“I won’t do that,” I said, slipping my arms around his neck.
“I didn’t think so.” Daniel smiled, stroking his fingertips up and down my back until my whole body was alive, trembling for more, and that ravenous, wild hunger raged inside me. I wanted to grab him and throw him on the bed, roll in him the way I’d wanted to roll in Evan. I leaned in, pressing my nose behind his ear and inhaling as long and deep as I could. He smelled like Evan and Jack, and not like them at the same time. He smelled like grass and that salty, mouthwatering smell that they all had, the heady scent of boy.
I pressed my nose against the crook between his neck and shoulder, breathing him in. Then I tasted him. His skin was saltier than Evan’s, and without the tang of rain.
“What was that?” he asked, his hands stilling on my back, cradling the bottom of my ribcage.
“I wanted to know what you taste like,” I said, my mouth still grazing his skin.
His hands tightened, pulling me closer. “Can I see what you taste like?”
I nodded, letting my own hands run down over his small, hard shoulders and the ropey muscles of his arms. He scooped me up in one swift movement, so suddenly it made a little cry escape my lips. Daniel laughed and lay me back on the bed. He gave me a wicked grin that made the flame inside me flicker and tremble. “Prepare to be tasted.”
He started at the base of my throat, where I’d tasted his skin, and moved down my body. I’d never realized how much sensation was hiding in my body, dormant like the falcon that had hidden inside me for all those years. It was as if I’d thought my body was only a vessel for my soul, the way my tower was a house for my body. Now, I found out I was so much more.
Just like his mouth was so much more than just something to eat or talk with. It was lips for tugging, a tongue for tasting, teeth for teasing, breath for caressing. It was a tool for exploring, for finding new territories that had never been claimed. But he didn’t just discover me. He awakened me. With each breath against my skin, he breathed soul into my body, until every inch of me was alive, vibrating with energy, life, and pleasure. As he worshipped each inch of my body that no one had ever noticed, he swept away the ashes and fanned the coals inside me until they were flames raging to consume.
When at last he brought me the same relief Evan had, I couldn’t tell if he’d devoured me or I’d devoured him. I just knew that my hunger had been sated.
Daniel sat back on his heels from where he’d been kneeling beside the bed, his grin firmly in place. His attention flickered, and he bent and plucked something off the floor under the edge of the bed. “You lost an earring,” he said, holding out his fingers.
When I reached out automatically, he dropped one of my tears into my palm. I snapped my hand closed around it, my heart racing. I knew where it had come from. I’d thrown it on the bed the first time I shifted, and I hadn’t thought of it again until this very moment. Mother Dear would kill me if she knew. And these boys, would they still like me just the same if they knew what I could do? Mother Dear always told me people would exploit my gift, and though I didn’t think the boys would, they might see me differently. They might not see me as just a simple girl, as simply me, if they knew that I could give them so much treasure they’d never want for anything again.
Before either of us could speak, I heard a sound that doused my fiery blood like a bucket of water in winter.
“Oh, Astrid,” Mother Dear trilled from outside the tower. “I’m home.”
“Oh shit,” Daniel said, jumping to his feet. “Is that your mom?”
I jumped up and grabbed Daniel, dragging him to the edge of the carpet. I threw it back and yanked up the hatch. “Go down,” I hissed.
“I just did,” Daniel said with a sloppy grin.
“Hurry,” I said, pushing him to the opening. He swung his legs into the darkness and started down.
“Throw down the basket,” Mother Dear called. “I don’t have all day.”
I didn’t have time for Daniel to climb down the ladder, so I eased the hatch closed, replaced the carpet, and raced to the window, my heart beating faster than Evan’s horse hooves.
“Coming,” I called, dropping the basket out the window. I glanced back over my shoulder and caught a glint of the teardrop I’d let fall back on the bed. Mother Dear would be furious to find a piece of treasure lying around. That always brought with it a punishment that produced another flood of treasure.
