Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,58

room to the door, fishing the leather pouch out of the jeans I didn’t bother to take off.

I pour the salt into my hand and press it against the fixture just below the knob. I hold it there until the coarse grains have bitten into my palm. Then I brush them back into the pouch and ever-so-carefully twist the knob.

It turns. I inch the door open a fraction of an inch, just enough to be sure, and hastily close it again. My heart thumps, but not with panic this time.

I can get past the locks. I can open the doors and leave the keep. I know which direction it is to the human world, and that if I go far enough, chances are I’ll stumble into it.

There’s nothing left to stop me but my captors themselves. I can’t go while Whitt is partying with the pack outside—someone’s bound to notice me, no matter how drunk or high they get. But he rarely gathers them two nights in a row.

Tomorrow… Tomorrow I could be free.

17

August

The rain rattles against the parlor windows, blurring the landscape beyond them into a watercolor painting. It’s a summer downpour, though, not a refreshing shower. With the panes closed, the air inside the keep has gotten uncomfortably humid.

My muscles itch to be active, but my wolf doesn’t fancy a run in that muddy chaos. I roll my shoulders and head down the hall instead.

Kellan is prowling back and forth near the stairs, his mouth set in an even sourer scowl than usual. He catches my eye.

“We could be done with days like this if our ‘lord’ would get his head out of his ass. Much more of this, and I’ll think that head’s gone as soft as a rotten fruit.”

My stance tenses, my jaw clenching. I manage to hold myself back from a growl. I can keep my temper, as much as this asshole tests it.

“If that’s the way you feel, go ahead and bring it up with him, and we’ll see how soft he is about that,” I retort instead.

There’s a feral air about him that I don’t like at all. In the dim hallway, his eyes shimmer like coins through murky water. “You won’t fight me over it because you know I’m right. Someone’s got to make him see this dawdling is only going to screw us all over.”

He’s trying to provoke me. I don’t need to dignify that statement with any response at all. It’s true that it only rains like this on the fringes of the summer realm; in Hearthshire, we never had to deal with more than a pleasantly mild shower. But his solution isn’t right at all. He wants to present Talia to the arch-lords like she’s a doe cut down on a hunt. And he’d clearly like to take a few bites out of her first.

I turn my back on him and jog down the stairs to the basement, where I find the girl herself, poised stiffly just beyond the staircase. When she looks at me, the anxiety shining in her gaze sparks a rage twice as blazing.

“Did he chase you down here?” I demand.

Talia flinches, and I mentally cuff myself across the head for my tone. I still have to be careful how I let my aggression out around her. A beast is scary to witness no matter who its anger is aimed at.

I will my voice to even out and my balled hands to open. “If he’s been hassling you again, you can tell me about it. Sylas will get him in line.”

I hope so, anyway. Kellan’s talk lately has been creeping too close to mutiny for my comfort. If he doesn’t like his lot here, why doesn’t he go back to the two-faced family he came from?

Because there’s nothing but crumbs left of them, and he thinks he deserves better.

“Nothing’s happened today,” Talia says, which makes me wonder what’s happened other days that I haven’t witnessed. She did look as if she was limping more than usual this morning. “Is he gone yet? I just—I thought I’d go to the entertainment room after breakfast, but obviously I couldn’t open the door, and when I was going to come looking for you or Sylas, Kellan was hanging around near the top of the steps…”

She doesn’t need to explain why she didn’t like the looks of that situation. I let out my frustration in a rough breath. “He’s still up there, but I can open the room for you.