I felt rather useless and out of place, following him around like his shadow. Regan and Azaiah went off for a wander around the castle, but Bastien preferred that I stay within his sight.
But I didn’t mind the awkwardness. I needed to be his shadow right now while he found his feet back home. I shouldn’t be a distraction.
More than anything, I actually felt incredibly happy. Happy to see him accepted so fully. Happy to see that he had somewhere he belonged.
Everybody needed that, whoever they were. A place they could call home and feel safe. I was hoping that place would eventually be The Shade for him, but it didn’t matter all that much where it was, as long as he had somewhere. And hopefully, somewhere we can still see each other.
By the evening, Bastien had talked to so many different people, and introduced me to all of them too, my mind was spinning with names. I was sure that it would take a good few days to remember who everyone was. Bastien also seemed rather emotionally drained from being surrounded by so many faces. So many voices. So much expectation and responsibility being dumped on him at once. He appeared just as ready as I was to retire after a hearty dinner.
He rose from his chair and bade good night to everyone—many of whom were on the verge of turning into wolves, as the sun had almost set. Then he left the dining hall with Regan, Azaiah and me. Bastien had already arranged for the dragons to have their own quarters—just a floor beneath his. We took them to their doors and wished them a good sleep. As their doors shut, Bastien and I were left alone. Tingles ran up my arm as he reached for my hand.
Our fingers twining, he led me to his apartment. Stepping inside, the place looked the same as I’d last seen it. A familiar, pleasant musky smell filled my nostrils and it felt cold, like before. As we padded along the thick rugs that lined the stone hallway and peered into each of the minimally furnished rooms, there was no sign of the struggle that had taken place the night Bastien and I had escaped.
We entered Bastien’s bedroom, where I spotted my suitcase by the bed, brought up earlier by one of the wolves. Bastien sat down on the double bed and pulled me to stand in front of him, in between his knees. He clasped both of my hands in his and gazed up at me through his thick, dark lashes.
“What are you thinking?” he asked in a low voice.
I shrugged. “Nothing in particular… It must feel good to be back, right?”
“Yes, I suppose,” Bastien replied slowly. “It’s good to see old faces, though…” His eyes wandered toward the dark fireplace in one corner of the room. “The castle does feel rather empty without my family.”
Uncertain of how to respond, I sat down next to him and slid my arms around his waist. I leaned my head against his shoulder and hugged him.
He stroked the back of my head before resting a hand over my hip.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“A bit,” I confessed, even as I felt a yawn brewing at the back of my mouth.
Moving one arm beneath my knees, he wound the other around my midriff and picked me up before laying me down against the pillows. He crawled over me and dipped his head until our lips grazed each other. He closed his mouth around mine in a breathtaking kiss, groaning softly.
When our lips parted, he whispered, “Then let us sleep.”
“Okay,” I breathed, my cheeks flushing. The room felt rather warm all of a sudden.
I slipped out of bed and opened up my suitcase. I rummaged for my wash bag and nightie before heading to the bathroom. By the time I was out again about ten minutes later, a fire was crackling in the hearth. Bastien knelt before it on the rug, stoking it with a rod. He had changed into a pair of white cotton pants… and removed his shirt.
The room felt a lot warmer.
We headed to bed and slid beneath the covers. Our heads rested against pillows next to each other. I grazed my fingers over Bastien’s bare chest, my mouth feeling dry.
He nestled closer to me and we shared a long, slow kiss, even as his hands moved through my hair. Then I settled my cheek beneath the crook of his neck, the contours of our bodies slotting comfortably against each other.
He kissed the top of my head, while with his other hand he reached out to dim the bedside lantern.
“Good night, Victoria,” he whispered.
I held him tighter in a squeeze. “Good night,” I breathed.
Feeling the gentle heaving of Bastien’s chest beneath me and being enshrouded by his warmth, I felt as safe and protected as I did back home in The Shade. With the fire continuing to crackle in the background, I should have fallen asleep. But my mind was still alert.
I found myself playing over Bastien’s and my history in my head, right from the hour we’d first met. I recalled how, after we had been torn apart that fateful night when the hunters had arrived to storm Rock Hall, I’d had doubts about what Bastien and I had shared—if we had even shared anything. When I had returned to The Shade without him, I had feared that perhaps the attraction we’d felt for each other would have no lasting value. That it had been simply born out of our desperate circumstances, and once those went away, we’d find ourselves with not much in common. That the spark would be gone.
I smiled to myself now as I recalled all these fears. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Since Bastien and I had reunited, the pull I felt toward him had only grown stronger. The connection we’d formed ran far deeper than any external circumstances we might have been faced with.
Feeling so reassured as I lay in his arms, I found myself voicing for the first time what I sensed my heart had known for a much longer time.
“I love you, Bastien.”
He tensed suddenly beneath me. Then he reached for my chin. He tilted my head upward so that he could look directly into my eyes. The light from the fire played in his wintry irises as shadows danced across his face.
“What did you say?” he asked in a choked voice.