Mother Dear yanked on the rope, and I started pulling her up. Then I saw my dress still pooled on the floor where I’d left it when I shifted.
“My dress,” I gasped. I was already holding the rope, so I couldn’t go and grab it, but I couldn’t leave it in the middle of the floor. Mother Dear would wonder why I’d gotten dressed and then undressed in the same day. Before I had thought of a solution, Mother Dear had arrived, pulling up to the window and holding out an arm so I could help her inside. I maneuvered us around to face the basket while we took out her bags.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” she said. “It’s been a busy week.”
“What were you doing?” I asked, trying to sound casual. If I could hold it in, if I could make her think everything was okay, maybe Daniel would be okay. He might be downstairs a while, but when she left, he could escape. I gulped at the thought of what I’d done. He was downstairs. Down there. With all my treasure exposed.
He would know what I had, what I was.
“Oh, you know,” Mother Dear said.
“No, actually I don’t,” I said, unable to hold in a little of my bitterness.
Mother Dear turned to me, her eyes narrowed. “What’s gotten into you this year?” she asked. “You’ve been nothing but insolent since the eclipse. Am I not doing everything in my power to make you a queen for the rest of your life?”
I didn’t know what she was doing anymore. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be queen. It was something hypothetical that I didn’t fully understand, though I’d read it in a hundred stories. Mother Dear had prepared me for this my whole life, and I’d always known it was my destiny. I didn’t know if I was being a coward now or if my eyes had finally been opened, but all I wanted to do was run away with my boys and never have to see this room again.
“And what have I told you about leaving your clothes lying around?” Mother Dear said, marching over to my dress.
My heart stopped.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, rushing across the room to grab up my dress. I ran to the wall and hung my dress.
She stared at me so long I wondered if she could see my visitors on me like some kind of mark. “Don’t you think you should put that on instead of hanging it up?”
Crap. I’d been too nervous to think about getting dressed, and now I’d acted funny. I quickly pulled the dress over my head, apologizing all the while.
Mother Dear gave a sniff, the corners of her mouth pulling down. “This must be the first time you haven’t asked me how long I’m staying,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m more hurt that you haven’t missed me or relieved that you’re finally growing less annoying.” She gave a high laugh to show me she was kidding, but I wasn’t so sure anymore.
In truth, I hadn’t missed Mother Dear. I’d worried she’d come home and find me shifting, yes, but I hadn’t longed to see her walking through the woods, to hear her voice calling my name. I’d missed the boys I had just met more than the mother I’d always known. I had waited at the window for them, not her. I’d lifted my head from my work, my heart hammering, hoping I’d heard hoofbeats, hoping the crunch of leaves in the forest was one of them.
Guilt flooded through me at the realization.
“Do you want me to ask how long you’re staying?” I asked.
“Oh, darling, don’t be so sensitive,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’m only joking. I don’t know how long I’m staying. The wolf prince is being stubborn, my dear. He’s quite set on marrying that little usurper your father dragged back here. But don’t worry, my dear
, I’m working on them both.”
“What’s a usurper?” I asked, turning the word over. I liked the way it sounded, kind of slippery and hungry, the way my body felt when the boys were touching me.
“Don’t worry your silly little head about it now,” Mother Dear said with another wave of her hand.
“But I want to know,” I said. “Is it a kind of animal?”
“No, silly,” Mother Dear said, covering her heart and laughing like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. It used to make me feel strange when she did that, and now I knew why. She was laughing at my stupidity, except maybe I wasn’t stupid. Maybe I’d just never learned that because I was too busy learning how to sing and dance and paint and sew and bake for my future as queen.
“Shouldn’t I know these things if I’m going to be queen?” I asked. “If it’s going to affect me, if it’s keeping me from the prince, why can’t I know?”
“Well,” she said, her eyes widening and her laughter dying. “Aren’t we uppity today?”
“I just want the truth, Mother,” I said. “I don’t see why that’s so wrong.”
