by Haley Weir
The forest had been beautiful, and he had run for much longer than he had anticipated. Fortunately, at night in the castle, no one was out of their rooms this late. When he got back inside the castle walls, he headed to get a glass of water to take to his room. He thought about how much he would have preferred to stay in the forest all night; to drink water from the fresh, cool stream instead of the kitchen spigot; to fall asleep against the soft moss instead of the rickety wooden bed in the castle. But he knew that he couldn’t stay out until the morning. There would be no way to sneak back in without anyone noticing him in daylight, and his absence for an entire day would surely not go unnoticed. So instead, he would have to settle for the water from the kitchen.
What were the chances that he would bump into Marquette again within the course of the same few days? At least this time, he noticed her before he knocked against her. He didn’t, however, notice her before he lost his chance to slip away unseen. They were both walking toward the kitchen from opposite directions in the corridor.
“Theo,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you down here.”
“I didn’t expect to see you down here either,” he said in surprise. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Marquette answered.
He noticed that she looked troubled as if she’d had a nightmare.
“I thought that I would come and get a glass of water,” she said as she looked at him. Her eyes trailed over his bare chest and glistening skin. “Were you training at this hour?”
Theo suddenly thought about how odd it must have looked that he was shirtless and sweating in the middle of the night when he should have been soundly asleep. He guessed that training was probably a more believable excuse than any he could have come up with on the spot.
“Yeah,” he said quickly. “I couldn’t sleep either so I thought that I would get in some extra training time. Then I got thirsty, so I came to get water too.”
They stood transfixed on each other in the hallway. Neither seemed to want to move, and neither knew what else to say. But then, when the light in the corridor caught Theo’s eyes at just the right angle, Marquette let out a little gasp and took a step closer to him.
“Your eyes,” she said in awe.
Theo was startled and didn’t know what she was talking about. Her proximity to him was dizzying. He could smell the intoxicating scent of her skin, and it felt as if all of his senses were heightened, even more than usual.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“They’re glowing.”
Theo immediately put his hand up to cover his face. After just having come from a run in his shifted form, and then being so enthralled by Marquette, he hadn’t been thinking about controlling himself. He had walked into the corridor with his wolfish eyes still glowing yellow. She reached up to pull his hand down, and when her fingers touched his, it made his body tremble.
“Don’t,” he said.
He didn’t know what else to say. He had no plausible explanation as to why his eyes were glowing yellow. He couldn’t blame it on a trick of the light, not when Marquette was so close and too smart to fall for such a lame excuse. The only thing that he could do was prevent her from seeing anything more and downplay and dismiss it. He was getting good at ignoring things, and maybe Marquette would just ignore it too. But the more Theo tightened his hand against his face, the more Marquette gently wrapped her fingers around his and stepped even closer to him still.
“Theo, please,” she said. “Let me see your eyes.”
“No.”
He could feel that she had gotten closer to him. He could feel her warm breath against his face and the soft silk of her nightgown against his chest. The small space between them was thick with a sexual angst that hung heavy in the air.
“You don’t need to hide from me,” Marquette said. “But I won’t force you to open yourself to me either.”
Marquette loosened her hand from his, but instead of just letting go and walking away, she reached for the hand that was hanging down by his side instead. She took the shirt from his hand and then threaded her fingers in his.
“Come on,” she said as she started to walk slowly toward the kitchen, guiding Theo along with her as she went. “You can keep your eyes covered if you want, but I know you’re still thirsty.”
Theo didn’t quite know what to make of the situation. On the one hand, it almost seemed as if Marquette knew. He knew that she had seen his glowing yellow eyes, and yet she didn’t seem afraid. She didn’t press him about what it was or what he was. It was almost as if she already had a hint of knowing. He thought back to childhood, but he couldn’t remember any time that she might have seen anything that would have given away his family’s secret. They had always been so careful not to reveal themselves, even to Marquette. And anytime that Theo recklessly and accidentally slipped up with a shift or partial shift that wasn’t supposed to happen, his mother always came through with some sort of convincing way to explain it away to any human that may have caught an unsettling glimpse.
As they walked hand-in-hand, Theo felt the softness of Marquette’s palm against his. And he felt the occasional rub of their shoulders next to each other. He tried to focus on something innocuous to get control over his feelings and then over his body. By the time they had reached the kitchen, he could feel that the simmering in his eyes had gone and that it was safe to remove his hand from his face.
Theo slowly dropped his hand and looked at Marquette, who was still standing beside him. She stared into his eyes, which were now back to their humanly dark brown color. She looked at him intently as if there were a proclamation that hung from the tip of her tongue, but instead, she said nothing at all. She did what Theo had become so good at doing; she pretended it hadn’t happened. When Marquette slid her hand out of his to go and pour them both some water, Theo’s fingers held on to hers for a moment. She hadn’t expected him to tighten his grasp, but when he did, she stopped and turned back toward him. He didn’t want to let her go, and she didn’t want him to either.