I couldn’t help but let out a giggle. Here was Bastien, a man with such acute hearing that he could probably hear a pin drop on the bottom floor of this castle, asking me what I’d said just a few inches away from his earlobes.
“You just want me to repeat it, don’t you?” I whispered.
A broad grin split his face as joy sparkled in his eyes. “Yes,” he confessed.
“I love you,” I mouthed.
His face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas Day. His eyes lowered to my lips and he moved in to kiss me passionately. He held me so tightly, it was an effort to breathe. Yet, at the same time, it felt like he couldn’t hold me tightly enough.
His lips finally withdrawing from mine, he pressed them against the tip of my nose and then against the center of my forehead before gazing down at me adoringly, like I was some kind of prized possession.
“I love you too, Victoria… my brave and beautiful girlfriend.”
Brucella
After being abandoned by my husband, I scoured the beaches of the ogres’ shores in search of a suitable vessel. It was harder to find than one would think because, although I found many a ship moored in the water, they were all too large for my purposes. I needed something small, easy to navigate, something that could remain inconspicuous on the waves.
After traveling for many miles, eventually, I found what I needed—a small, narrow boat slotted between two much larger ships. It was so compact, I wondered whether a fully grown ogre could even fit into it. It looked like a pleasure boat constructed for an ogre child, perhaps. It had a small covering over it, to shield it from the sun, and the reins were already installed—draping from the resting hook by the navigation bench and trailing down into the water. Glancing around to ensure that no ogres were watching me, I ventured forward and climbed aboard.
I was pleased to see two small sharks already loosely attached to the boat by the reins. They were resting at the moment, their underbellies touching the ocean bed.
Good. I looked around once again to check that I wasn’t being watched before tugging on the reins and stirring the s
harks. They moved their fins and drifted closer to the surface while I continued looking around the boat. I opened the two small compartments by the bench in the center of the vessel, searching for some kind of navigation equipment. There was nothing. I suspected that this boat was not used for long-distance journeys, which made me nervous as to the quality of its construction. But all in all, it should still be better to travel in this than in one of the other monstrous ships the ogres owned.
Before lifting the anchor, I leapt up to the side of the large neighboring ship and climbed onto the deck. Sniffing the air, I ducked down low. I could neither see nor sense any ogres nearby. I moved to the wheel and, to my delight, I spotted a compass. I also discovered a pile of thick, rolled-up parchments. Unraveling one, I found myself staring down at a map. Several, in fact. Perfect.
Of course, the Mortclaws’ residence was not marked. But my plan was not to go directly there anyway. I’d realized several hours ago that my first stop ought to be The Sanctuary, the realm of the witches. There was a specific witch whom I needed to speak with. The Sanctuary, of course, being one of the major lands in the supernatural dimension, was clearly marked on this map.
Rolling up the parchment again carefully, I stowed it under my arm before snatching up the compass. Then I jumped from the ship and landed back in my small boat. I spread out the map on the navigation bench and studied it, planting the compass down next to it.
Once I felt ready, I took up the reins and urged the sharks forward. They were fast for such small creatures, quickly gaining speed until we were traveling at such a pace, the wind blowing against my face made it hard to breathe. But I reveled in their speed. With Bastien in the clutches of that wench, time was of the essence…
The journey went smoother than I could’ve dreamed it would. I had been half afraid that I might bump into my husband’s ship on the way. Although the chances of that were slim, I couldn’t help but feel relieved when it didn’t happen—he would sabotage my journey without a doubt. He’d likely go to the extent of damaging my vessel and watching me sink into the waves.
I might be able to get through to Sergius most of the time, but there were some instances where he was stubborn as a mountain. And this was one very unfortunate instance. He simply could not see what I saw—the importance of Bastien and our daughter’s marriage, not only to Rona, but to our entire family.
When the sharks brought me to The Sanctuary’s shore, I dropped the anchor and then hurried to the beach. I had not traveled very far along the sand when I was met with an invisible boundary.
I drew in a deep breath, steeling myself for a whole lot of bellowing.
“HELLO!” I roared. “I am here to request a meeting with Loira Sulvece!”
I continued shouting for five minutes solid until a male voice called back, “Identify yourself!”
It being daytime, I was in my human form and perhaps it wasn’t immediately clear to this warlock from a distance that I was a werewolf. I’d found some old rags on the ogres’ boat to wrap around me so at least I wasn’t stark naked after my previous transformation.
“It is I, Brucella Lea Northstone. You may not know who I am, but Loira does. Please inform her of my arrival. It is a matter of urgency.”
“What is the urgency?” the man asked.
“That is the business of Loira and myself,” I replied, irritated. “Please, fetch her.”
The man went silent and stopped responding to my calls after that. I could only hope that he had vanished and gone to seek out the witch.
It was possible of course that Loira didn’t even live here anymore—perhaps she had even died. Although she had not appeared to be a particularly elderly witch, so I didn’t see why she shouldn’t still be alive and living peacefully in her homeland.
