite smell like wolves. There is an acrid side to our scent, a scent of magic andwrongness. A familiar scent.