Eventually, though, the moment had to go in one direction or the other. If one of them didn’t move soon, then ignoring it would no longer be a viable option. Theo loosened his grasp enough to let Marquette pull her hand out of his again. She handed him back his shirt and then went to fill their water glasses. Then, they both walked to the doorway together. This time, when they walked down the corridor beside each other, they were silent and kept their eyes either toward the hallway in front of them or gazing down at the floor. Marquette put the glass to her lips, and as she drank, Theo imagined what it would be like to taste her lips on his. When Marquette reached the door of her room, she politely said goodnight and waited to see if Theo had anything else he wanted to say to her.
“Goodnight, Marquette,” was all that he said.
After she had gone inside her room and closed the door, Theo stayed standing there in the hallway outside her room for a lingering minute. He wondered if she was standing just on the other side of her door, not wanting to go yet either.
When he got back into his room, he set his cup and shirt down and then laid down on the top of his bed. He stared up at the ceiling, and his mind became flooded with thoughts of Marquette. He had gone running in the wilderness as a wolf tonight to clear his mind, but instead, he now found it more cluttered than ever. This time, it wasn’t cluttered by thoughts of duty and responsibility that made him feel trapped and constricted. This time, it was overrun with thoughts of Marquette, which made him feel free and more content than he had ever felt before. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and wondered if she was lying in her bed consumed with thoughts of him as well. If he could have peeked inside her door, he would have been able to see that she was.
As he drifted off to sleep right before the dawn began to break through the sky, he was focused on a singular thought that was suddenly strong enough to overcome the reservations that he had before. He realized t
hat he wanted, no, needed, to spend more time with Marquette.
CHAPTER FOUR
Over the next few days, Theo made a point to sneak in moments to spend with Marquette without anyone noticing his interest in her. He ate snacks in the kitchen slowly while she was cooking, instead of grabbing food and running off as he usually did. When she went into the city markets, he found an excuse to go as well—sometimes saying he needed to pick something up, and sometimes pretending as if he had just happened to have been strolling through the dirt streets of the city and bumping into her on accident. Even inside the castle halls, he made a bit of a game out of coming around the corner just as she was leaving her bedroom. It didn’t take long for Marquette to realize what he was doing, and as soon as she did, she made it clear to him that she enjoyed it.
The two of them enjoyed the time they had together, even if sometimes it only came in momentary spurts. They talked about things that they remembered from their childhood, some of which made them laugh, and some of which made them somber.
“Do you remember my mother?” she asked him on an early evening that they were walking back from the market together.
They tried to remain platonic under the watchful eye of all the other humans in Grenvich, and it looked as though the prince was simply helping his servant carry a particularly large purchase of vegetables back from the market. Perhaps not something that a prince would often do, but certainly not something that caused rumors to be spread. They walked at a fair distance apart, yet still close enough to hear each other while they talked quietly.
“Yes,” Theo answered. “I remember some things. I remember that she was a good woman and that she loved you. I remember that she used to bring us puzzles to play with, and we would lay on our stomachs in my bedroom and put them together.”
“I remember that too,” Marquette said with a sad smile. “I wish that I remembered more of her. Sometimes I feel as if I will forget how her face looked, and I start to panic. But then, every time I start to panic, I suddenly get an image of her face in my mind, clear as day. But the image isn’t one that I want to see.”
“Why not?” Theo asked as he turned his head to look at her.
“Because it’s always the image of her dead.”
Theo felt a pang of guilt and sorrow. It wasn’t his fault that her mother had been killed by the hunter, but he would always feel as though it was. Her mother was with him when the hunter came to kill him. Marquette’s mother risked her life to protect him until his own parents could get there and put the wolf hunter down. If it hadn’t been for his carelessness, the hunter might not have ever even suspected that Theo was a shifter, and Marquette’s mother might still be alive.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He wanted to reach out and hold her as they neared the entry gate to the castle, but he knew that he couldn’t, and it killed him.
“It’s not your fault,” she smiled kindly at him.
Yes, it is, he thought to himself.
When they got inside, they unloaded the vegetables in the deep kitchen sink and Marquette turned on the water to begin to rinse and scrub them.
“I’ll help,” Theo said as he rolled up his sleeves.
The sink was big enough for them both to use. Marquette looked at him as if he had three heads.
“You’re going to help me wash vegetables?” she asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, why not?”
Marquette giggled.
“Because you’re a prince,” she said. “That might look a bit odd if someone saw you in here washing vegetables with a servant girl.”
Theo reached into the sink and grabbed a large, garnet-red beet and started to scrub it under the trickling water.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks,” he said defiantly.
Marquette smiled and reached into the sink to grab a vegetable too. When she did, Theo had just reached for another beet, and since he was too busy looking at her instead of his hands, he ended up grabbing onto her hand inside the sink instead of a vegetable. For a moment, they held hands under the running water and looked at each other without moving.
