Prince of Bears: Autumn Court #2 (Rosethorn Valley Fae Romance)
Page 11
She played with the faucets until it was raining down warmly in the glass box.
Willow had a wealth of scented bathing products.
Ashe tried them all and finally emerged feeling decadent in her silky sleeping costume.
She glanced at the kitchen, knowing she should probably eat something.
But she was exhausted, and the bed called to her.
The near bedroom wall was festooned with snapshots and Ashe looked at them on her way past without thinking.
She was in most of them.
Or at least she appeared to be in them. She knew it wasn’t really her, but the resemblance was uncanny.
The fae created changelings for all sorts of reasons. And when they swapped a fae babe for a mortal one, the fae child physically transformed into an exact duplicate of the mortal babe, so that the human parents would not suspect a thing.
If Willow were here right now, her own parents would not be able to tell which of them was which by sight.
Another pang reminded Ashe that they were really her own parents.
She searched the wall for answers about the life that had been stolen from her.
There were pictures of Willow with a group of other young women doing various fun things outdoors. There were photos of her in a black gown with a strange black hat with a golden tassel hanging down. There was a photo of her in her work uniform outside the diner.
And in the center was a photo of Willow outdoors with a happy smile on her face. A boy who looked an awful lot like her was next to her on a park bench. And behind them were two smiling adults.
“Mother and Father,” Ashe whispered reverently.
Her own parents had never smiled that hard. And they certainly weren’t up for outdoor romps with Ashe and her brothers.
Even in their portraits, they were always frowning. And her mother and father were in separate portraits, hung on opposite sides of the palace’s gargantuan dining room.
Something about the warmth and simplicity of this casually happy image Willow had chosen as the centerpiece of her pictures made Ashe smile too, and feel a hungry little ache for the life that had been taken from her.
Funny, she hadn’t expected to find anything about Willow’s life to be better than the one she had known in Faerie.
She flicked the lights off, headed to Willow’s soft bed and climbed in. Eventually, she would have to start thinking of these things as her own. But that would come with time, and she had all she needed.
Though she had expected to toss and turn she felt herself drifting off into into a deep, dreamless sleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
She awoke sometime later, in almost total darkness, her heart pounding.
Someone was in the room with her - she could sense it.
There was the sound of tiny claws on the hardwood.
She felt around for the switch of the lamp at her bedside.
It clicked on at last to reveal a puppy sitting on the floor beside her bed.
She sighed in relief.
“I didn’t know Willow had a puppy,” she told the little creature. How had she missed that? It must have been sleeping when she came in.
It cocked its head like it was really listening, causing one ear to flop up while the other stayed down. It looked like a tiny version of one of the guard dogs they kept in her court back home.
“Come here,” she said, scooping it up.
It snuggled into her arms, warm and soft. Maybe it had just been hiding from her when she came in. Its sensitive little nose probably knew right away that she wasn’t the real Willow.
Though she hadn’t noticed a water bowl, or pet food, or anything else that pointed to a puppy.
A pink tongue swiped her nose and she laughed in spite of herself.
Something drew her eye to the shadowy corner of the room.
A man sat in a chair, observing her.
He was long and lanky, with dark hair and the chiseled jawline of the Fae. His dark eyes glittered.
Ashe instinctively clutched the pup closer.
“Who are you?” she demanded, in what she hoped was a confident authoritative tone. “What are you doing in my house?”
“This isn’t your house,” he replied slowly and deliberately.
She felt a tingle of awareness at his deep voice, though she should have been frightened.
“Yes, it is,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.
“It’s not your house and it’s not your life,” he said, standing. “Let’s go, Princess.”
He held out his hand, and for a moment she wondered if she wouldn’t just follow him to the ends of the earth. What had come over her? Was he using some sort of spell? She didn’t think so.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
A sympathetic expression appeared on his handsome face and he sat on the bed.
Willow was indignant.
The pup wiggled out of her arms and went to him, curling up half in his palm, as if he were an old god.
“I know it hasn’t been easy for you,” the man said gently. “But you don’t belong here.”
“I don’t belong anywhere,” Ashe heard herself say. “But this is my home now. Go chase the real princess and leave me alone.”
“You’re coming with me, Ashe,” he said. “You can come quietly, or I can drag you kicking and screaming. But like it or not, you’re coming.”
She raised her hand to slap him.
Quick as a thought, he caught her wrist in his huge hand.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said softly, looking away.
But all Ashe could do was stare at him, lips parted.
Against every instinct, bolts of desire coursed through her veins at his touch.
“Please,” she murmured, unable to remember what she was pleading for.
***
Thanks for reading this sample of Prince of Wolves.
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