Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,12

rising to a curving peak as if some immense giant came by and twisted off the rest of the tree.

The sun I found so bright is only just coming up. Its rays sear the forest’s treetops.

East. That way must be east.

It’d be a lot more useful to know that if I had any idea which direction my real home lies in.

The sound of footsteps carries through the opposite wall of the bedroom. My heart bashes against my ribs, and I shove myself all the way back onto the bed without thinking, propelled by a surge of panicked adrenaline.

My hands skitter across the sheet, but I can’t see anything around that I could use to defend myself if I needed to. Other than the bed with its covers and the window, there’s only a small table on the other side of the bed that holds an empty ebony bowl and a tall wardrobe too far away for me to reach in time.

A man opens the door and walks in, coming to a stop just inside. It’s the one I thought of as a grizzly bear with the scar through his left eye. He somehow looks even bigger than before, his massive frame nearly as tall and broad as the doorway he passed through.

He’s wearing similar clothes to those I’ve seen on my captors, his grass-green shirt showing a hint of chest and the snaking line of a tattoo behind the lacing at its V neck, the sleeves loose from the shoulders to partway down his forearms where they narrow to grip his wrists, his black slacks fitted to his muscular thighs and calves.

A leather sheath hangs from his belt, the glinting hilt of a dagger protruding from it. My fingers tense around the sheet instinctively, as if the weapon makes any difference when he could do more than enough damage with those fists and feet.

He shuts the door behind him with a nudge of his heel, his mismatched gaze trained on me. Even though his left eye is clouded over, I get the impression it’s watching me just as much as the uninjured one. My shoulders hunch, my legs pulling closer to my body, as if I can shrink away from his scrutiny.

“We might as well start at the beginning,” he says in the low, resonant voice I remember. “What is your name?”

I stare at him. In more than eight years, my captors never bothered to ask that question. It never mattered to them. Before, in my old life, I must have told people my name dozens of times, but I’m out of practice, and giving it up now feels somehow perilous. Why does he want it?

The man frowns. He walks to the end of the bed and rests his hand on one of the posts. The black lines of the tattoos that creep up from under his sleeve and up his neck across his jaw remind me that he’s not really a man, no more than the ones who shoved me into their cage were.

“Do you understand me?” he asks, measuring out the words more slowly.

I nod automatically, just a brief dip of my head before I catch myself with another flicker of panic. Should I have acknowledged that? Was I better off if he thought I couldn’t?

He takes another step, and my body cringes against the headboard. The man takes in the movement with his pensive gaze and stops where he is. He lowers himself so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed right by the footboard, turned toward me, leaving a few feet between us.

He’s only slightly less intimidating closer to my level.

“You’re scared,” he says—a statement, not a question.

A hysterical giggle claws at my throat. Ya think? Jamie would have said, with all his eight-year-old impertinence, if someone made a ridiculously obvious observation.

“Why don’t I start then?” The man leans against the bedpost behind him with no hint of impatience. “I’m Sylas, originally of Hearthshire, and this is my keep. You won’t find yourself in a cage here. I just have some questions to ask to give me a better sense of your situation.”

He could be lying. But if it matters enough to him, he could probably also find ways of forcing the answers out of me—ways much more unpleasant than this. A longing trickles up through my chest—a longing to clutch at this moment of relative peace and normalcy, however brief it might be.

I open my mouth. My tongue tangles. How long has it been