Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,34
But as I shuffle back to the bed, my heart has sunk with an all-too-familiar sense of hopelessness. I close my hands into fists against it.
I made it out of that cage, and I’ll make it out of here too. I just have to keep believing that.
10
Talia
When I peek into the kitchen halfway through one afternoon, August is already in a flurry of motion throwing together some kind of epic dinner. Catching sight of me, he beams without slowing down his preparations. “My favorite new assistant! Come in. I’ve got something for you to stir.”
Over the past few days, I’ve found myself gravitating here more and more often, as if drawn by August’s typical clatter like a bee to nectar. The auburn-haired fae man with his human-like ears and his warm smiles has always waved me in eagerly. Nothing appears to make him happier than sharing the secrets of one recipe or another with me—not that I’m likely to use those anytime soon, seeing as most of them involve ingredients I’m pretty sure the grocery store back home won’t offer, like cat’s milk and hummingbird eggs.
He’s the only one of my new captors who makes me feel like I really am a welcome guest and not a prisoner.
Today, I’m soon perched on my usual kitchen stool with a bowl wider than I am propped on my knees and a long wooden spoon clutched in my hand. The dough I’m mixing is a weird combination of sticky and sloshy, but it gives off a sweetly spicy smell that makes my mouth water.
“What’s this going to become?” I ask.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” August says with a sparkle in his golden eyes. “I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
“I want to eat it already.”
He laughs. “It won’t taste half as good before it’s baked.” He pauses, studying me with sudden concern. “Are you hungry? I can get you a snack.”
The thing that appears to make August second-happiest is watching me devour his cooking. Every meal where I manage to consume closer to a full serving—though still nothing like the amount these men-who-aren’t-men eat—he perks up a little more. And every day, I have a little more energy of my own.
I’d have thought it’d be in their best interests to keep me weak, but August doesn’t seem to think so, and Sylas isn’t stopping him. I don’t know what to make of that.
“No, keep going with your dinner prep,” I say. “I’m not really hungry—this just smells so good.”
“And I haven’t even added the malvia sugar yet,” he says, whatever that is. “I’d make these things more often if they didn’t take so long to bake. Easier when I have help, though.” He flashes another smile at me and goes back chopping up root vegetables of an odd pale blue color. “It’ll need another five minutes stirring, but if your arm gets tired, I can jump in. Just let me know.”
As I continue turning the batter, I glance around the kitchen. It’s twice as big as my bedroom, which is pretty big in itself, with three ovens, two islands—one massive and one narrow—and pots and pans of all shapes and sizes dangling from vine-like ceiling fixtures. “It seems like this kitchen is meant to have a whole team working in it.”
“Sylas modeled it on the one we had in Hearthshire. We had a full staff there. Back then, I really just noodled around in the kitchen when they didn’t need it…”
He trails off with a hesitant note, as if he’s not sure he should have said that. That might mean it’s important. Sylas said something about Hearthshire, didn’t he? I can’t remember exactly what.
“Why did you move here?” I venture. I do remember the fae lord indicating that it was unusual for August to be doing the cooking—for them not to have staff. I haven’t seen anyone in the keep other than him and the three members of his cadre since I arrived here. Whatever work the rest of the pack does, it happens outside these walls.
August sweeps the chopped veggies off the cutting board, his stance uncharacteristically awkward. “Unfortunate circumstances. But we’ve made the best of things here.”
A typically vague answer, the kind I get whenever I ask anything at all prying. I suck my lower lip under my teeth to worry at it. He was willing to open up a bit about my role here, but that involved me directly—and he wasn’t keen on talking even about that.