Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,26
the fae men left on my bedside table is the first one I’ve seen in years, and it wasn’t up to the job. Maybe I’d have to shear my head to the scalp and start over. The thought of looking even more like an invalid makes me cringe.
It shouldn’t matter, but it does. I’m already vulnerable enough without adding to that impression. And it’d be yet another thing my former captors stole from me, if far from the worst.
The awareness of the much more wrenching losses I’ve suffered rolls through me, suffocating me like my dream yesterday. For a moment, my mind blanks out under the weight of it. When I get a hold of myself again, my skin has gone clammy and my hand is clutching the crutch so tightly my knuckles ache.
August is watching me with a deer-in-the-headlights expression that sits oddly on his broad face, his muscles tensed and his golden eyes alight but his stance uncertain. “Do you want me to try to help you with your hair?” he asks after a moment’s hesitation. “We all have different areas of magic we take to most naturally, and one of mine is all things bodily. I could check out your foot too.”
All things bodily. That’s why he was the one Sylas called on to knock me out when they dragged me from my cage. I still don’t know how much I should be grateful for that—how much it was a rescue versus being thrown from the frying pan into a fire I haven’t yet uncovered the full extent of.
But he’s been the kindest to me out of all four of my new captors, and I’m never going to get the answers I need if I hide away in my bedroom until that fire is licking at my bedposts. I suck in a deeper breath, willing away the jitters, and nod. “Okay. Thank you.”
His usual warm enthusiasm comes back into his face and his voice. “Thank me when we see how much I can actually do for you. Come on—the parlor has good light.”
“The parlor” turns out to be an alcove off the kitchen where a few well-padded armchairs—less ornate than most of the furniture I’ve encountered in the keep—squat in a semi-circle around a matching footstool and a coffee table of pale wood. Big windows look out over a garden of unfamiliar plants in neat rows and a cluster of trees bearing vibrant globes of fruit.
Beyond the orchard, more fields stretch out toward thick forest. In the distance on the left-hand side, spires of peach-colored stone jut high above the tree-tops, dotted with patches of clinging lime-green shrubs. It looks like the kind of awe-inspiring landscape I’d have printed off for my travel-planning scrapbook.
The thought of those long-lost dreams squeezes my throat. I wrench my gaze away.
A door leads out to the garden, simpler and less imposing than the big one in the entrance room. Seeing it, an itch runs through my arms. It doesn’t seem likely that Sylas would have protected the front door so carefully but neglected this back one—Kellan even said there was a back one that was magically sealed—but at least I know for sure there’s more than one way out.
August motions for me to sit on the footstool and hunkers down on the edge of the chair behind me so he can examine my hair. His fingertips graze my shoulders, warm and gentle.
“Let’s see… I should be able to convince at least some of these knots to unwind themselves.”
He says a word in that melodious tone all the fae seem to use when casting their magic, and a tickle of energy passes over my scalp. His fingers keep moving through the strands of my hair with only the faintest of tugs. A wisp of heat from his breath grazes my neck. By the time he asks me to turn so he can work on the waves that frame my face, my pose has mostly relaxed. I can’t say I feel safe, but I’m reasonably sure I’m not in imminent danger while he’s next to me.
When August has worked over both sides, he leans back to consider his handiwork. “The ones higher up weren’t so bad, but near the bottom there were a lot of strands twisted pretty tight. I couldn’t get them all free without breaking some. I could remove those completely?”
I have the abrupt, ridiculous thought that the lower span of my hair is one of the few things I have