“Astrid wants the truth now,” Mother Dear said. “She’s too good to sit around in a lovely tower swimming in treasure with not a care in the world. She’s too good for the fine gowns I’ve bought her and the fancy dancing I’ve taught her. She’s too good to spend time with her dear mother who slaves night and day to bring her a bright and shining future full of hope.”
“I don’t want a future full of hope,” I said, throwing my hands up. “I want right now, full of whatever it holds, whether it’s hope or pain or uncertainty. I want today. I want the past sixteen years of my life back.”
As I spoke, my voice rose, and Mother Dear’s pretty blue eyes got bigger and bigger. Then they snapped into narrow slits, and she strained forward as if she was barely holding herself back from leaping onto me and throttling me. “Of course,” she said. “It’s all about you. You don’t care about me. You don’t care that I’m doing this for your sake. I’m protecting you from the heartbreak and devastation that I endured by making sure that you never have to face that. I’m making up for all the things I didn’t get to do in my life by making sure that you get the very best life. I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long, Astrid. I’m not perfect. I don’t get a happy ending. But you can, if you’ll just have a little more patience.”
“I don’t care about a happy ending,” I said. “And who’s to say your happy ending would be happy for me? I want my life to be my own. I don’t want to sit up here sewing and wallowing in my own tears. I want to be down there with everyone else.”
Mother Dear’s eyes flashed with that unearthly fire that she had instead of treasure, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing. “Everyone else?” she asked, her lips pulled back in a grin even as she spoke through clenched teeth. “Who is everyone else, Astrid? Has that boy been back to visit you? Is that it? While I’m out there trying to secure your marriage, you’re back here spreading your legs for any Romeo who calls up to your window, ruining yourself for your husband? It’s one thing to marry a stupid princess, quite another to marry a stupid slut.”
I shook my head, backing away as I saw the veins pulsing in her neck. Though I didn’t know all the words she used, tears filled my eyes at the venom in her voice. “What if I don’t want to marry the wolf prince?” I asked. “Can’t I marry a shifter prince?”
“There is no shifter prince,” she snarled. “And if there were, he would be your brother. Though knowing what you came from, I wouldn’t expect that to stop you.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “Where did I come from?”
“Do you really think a strong woman like me could produce a sniveling weakling like you?” she asked. “Even you can’t be that stupid.”
“What do you mean?” I asked again, swiping the tears from my cheek before they could solidify.
“If you had a boy up here, you’ve turned out to be trash despite my best efforts,” she said, striding to the window. “I’ll have shutters made so that you can’t see them again, and no one can get in.”
Despite my promise to myself, a cry burst from my lips. “No,” I said, running to the window and grasping her hands in desperation.
“You have been seeing that boy,” she cried, her face triumphant. “I knew it. But don’t worry, my dear. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, my princess. I’ll protect you from the harlot’s tragic fate.”
“Don’t close the windows,” I begged. “It’s all I have. You can’t lock me in the dark.”
“Oh, but you had to have a taste of love, didn’t you? Foolish girl. All men will tell you lies to get what they want from you. They don’t love you. Only I love you.”
“They do,” I whispered.
“You’re as crazy as your father’s first wife if you think love alone will be enough. It won’t, Astrid. You’ll grow old, and the men won’t line up for a turn with you then. They’ll turn their back on you for the hand of a woman who is richer, prettier, younger. All the singing in the world can’t save a bird when it’s in the cat’s mouth. The teeth of time will chew you up and leave nothing but feathers.”
“Then let me go down there before that happens,” I said. “Let me out.”
“Oh, darling, I wish I could,” she said. “I wanted to give you a good life, to keep you from those people your father rules, shifters who dwell in their own filth, poverty and shame. You’re not equipped to handle that life. You’re fragile.”
“I’m not,” I insisted.
“Life out there is hard. It would break you, Astrid.”
I could’ve told her the hard truth in return for hers—that it was no better to be broken by her than life. At least that way I would’ve lived.
