Chapter 41

"Blame me," Arik said, the arrogant bastard just staring at me like he had a right to. I heard his litany of sins, his heartfelt admission and felt…

… a need to add to them, to catalogue all the slights, big or small, that he'd imposed upon me; to make clear all the ways he'd embarrassed me, shamed me.

Hurt me.

I vigorously elbowed that thought aside, not wanting to give Arik even that small amount of power. Instead, I stood tall, not that it made much of a difference in the fact of their towering height and stared them all down.

"You're safe here," Saffron had said earlier this morning after her brows had creased more and more while, along with the three other women, she had listened, shaken her head, and widened her eyes.

I'd told them my story. Well, most of it. The words had come out in fits and starts, scalding my throat just like the strong herbal tea Hazel had poured for me. I'd dimly heard a screeching voice in my head warning me that telling Creed's family and Marian of his exploits was unwise. But in the face of such gentle, uncritical attention, it'd all came rushing out, like the poison from a lanced boil.

"No matter what you decide, mind," Hazel added, much more firmly. "So don't go thinking that you need to accept my grandson's suit just to find safety. No wolf shifter worth his salt…" She let out a small growl, the animal sound completely at odds with her grandmotherly facade. "…would allow a woman to be dragged from packlands to—"

"He kills his wives?" Fern broke in, bewildered, as she glanced at the other women. "For what purpose? Why would he take a mate just to kill her?"

"Human beings get mental diseases that do not plague our kind." Saffron shot me an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Jessalyn, but human men—"

"Are bastards?"

I finished her sentence, and they all snorted, staring at each other, then me with smiles forming where there was no reason to be.

"Human men are bastards," Saffron confirmed with a nod, which we all mirrored.

And I still felt the truth of those words as I stood at Marian's front door, facing off all four of them. The crisp scent of crushed greenery wafted upwards as I clasped the flowers to my chest and took a deep breath in. And then, for once, I said my piece without editing my response.

"You did all of those things," I said, acknowledging Arik with a nod. "All of them. Some I still can't make sense of."

I closed my eyes, and, for a moment, I was there in that room down by the docks when he'd pushed me towards Creed. Had Arik known what I was then to Creed? Were there any limits to his depravity? I shook my head, trying to dislodge that thought as Arik pulled in a breath, ready to tell me.

But I didn't want that.

Not his excuses or his explanations, regardless of how very complicated they might be, because there wasn't one thing that he could say that would make a difference. They'd brought me to Khean, carting me closer to the king who had summoned me from beneath my father's roof just to kill me. Roan might've protected me from a catamount, but I was only there for the cat to attack because they'd taken me out into the wilds in the first place. Every indignity, every moment of fear could be laid at their feet. And yet, when I replied, I didn't dwell on any of that. I was pointed and clear.

"I don't want to blame you," I told Arik, seeing that brief spark of relief there, one I was about to smother. "I don't want to point the finger at anyone. It seems to me a terribly childish impulse to indulge in, and I am no child."

I drew in a breath, remembering Hazel's words, and I paraphrased them.

"Master Creed, the women of your family have given me something I've wanted my entire life but never dreamed it might be possible to possess." I nodded, smiling mirthlessly. "Freedom. They've made clear that no force known to man will have me removed from the packlands. That here I am…" My breath came out in a long shudder. "I am safe."

For a moment I couldn't continue because that previously unimaginable idea was still too fresh, too raw, inside me. I wanted to pull it out and inspect it from every side to make sure the concept was sound.

"I don't know if I've ever felt that way before."

That seemed strange, to say that even of my life within my father's castle. But it had always been his house, his rules, his perilously high standards that I'd been told I needed to meet, and I recognised now that Mother had simply been following the strictures that she'd had placed on her.

I stared down at the posy in my hand, seeing the delicate little blooms and feeling some empathy as they shifted slightly in response to the breeze, because I felt just the same. Plucked from the soil, collected up and arranged, just to be given away to someone else.

I didn't want to be a damn flower anymore.

I wanted to be a tree, tall, soaring up into the sky, roots buried so deep in the earth no one would be able to dig me up. They'd be forced to move around me.

The feeling of being ungrateful, graceless, rose up as I thrust the flowers back into Creed's hands and closed his fingers around them.

"I need to get to know who I am, what I might become in such an environment, Master Creed, so while I accept your apology, I cannot take these flowers."

Because such gifts would just be coin paid to make a claim on my time. They'd be buying my attention, my regard, and while I couldn't tell you what I wanted instead, I knew instinctively that such things weren't it.

I had kept my gaze locked on the flowers because meeting Creed's eyes, or Silas', or Roan's brought it all back: the searing heat of their fingers on my flesh, the feelings of pleasure so dizzying that I could still feel the aftershocks of it, even now. The idea of never feeling that again seemed torturous, but I frantically reasoned with my own impulses. There would be other men, any number of men, if that's what I wished for. And surely the same lightning we'd been able to conjure between us could be made to strike between me and men who treated me with far more respect.

