Page 26 of Vow to Claim You

I clench my jaw, fingers digging into my knees. “He was shot.”

“He’s had worse.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

Tassilo finally flicks his eyes toward me, though barely for a second. But his gaze is sharp and intentional, like he’s weighing the truth he can give me against the truth he has to keep.

“You’re safe,” he states plainly. “That’s my job. His job is staying alive.”

The mansion is glowing when we pull up. Warm lights leak through the windows like nothing bad could possibly happen here.

Lies. All of it.

But the moment I step inside, Ingrid rushes toward me, her face crumpled with worry as if she’s known me my whole life.

“Oh, kjære,” she breathes, her hands immediately cupping my arms, my face, checking I’m whole. “You’re shaking. Come, come, let’s get you warm.”

She doesn’t ask what happened. She doesn’t prod or panic. She just…takes care of me. And I didn’t realize until now how desperately I needed someone to do that.

“I’ve prepared a hot bath for you.” She smiles while guiding me down the hallway. “To wash off the remnants of this dreadful situation. And I’ll have tea ready by the time you come out.”

My throat tightens. Not a single person in the palace—not the maids, attendants, or tutors—ever touched me with this kind of warmth.

Ingrid does, like I’m family, and the thought is as comforting as it is painful.

Steam curls through the bathroom when I step inside, the bath perfumed with jasmine. I scrub the scent of smoke from my skin. The lingering warmth of Aric’s body wrapped around mine. The metallic taste of blood that still clings to the back of my tongue.

When I’m finished, I wrap myself in one of Ingrid’s impossibly soft towels before pulling on the oversized sweater she’d somehow known I’d love.

By the time I reach the living room, I’m warm but no less unsettled.

A moment later, the couch sinks beside me. Elske. The terrifying goddess-wolf-dog climbs up, convinced she’s lap-sized before depositing her head on my thigh like this has been her plan all along.

My heart stops. “Oh,” I whisper, frozen. “Um. Hi.”

She nudges me. Hard enough to make a point. I slowly place my hand on her head, and she sighs. Actually sighs. Like I’m the one comforting her.

“You scared me at first, you know,” I murmur, stroking her velvety fur. “But maybe we’ll be friends after all.”

Her tail thumps once. Approval, apparently.

Footsteps approach, and Ingrid appears carrying a tray. She sets a steaming mug of tea in front of me. Her eyes linger on Elske. Then on me. The fondness in her smile is impossible to miss.

“Well, would you look at that…”

“What?” I ask, still petting the beast who has apparently adopted me.

“That is the first time Elske has ever let anyone—anyone who isn’t Aric—touch her.”

I blink down at the wolf-dog whose eyes are now closed in bliss as I scratch behind her ear.

“She doesn’t even let Tassilo near her,” Ingrid adds with a chuckle. “Or me, most days.”

I pause mid-stroke, my heart giving a strange, confused jump. Elske shifts closer, her weight pressing against me as if staking a claim by saying, “You’re one of us now.”

Ingrid settles into an off-white armchair beside the matching couch, across from my oversized bodyguard curled against my side. She folds her hands in her lap, a fond smile touching her lips as she watches the wolf treat me like her personal pillow.

“You must be terrified, kjære,” she says gently. “Especially considering… well. You grew up in palaces. Far from this world.”