Instead, I lowered my head and nodded, pretending to wipe at tears. I needed her to leave, even if it meant she was going to get wood to board up the windows. I couldn’t let her find Daniel, not with how angry she was.
“I was going to stay and have a nice dinner with you, but you’ve ruined my good mood,” she said. “Lower me down. I’ll be back tomorrow. I hope you can spend this time being properly ashamed of yourself for what you’ve done with that boy. In the meantime, I’ll be chopping that vine on the way down.”
She climbed into the basket, ordering me to lower her slowly. Halfway down, she brought out a long knife from her skirts and began to hack at the vines, tearing them away from the wall. Tears gathered in my eyes as I watched her bruise and tatter the lush green leaves, shredding the vines that had brought life to my window at last.
When she had finished, she ordered me to lower her to the ground. An overwhelming urge to drop her trembled through me, and my fingers clenched on the rope. I could let go. I could drop her so easily.
But she wouldn’t die. She was invincible. She would fly out of her body and come up here and steal mine, a body that was even younger than hers. Then she could live the life she always wanted with my body and her brain. She’d be the princess, rich with treasure and a voice like a siren, but she wouldn’t be the talentless idiot she raised. She would still be herself inside.
I shivered at the thought. I knew she couldn’t push me out of my body—yet. She had practiced on me, growing stronger as I resisted, but she couldn’t push me out. If she did, I would die. She’d told me that she’d never push hard enough to kill me. But now I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was only a matter of time. Once she grew strong enough to push me out, she might not hold back. She might just take my body. I had to get out before then.
Without releasing the rope, I lowered her the rest of the way. No matter how tempting, no matter how angry I became, I could never kill someone.
Mother Dear stepped out of the hair basket, then reached up as high as she could, and with a swipe of her knife, severed the rope.
“There,” she called. “Now if your lover comes calling, you won’t be tempted to lift him up.”
I didn’t answer, though I had to pres
s my lips together to keep from yelling after her that it was too late, he was already up here in this very room with me. In fact, she had left us trapped in the room together, and if we continued where we’d left off, he’d show me even more pleasures she didn’t want me to know about. She wanted me to live the life she’d never had, but not experience anything good of my choosing.
I was done with that, though. I was ready to choose.
Chapter Sixteen
Daniel
I sat in the dark for what felt like hours, trying to make sense of what was around me. I couldn’t see. The room was as black as the back of a blind man’s eyelid. But once I reached the bottom of the ladder, I’d tried to feel my way across the room. I hadn’t gotten far before I slipped on something loose on the floor. I almost fell, but at the last second, my hand caught the ladder. I stood there, my heart pounding and my breath coming fast.
I didn’t know exactly what the witch would do if she caught me. I hated thinking what she might be doing to Astrid up there. But I figured Astrid knew how to handle her mother by now. She’d hidden me down here, so her mother wouldn’t know, and I wasn’t about to screw it all up by falling on my clumsy ass. I slid my foot along the floor, feeling the shifting surface. Then I lowered myself, not daring to walk and risk making noise. I’d heard horror stories about witches—everyone had. Witches ate babies, or they’d curse your future children if you so much as bumped into them in a store and didn’t apologize.
I knew Astrid wasn’t like that, but her mom? No guarantees. I’d seen her around the Third Valley a few times. Besides the doctor, who served all supernatural creatures in the Three Valleys, she was the only witch I’d ever seen in our valley. People said she’d put a spell on the king, made him fall in love with her. Recently I’d heard that she was a body snatcher who was on probation from the coven for snatching another witch’s body. I didn’t pay much attention to gossip about witches since it had never concerned me. Until now.
I strained to make out the words above as Astrid and her mother talked, but I couldn’t. At the same time, my hands groped along the floor. It felt like I was sitting in a pile of smooth, cold pebbles. I picked one up and held it between two fingers, tracing its shape. It was rounded on one end, pointed on the other, and as smooth as if it had been shaped in a mold.
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