Chapter 4 : The Midnight Meeting

*Ember*

It was a testament to my exhaustion that I slept through the Grims’ departure from the castle. Later, one of the maids told me that it had taken the Alpha King himself to coax Lukas from his hiding place, and the Alpha had immediately gathered his entourage to leave, though he had promised to return in one week to retrieve me. As far as the maid knew, the intruder had disappeared without a trace.

I had done my best not to smile at that part. I suspected that the intruder might have been wearing a hooded cloak, though I wasn’t about to tell that to the maid.

I spent most of the day in a haze, gazing longingly out the window. Every movement outside of the castle pulled my attention, but the cause was always ordinary–warriors practicing in the courtyard below, birds hopping along the stone balustrades, a maid opening a window to air out a room. Even though I saw no sign of my hooded savior, I couldn’t help but feel that he was watching me, keeping me safe from a distance.

As the sun dipped lower against the horizon, and the shadows crept from their corners, a maid knocked and entered my chamber.

“The Alpha King requests your presence in his office,” she announced.

“Thank you,” I replied, swallowing thickly. I hoped that Lukas had fled fast enough that he hadn’t had time to share details of the dinner with my father, but I couldn’t think of any other reason why he would want to see me.

I rose and followed the maid out into the castle. I was glad that my ribs were less tender and that the pounding had faded from my head, so I didn’t have to lean on her as she led me to my father’s office.

At the office door, I knocked and waited until my father boomed, “Enter.”

Keeping my eyes on my bare, bandaged feet, I obediently entered the room and closed the door behind me. I waited for the Alpha King to reprimand me for the previous evening, but he said nothing. Somehow, the silence was worse than his anger.

Finally, I peeked up to find him watching me with a smug expression from behind his desk. Relief coursed through me. He didn’t look furious. He just seemed to be his usual cruel self.

“You are to clean out your chambers completely within the week,” he proclaimed after another uncomfortable moment of silence. “You will gather your belongings, but you will leave all the furniture behind. I don’t want to bother spending any money on the breeder.”

“Breeder? What breeder?” I asked, shocked. Logically, I had known Lukas would take me from the castle, and I would likely never return. But the finality of it, of divesting the room of all of my possessions, was something I hadn’t had a chance to consider. And that somebody–a breeder–would take my place? It felt obscene in a way I couldn’t describe.

The smirk of my father’s face stretched into a cruel grin. “Didn’t I mention that Lukas, the fucking coward, has promised me a breeder? She’s already given him two sons. Two! No useless fucking daughters.” He leaned back in his chair, waiting for me to reply. When I said nothing, he continued, “I’ll be hosting a party when the Grims and their joke of an Alpha return next week. We will provide the food, and they will provide the females. The Grims are said to produce excellent breeders.”

I bit back a disgusted grimace. I could feel my anger rising. How dare he talk about breeders this way? They were people too, even though most packs treated them as nothing but slaves. My mother had been a breeder, and the only thing she had done to deserve being sold to my father was being born poor.

“You’re lucky, Ember,” he goaded, flashing his teeth at me. “I’ve found you an Alpha, even if the bastard ran from a skirmish with his tail between his legs. You’ll be a Luna, which is more than you’ll ever be worth. I should’ve sold you off as a breeder years ago.”

“Sold me?” I screamed, unable to contain my boiling rage any longer. “You already have! Lukas is a vile, sadistic beast, and you’ve made me as good as a slave to him!”

My words rang in the long silence that followed. My anger faded as quickly as it had come, replaced instantly with seeping fear. In all of my years, I had never once raised my voice to the Alpha King. I had never openly defied him. I had never stood up to him, stood up for myself.

For a moment, my father gaped at me, his jaw hanging open. But then he crossed the room in four long strides, raised his arm, and backhanded me in the face with a resounding crack.

Fresh pain exploded across my already bruised cheek. Stunned, I fell back, the air rushing out of my lungs as I hit the cold stone floor.

“Don’t you ever fucking speak in my presence again,” my father hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously. I had never heard him speak so quietly, and it was far worse than if he had shouted. “You are a stupid, ugly, useless fucking whore, just like your disgusting breeder mother. Lucky for you that I need you alive to secure the alliance with the Grims, or I would choke the life out of you right now.”

