Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,84

interjections from the woman. Then I think Whitt speaks—I can’t fully make out his voice, but the laughter afterward sounds like the sort of response he’d be aiming for.

“When I last visited my cousin, he made some mention of you and your circumstances,” the newcomer says eventually.

“He’s welcome to call on us himself anytime he’d like to observe those circumstances firsthand,” Sylas remarks, and I catch a snicker as if he’s made a joke, though it didn’t sound at all like one to me. I bristle on his behalf.

Whatever he did that forced him and his pack to move here, I can’t imagine it was that horrible—only horrible by the standards of these stuck-up, pompous aristocrats who’re clearly more interested in lording their power over those who have less than making anyone’s lives better.

There’s a span of quiet there I can’t discern more than a word here and there. Kellan’s name reaches my ears, and my back stiffens, but I miss whatever follows.

Then the voices get abruptly louder. The speakers are moving this way, I realize.

“Aren’t you going to give us the full tour?” Tristan says, casually but with a hard edge that indicates he expects to be obliged.

Are they going to come upstairs after all? My pulse hiccups, and I scoot backward, spinning around. With one hand braced against the wall to help my balance, I scuttle back toward my bedroom as quickly as my legs will take me without betraying my steps.

I picked up on their intentions just in time. I’m barely two steps around the corner when I hear the bunch of them tramping up the steps. I limp onward, shaky with the rush of adrenaline and fear.

My bedroom door closes behind me with the softest of clicks. I stand on the other side, listening hard, but I can’t even make out the visitors’ voices anymore. Surely they’re too far away still to have noticed that small sound? After wavering for a moment between eavesdropping and the comfort of the bed, I wobble over and clamber under the covers.

I assume the danger is past. My heartbeat evens out, and I slump deeper into the mattress, berating myself for risking leaving my room in the first place. If I’d been any less alert—

But I wasn’t. I got out of the way in time. Everything’s fine now.

Then Sylas’s voice penetrates the wall, sounding as if he’s just come around the corner. “There’s not much down there other than spare rooms. We haven’t bothered to do them up. I doubt they’d interest you.”

He’s talking a little louder than before. I shift upright, my fingers curling into the covers. Are they going to come down here—are they going to open up my room?

What the hell am I supposed to do if that happens?

“I’m impressed enough with what you’ve done with the rest of the space that I can’t imagine they’ll be a disappointment,” Tristan says in the same demanding tone.

A chill floods my skin. He’s going to insist on looking in here. Oh, hell.

Sylas laughs—again, louder than I’m used to. “Well, you’ll see for yourself that there’s nothing to look at other than a bit of furniture.”

He wants me to hear him. He’s warning me. The room needs to look as though no one’s been living in it.

There are a few rooms between the bend and mine. I have a minute or two.

My head jerks around. The wardrobe—I can hide in there… and hope they don’t smell me. It’s farther from the door than the bed is. They won’t walk right through the whole space, will they?

I don’t have time to worry over that. I shove myself off the bed, remembering only at the last second to set my feet down gently, and tug the covers as smooth as I can make them. The dinner plate has to go too. I snatch it, set it as far under the bed as I can reach alongside my abandoned crutch, and whirl toward the wardrobe.

I’m nearly there when a jolt of horror wrenches through me. My foot brace—it’s still leaning against the bedframe in easy view of the door. How could Sylas explain away that?

There was a pause in the voices, but they’re on the move again, getting louder as they approach. I scramble back to the bed and accidentally set my bad foot down at an awkward angle that pinches the nerves. Clenching my jaw against a gasp at the sharper throbbing that forms between the misshapen bones, I bend down to