“Theo, there you are!” Cassandra called pleasantly as she came into the kitchen.
She couldn’t see their hands in the sink, which immediately released as soon as they both heard Theo’s mother make an entrance. But she could see the way that her son and Marquette were looking at each other.
“I was just helping Marquette unclog the sink so that she could finish rinsing the vegetables,” he lied. He was getting better at lying, and he wasn’t particularly sure that was a good thing.
Marquette smiled at Cassandra and then focused her attention back on washing the vegetables.
“Did you need me?” Theo asked his mother.
“Yes, I was just going to ask if you wouldn’t mind taking a few of your father’s weapons to the metalsmith in the city tomorrow,” she said, as she still looked between them to see the small glances that were exchanged.
“Sure,” he answered. “Does he need them repaired?
“Not repaired,” Cassandra answered. “Just sharpened.”
“Sharpened? Why?”
Theo was curious as to why his father would be sharpening blades. The kingdom was at peace, and that something that was usually only done before battle.
“No reason; they just need sharpening,” she said.
Marquette quickly finished up with the vegetables and then laid them out on the counter to dry until morning. Then, she bid both Theo and Cassandra goodnight and left to go to her room for the night. Theo’s eyes followed Marquette out the door, and Cassandra couldn’t help but notice the longing look that her son had in his eyes.
“You like her,” Cassandra smiled.
“What? No,” Theo said. “Of course I don’t.”
Theo never lied to his mother, and he felt awful keeping this from her. But relations between humans and shifters were highly frowned upon, especially for the royal family. Even if his mother were to be open-minded and accepting of it, no one else would be. That would put his mother in an awkward and uneasy position, especially when it came to his father, whom Theo was sure would frown upon it.
“You can deny it all you like,” Cassandra said as she smiled at him. “But I am your mother, and as such, I know you. Sometimes better than you know yourself, I think. Let me tell you just this one thing.”
Theo mentally prepared himself to hear his mother tell him he shouldn’t have feelings for a human, and how bad it would look for their family if anyone were to find out. She would tell him how dangerous it was to risk exposing their shifter nature to anyone, even Marquette, and that it would put Marquette in danger as well. But he should have known his mother better than that. She was always by his side, no matter what. Even when he was a small boy and would get himself in all of the worst situations, some of which nearly cost him his life, and almost cost Cassandra hers as well, she would always stand by his side no matter what.
Instead of scolding or lecturing him, she offered him a few sage words of wisdom.
“Always follow your heart, my son,” she said as she put her hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in his deep, dark eyes. “Even if it goes against every rule.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The next day, Theo walked into the city with an armful of his father’s swords, blades, and axes to take to the metalsmith for sharpening. He still wasn’t convinced there wasn’t some other reason to sharpen all of the weapons, and it made him slightly uneasy thinking about it, but he knew that if there were imminent danger, his mother and father would have told him. He hadn’t seen Marquette since they had been in the kitchen the night before, when Cassandra had unintentionally interrupted. It was good that his mother had come though because Theo knew he was getting too close and too comfortable with Marquette. He was bound to slip up if he didn’t pull the reins back on it. His nature had always been a bit reckless and impulsive, especially when it came to intense emotions.
Theo
hadn’t planned on staying in the streets of Grenvich for long. He had intended only to drop off his father’s weapons and then return to pick them up the following day. But the sight of Marquette further inside the city caught his eye. There was a puppet show in the city square that had drawn a small crowd, and Marquette was one of them. Theo had heard her gentle, lilting laugh and had looked up to see her a short distance up ahead, watching the puppet show. It looked as if the show was just about to end. Marquette was getting ready to leave. Theo decided to wait for her to walk back to the castle together as long as he was already there.
But when Marquette walked away from the crowd to head back up toward the hill that led to the castle, Theo noticed a couple of men who seemed to be watching her, and who followed her movements toward the hill. The men walked just a few short paces behind Marquette, whispering to each other with vile looking grins on their faces and watching Marquette’s hips sway as she walked. Theo knew what they were thinking, and he knew what was going to happen. He rushed toward Marquette’s side and jumped in to protect and defend her just as one of the men had reached forward and grabbed her by the arm.
“Let her go,” Theo growled at the men.
The men seemed not to be intimidated that the prince of Grenvich was telling them to back down.
“It’s okay, Your Highness,” one of the men said in a tone that was more mocking than it was respectful. “She’s with us.”
“No, she is not,” Theo said. Anger was rising within him, and he could feel the twinge of his eyes starting to shift, and the bristling ridge beginning to form on his back. He tried to hold on to control over himself, but his reckless demeanor was biting at the bit to emerge. He hated men like this: misogynistic, disgusting excuses of flesh that thought they could just take whatever they wanted. He also hated that they didn’t respect his authority in the royal family.
