Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,17
bristles with a flash of his eyes, and Sylas holds up both hands, one toward each of them. “Enough. I prefer that she sits near me. The rest of you can take a chair wherever you’d like in consideration of that.” He shoots a pointed look at Kellan. “Ideally without any more commentary.”
Kellan glares at his lord, but he sinks down at one of the places already set—thankfully the one that’s farthest from me.
August grabs the seat beside me. “Where’s Whitt? This is usually the one morning out of the month when he’s up at a normal hour.”
“Last night was hardly a typical night,” Sylas says. “And I have no intention of waiting on his whims. Dig in.”
I’m already ogling the dishes August laid out. Saliva pools in my mouth. If I’m not careful, in a second I’ll be drooling.
One platter is heaped with flat, circular patties that look kind of like small hamburgers but smell like sausages. Another holds little boiled eggs that are robin-blue even without their shells, which give off a delicately appetizing zesty scent. The third offers a rainbow of cut fruit, much of which I can’t recognize in colors as vibrant as gems, and the fourth ornate pastries twisted into five-pointed stars, the crisp dough so airily puffy I half expect them to start flaking under my gaze.
I don’t know where to start. The men reach for the serving utensils and load their plates. When the long-tined fork is free, I take a sausage and then a scoop of fruit and a pastry that appears to have melted chocolate in the hollow at its center.
August motions toward my plate. “There’s lots for everyone. Take as much as you want.”
Just what I already have looks like a feast. As I look at it, my stomach knots. I’m not used to proper meals anymore—and I’m not exactly relaxed about this whole situation, either.
“I don’t know how much I can manage when I got used to… not much,” I murmur.
“Aerik’s crew obviously didn’t feed you right, but we’ll fix that. After all that, you are a wee mite.”
“We could even say a dust mite,” says a breezy, melodic voice from behind me. The fourth of yesterday’s men strolls into view and flops his well-built frame down in the chair across from me.
By daylight, Whitt’s light brown hair looks sun-kissed, the rumpled strands veering upward at their varying angles as if to embrace the sky. Or maybe, given his attitude, to goad it.
His gaze barely flits over me, and then he’s stabbing at the sausages, tossing several onto his plate with a few flicks of his wrist. His presence doesn’t leave me as cold as Kellan’s, but my muscles tense more all the same.
“She can’t help how she is,” August declares, and pats me on the arm. “Go ahead. Eat, even if it’s only a little.”
So much emphasis has been placed on how much food I consume that my stomach has clenched twice as tight as before. But I do need to eat before I get any more light-headed.
I cut off a chunk of one of the sausage patties and nibble at it tentatively. A savory flavor made richer by a subtle mixture of herbs seeps over my tongue, and my mouth starts watering again. It’s delicious. I haven’t tasted anything this good in ages. I haven’t tasted anything that tasted like food in almost a decade.
No blurring or tingling effect muddles my senses. As Sylas promised, the herbs mustn’t hold any magical properties. I stuff the rest of the bite into my mouth, and the next thing I know, the entire sausage has disappeared from my plate. My stomach still aches, but more of that is tension than hunger now.
August grins at me, obviously taking my speeding devouring as a compliment to his cooking, and glances around at the others. “So, I take it we haven’t gotten any—” He cuts himself off and hesitates with a hint of chagrin. When he speaks again, I can tell he’s changing the subject. “I was going to hunt before lunch. Any particular meat the rest of you are keen on today?”
Was the first thing he meant to say something he didn’t want to mention around me?
Whitt waggles his fork. “Since you’re taking requests, let’s have a buffalo. Or elephant. I’ve always wondered what those taste like.”
Sylas makes a dismissive sound at the joke—at least, I assume it’s a joke. Who knows what animals roam around this place for fae men to