Tears of pain and humiliation welled in my eyes and spilled over onto my cheeks. I desperately wanted to be anywhere but there in the office with the Alpha King, and I started to scramble up when he forced me back down with a boot on my chest.

“Did I say you could get up?” he spat, pressing down harder with his boot.

I opened my mouth to reply, and then remembered what he had just said about talking in his presence. Terrified, I shook my head.

“You don’t deserve to walk the halls of this castle.” He removed his foot from my chest and kicked me hard in the shoulder, knocking my arms out from under me. “You’ll fucking crawl.”

Unable to see from the tears streaming down my face, I slowly rose to my hands and knees and shuffled out of the room, feeling my father’s furious gaze following me as I passed through the doorway into the hallway beyond.

As soon as I was out of his sight, I scrambled up and ran as fast as I could back to my room. Why had I done that? Why had I talked back to my father? A sob wracked my thin body as I threw myself into my darkened chamber and onto my bed.

Behind my back, the door swung shut with a decisive thud.

I froze, my senses straining in the dark. Somebody had closed the door. Somebody was in my room.

“Hello?” I called, turning swiftly towards the door. “Who’s there?”

A shadow, darker than the others, detached itself from the inky blackness and moved smoothly towards me. Spooked, I backed up until the backs of my legs hit the edge of the bed, and I had nowhere else to go.

“Who are you?” I whispered, my voice strangled with panic. Had Lukas come back for me? Had he been waiting in my room to attack me, to take what he thought I owed him?

But then, as the figure moved closer, I realized that he was wearing a black cape with the hood pulled down to conceal his face.

“It’s you,” I breathed, relief spreading through me.

My savior didn’t answer as he stopped inches away from me. I could feel his breath ruffling my hair as he towered over me, but still I could not see his face, only the bottom of his clean-shaven, angular jaw.

He lifted one hand and lightly touched the place on my cheek where the Alpha King had struck me. I gasped at the gentle warmth of his fingers.

“Who are you?” I murmured, wanting nothing more than to reach up and pull back his hood.

But before I could, he produced a single white rose from his sleeve with a smooth, mesmerizing motion. My heart fluttered as he ghosted the fragrant petals of the flower against my parted lips before tucking the stem behind my ear. Smiling for the first time in a long time, I reached up to touch the silky white flower in awe.

He took the opportunity to produce a parcel wrapped in brown paper from within the depths of his cloak. Wordlessly, he pressed it into my hands, his fingers lingering on mine.

Intrigued, I immediately tore through the brown paper and gasped in surprise at the food that I found inside. There was a perfect red apple, a fragrant crust of bread, and another piece of chocolate, this one shaped like a circle and wrapped in red foil. The thought of eating a second piece of chocolate in as many days made me giddy.

I looked up through my eyelashes at my savior, who stood silently in front of me. I tried to imagine what he must look like beneath the cloak. What color was his hair? Were his eyes brown, or blue, or some other color entirely? Would I ever see his face?

I didn’t feel like I was moving of my own volition as I stepped even closer to the stranger, until my breasts lightly brushed the front of his shadowy cloak. The scent of him surrounded me, comforted me. It was as if I was in a trance. I didn’t know why I did it, only that it felt right.

Rising onto the tips of my bare feet, I closed my eyes and tipped my chin up so that my lips would meet his.

My mouth brushed his in a brief, dizzying kiss.

Breathless, I pulled back, and then smiled and opened my eyes.

The stranger was gone.

Stunned, I frantically peered into the shadows, trying to discern the outline of his cloak against the velvet darkness. But he had left as smoothly and silently as he had come. His gifts and the open window were the only evidence that he had even been there at all.

Unsure of how to feel, I sunk down onto the bed and stared down at the parcel in my hands for a long moment before gingerly picking up the circle of chocolate. I unwrapped it, smoothing the foil and tucking it under the mattress, and then bit the edge experimentally.

The rich, tangy flavors of cocoa and raspberry danced along my tongue, and I smiled even in the stranger’s absence.

“Thank you,” I whispered into the darkness.