Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Our mate is close, and a host of wolves and dragons surround us.” She reached the next corner and caught the scent to the right. “If they take us, they won’t get far.”
She was fine being bait, it seemed.
That wasn’t a pleasant realization.
Down the corridor, the scent started to disintegrate. By the time we got around the next turn, we could feel Weston on the move, clearly having felt our emotions and hurrying to investigate or help.
Another turn had us staring at a small exit up ahead glowing with the watery light of the misty morning.
“Shit,” my wolf muttered, speeding to the door as the lingering scent began to drift away.
She moved aside so that I could resume our human form. I pushed open the door and hesitantly stepped out into the chilly morning air. A wide gravel path curved away through leafy bushes glistening with moisture. Visibility was cut down to just this little stoop, where none of the flora so much as shivered with the passage of a body, big or small.
“Do we follow?” I asked out loud, my senses in human form not as keen, unable to tell if there was a scent trail to pursue.
“No. We were already losing him. Out in nature, there’s no chance. A wolf or larger animal might’ve raised notice with the patrol, but a rat? He’ll be able to hide easily and sneak out with any deliveries or castle visitors. He’s beyond us. Let’s tell our mate so that they can search for the scent inside. Perhaps it will lead us to others.”
I turned and started to run, smacking into a body with an “Oof.” Leala bumped back, staggering, the tip of her whip shivering as she struggled to stay on her feet.
“Sorry.” I grabbed her.
“What is it?” she asked before she’d even regained her balance. “I saw your discarded clothes and followed your scent. What’d you see?”
It seemed as though the first person to find and help us was my lady’s maid—and her trusty whip.
“He’s gone. Let’s get Weston.”
It turned out that uniform had gone missing several days prior. No one had remembered seeing a person matching the man’s description. No one could remember coming across his scent, left behind on his discarded clothes. Weston had distributed those clothes so that the patrol and guard could track him down as he inevitably tried to flee the kingdom, but nothing turned up. He’d been a ghost—a ghost that had gotten into the castle unnoticed and been able to gain access to me. While I was alone.
My wolf trusted that our mate would’ve intercepted if the rat had been able to drag me away, and I agreed with her. It was one thing to visit the castle and slip into the kitchens, keeping one’s head down and even roaming around. One guy minding his own business wouldn’t really be noticed, especially on food collection detail. Grabbing the resident captive and wrestling her out of the castle, across the grounds, through the woods? That was another thing entirely.
That was not good enough for Weston. That morning, with the king’s blessing, he started an overhaul of the castle’s security. His goal was to ensure something like that could never happen again.
Watching my mate, thorough and excellent at his job, had filled me with pride.
Now, though, as I finally got to my work—with no strangers allowed within the vicinity of the garden—the reality of the morning’s events seeped in. Maybe that guy wasn’t one of Granny’s, and maybe it wasn’t even me he was after, but it was a stark reminder that I wasn’t safe here. Maybe I wasn’t safe on my own. I needed to heed the warning.
“Walk me through it,” Finley said, leaning over the table to look at my five little balls of beige product. She’d been all business since I arrived, having heard what happened but not commenting. I was grateful. She seemed to realize losing myself in work and pushing away the fear that Granny would force me back into the life I’d left behind was the thing I needed most right now.
I pointed at the first. “The most like Granny’s”—I pointed at the last—“what she was going for”—I pointed at those in between—“and my trial and error. It took me a while to create something shitty enough to resemble what Granny’s people did. Then, because I couldn’t help myself—”
“You didn’t want to help yourself,” Vemar supplied, quietly enraged that I’d had to deal with that guy this morning on my own. Even just sitting next to him raised the small hairs on my arms. I had a feeling he was about to get a lot more intense in his bodyguarding duty. He reached up to grab one of our contraptions now lining the back shelf.
“Fine. I wanted to see if I could make something that wasn’t shitty. Anyway, this last product should create the hook in half the time while creating almost no sickness. It’s safe. It won’t kill anyone unless there is a lot of it in the bloodstream.”