Thankfully, I wasn’t left long to my own speculation. Loira manifested before me on the beach, wearing a long brown dress with sharply padded shoulders. She looked much the same as she had all those years ago. Her limp blonde hair accentuated the roundness of her skull, and was tucked behind ears that were slightly too large for her face. She appeared thinner now, however, and with a few more lines around her mouth.
She appeared quite speechless to see me. And I didn’t blame her. After the last time we’d seen each other, there was no reason for her to think that we would ever meet again.
“Brucella?” she asked, disbelieving. She strode toward me and stopped a couple of feet away. “What in heaven’s name brings you here?”
I heaved a sigh. “Believe me when I say, Loira, that I would rather be anywhere but here. I have come out of sheer necessity… I need your help again.”
She frowned. “More trouble?”
A different kind of trouble… I steeled myself for her reaction to what I was about to say. I knew that she would think I had gone insane, just as my husband had accused me of.
“Loira, I need you to help me unleash the Mortclaws.”
The witch’s entire face scrunched in confusion. “What?” she breathed. She seemed to genuinely think that she had misheard.
“The Mortclaws,” I repeated, “whom you banished to Murther Island all those years ago… Now, I need you to free them.”
“Have you lost your mind, Brucella?” Loira exclaimed. “How could you request such a thing?”
I exhaled in frustration. “I have not lost my mind, witch,” I replied, trying to reel in my temper. I couldn’t afford to snap with this woman. “I need the Mortclaws to help me fulfill a very specific task.”
“What task?”
I shook my head. “I have neither the time nor inclination to explain it all,” I said wearily, though, truth be told, it wasn’t all that complicated. It was rather simple. But like my husband, I simply didn’t think she would understand my motives. “But as one of the leaders of The Woodlands who commissioned you to lock them up in the first place, trust me when I say that I have considered the matter deeply… We require them to solve a problem in our land—as strange as it may sound, it’s something only they can help us with,” I lied, just for good measure. Releasing the Mortclaws would be no skin off her or her fellow witches’ noses, anyway. When the Mortclaws had been rampant before, they had terrorized primarily werewolves.
Still, Loira gaped at me. There was a long span of silence until she finally seemed to realize that I was deadly serious about my request, and this wasn’t some kind of joke.
“Well,” she murmured, “if you are so bent on this, then why do you need my help, exactly? You know where the key is. Surely you have not forgotten the location of the island, either.”
“I recall the location of the key, but it has been many years,” I confessed. “I do not remember the route to the island well. I would find it eventually, I am sure, but it would take time. Besides, you know better than me how perilous the journey by boat is to that part of our world…”
Loira swallowed hard, wetting her lower lip with her tongue. “Very well. I can transport you there. I can even free them, just as I imprisoned them, but…” Her expression darkened. “I truly hope that whatever reason you have for doing this, it is a good one.” Her eyes bored into mine. “Because, Brucella, after they are loose… don’t expect me to catch them again.”
Grace
After returning to The Shade, Arwen and I sat for a while at the end of the jetty. I fiddled with the pendant absentmindedly.
“So now what?” Arwen wondered. “Neither of them seemed to think that Lawrence was—or is—in any trouble, now he’s been taken by his dad. To them, everything you described seemed like business as normal for their distant, IBSI-affiliated family. Just Lawrence going through some kind of test or training or something.”
“Well, that’s just it,” I said. “The Hulses’ judgment of the IBSI is only based on what few things their daughter told them, which basically amounts to nothing. They like to think fondly of the IBSI because obviously, Georgina believed in it, and they share the same glowing impression of it that the media pumps out. W
hat they think or feel about Lawrence’s situation… I don’t think it can be taken seriously.”
“Or,” Arwen countered, “maybe you’re reading way too much into this. Maybe you’re seeing things that just aren’t there.”
I scowled. Maybe I was looking into this too closely—I did have a habit of getting too caught up in things sometimes. But I simply couldn’t sit still. At least, not until I’d gotten a satisfactory answer as to what Atticus’ intentions truly were. If I could understand his motivation, I would feel a whole lot easier about the subject.
Arwen took the pendant from me again and held it up in front of her. She began playing with it herself.
Silence fell between us for a while as we stared out at the waves rolling into shore. Then Arwen slanted a glance at me. “You, uh, really care about Lawrence.”
My throat felt tight as I nodded. It was only in his absence that I realized how much I really did care about him. More so than even a “professional” caregiver would care about the patient. Shayla was a good caregiver without a doubt, but now that Lawrence had been returned to his father, she had relinquished her responsibility and was able to easily switch to other matters—other patients who were with us and needed to be treated.
But I… I just couldn’t do that.
Of course, the type of caring Shayla had tasked me with had been more involved than her job. It hadn’t been just looking after his physical needs; it had been being his companion and becoming a friend to him.
But even as I began justifying my feelings, and why I cared so damn much, I asked myself why I constantly tried to justify why I felt the way I did. Why do I even feel the need to find a justification?
I recalled the butterflies I’d felt in my stomach as Lawrence and I had lain together that last, fateful night. The way my skin had tingled as his lips brushed against my forehead, the way my pulse had raced as he’d moved his fingers through my hair.