"But thank you for thinking of me."

I nodded, then pulled away, back into the haven of the cottage, away from them, and most of all away from the searing look of pain on Creed's face as I closed the door between us.

My lungs heaved while I gasped in air, as if what I'd just done was run a marathon not reject the advances of men who hadn't treated me with the respect I deserved. Though in some ways, that was an apt comparison. It had taken effort to hand back those flowers. I'd exercised muscles I didn't even know I possessed, and that's why my breath was coming in fast. Mother Marian walked in from the workroom adjoining the sickroom, her eyes flicking my way as she took in my state.

"Are you well, Jessalyn?" she asked me.

I forced myself to smile, because sometimes one had to pretend before one's dearest wish came true.

"I am, Mother Marian."

"Just Marian," she chided me, bustling over and inspecting the wound on my head with gentle fingers. "That seems to be coming along nicely. Now, since we had such a hearty meal at Saffron's place, maybe take some tea and biscuits as you sit out in the garden. Sun and fresh air, they're the best thing for a convalescing patient."

I blinked, forcing myself to replace my view of the four men on the other side of the door with the pretty back garden of the cottage.

"That would be lovely, Marian."

I spent a lazy afternoon sitting under the sun with a book in my lap that I read from only intermittently. My eyes struggled to follow the words at times, my focus fractured, and my head still throbbed dully in time with my heartbeat. Instead, I dozed or simply gazed out past the back fence of Marian's garden, watching families at work or children playing in the distance. I was only a little startled when Fern appeared beside the back gate, and instead of going to the bother of opening it, she threw herself over the fence with a graceful leap.

"So, you rejected my brother?"

"Well… Fern—"

"It's alright if you did." She grinned down at me. "He's a bloody idiot anyway, so it makes sense that you would. And those other boys…" She shook her head sharply. "Human men are one thing, but pretty ones?" She let out a long hiss. "Gran always says that pretty and arrogance rise in the presence of the other." Her hands formed two lines, each one slowly rising. "The prettier they are, the more arrogant, but those men don't matter. Come and have dinner with me in the dining hall." And she flipped one hand over and held it out.

I stared at her hand and then took it, her grip strong and firm as she hauled me to my feet.

"Shouldn't I put on a fresh dress?"

Fern looked me up and down.

"Not unless that's what you want. You could wear a potato sack and no one would think twice about it." Her brow wrinkled. "Old lady Blossom used to do that from time to time. The elders thought it was because she was starting to lose her mind but turns out she had fleas and the fibres of the hessian kept them away, while making it easy for her to scratch."

I blinked, unable to reconcile that mental image, but Fern just smiled.

"And anyway, you look pretty in that dress. The green really suits you. Brings out the accents in your eyes. You'll have plenty of boys chasing after you." I must have pulled a little on her hand as she led me back to the gate because she stopped and turned to regard me again, then shrugged. "If that's what you want. But some slices of tender spring lamb? You'll definitely want that. It'll melt in your mouth, I promise you."

My stomach rumbled, making my decision for me. We walked through the gate arm in arm, and I enjoyed just listening to her chatter as we made our way down the lane and towards the dining hall.

It was a large building, with a broad roof that formed a wide veranda over the eating area. Tables and chairs were set up across the whole massive floor, a great fire pit at one end. Comforting waves of heat hit me as we walked in, carrying the savoury aroma of good food being produced.

"Evening, Fern—"

A good-looking male wolf shifter got to his feet, shouldering his way forward with an easy smile.

"Nope." I watched with fascination as she lifted her hand then made a decisive motion in front of her because it stopped the male from speaking or getting any closer. "Jessalyn and I are going over there to have something to eat and you're going to toddle back to your table and sit down with those boys you call your pack."

This was the moment when he'd grab her wrist, haul her closer and make clear the error of her ways. He had to, didn't he? It seemed not, because instead his jaw clicked shut, the muscle flexing for a second. What he did next was the most surprising thing of all. He backed away with a nod before doing exactly what she'd told him to.

"How…?" My head whipped from her to him and back again, taking in what had just happened but unable to understand it. "What…?"

"Mum tells me that human women aren't taught to be frank with men. Is that right?" Fern asked.

"If I had tried to behave in a such a manner, I'd have had my skirts lifted before the entire court and had my arse spanked raw."

My words came out in a great rush.

"Spanked…?" Her eyes narrowed. "You might be tiny, but you're no child."

"Tell that to your brother and his pack," I muttered.

"What?" Her arm went around my shoulders and she steered me towards a long table filled with other young women. "Jessalyn, these are the other single women of the pack. Now, back to what you were saying! Did you say Creed… spanked you?"

Every eye swivelled around to focus on me, looks of concern and shock on each face.

"While I was trussed up like a side of beef," I said, sensing I had a receptive audience. "I didn't want to say anything in front of your mother—"

"Good thing too. She'd have had his guts for garters if she found out. So what else has that idiot been up to?"