Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Smart . . . and utterly disgusting. She deserved death.
“This woman,” I finally said, pointing at the house in front of me, stopping the woman’s rant about someone named Girdy and her light fingers at the weekly market. “What is her name?”
“Aurelia.”
The name bloomed within my mind, so beautiful, so perfectly matching her essence. It was like a favorite song whose tune I remembered from my youth, but whose words I’d forgotten until just now.
“Thank you for your time.” I offered the woman a slight bow this time.
“‘Bout time justice was done.” The woman sniffed and went into her house.
What a strange reception for an intruder who meant part of the community harm.
What a horrible village.
I reached the front door. It wasn’t locked.
The smell accosted me first, a wave of a perfume so divine my knees about lost their strength. I sat in a single rocking chair facing the hearth, no other furniture in her sitting room. She clearly didn’t entertain.
A pot hung over ashes and I looked inside. Confused, looking back at the kitchen, I realized they didn’t have any sort of appliances for keeping things cold. Granny had all the modern amenities in her estate near the castle, but she was clearly keeping these people in the olden times, before a strange alliance between clever faeries and demons had learned how to leach energy from the human realm beyond the veil.
Why was Granny keeping this village locked in a time warp? To control them?
Figuring the woman, Aurelia, would’ve gotten rid of the contents if they weren’t fit to be eaten, I hunted through the small kitchen and found a spoon. Reaching in, I scooped up a bit out of curiosity and studied what I’d found. Stew, it looked like. Carrots, potatoes, meat . . .
Hesitantly, I sampled the concoction . . . and then moaned, closing my eyes as the tastes exploded on my tongue. I’d had a million stews made by all manner of people, from those working for royalty to the mates of my pack treating me to a homecooked meal. Nothing—nothing—had ever tasted this good. It wasn’t the ingredients, which were pretty standard fare, but the additions of . . . herbs, I guessed. Certain unusual spices? I couldn’t say, only that it tasted fucking divine.
Before I knew it, I’d finished the rest of the (somewhat meager) pot and looked for more. Finding none, I once again returned to the kitchen, looking in drawers and marveling at how immaculate everything was. She’d gone out earlier not knowing an invasion would occur. I’d warned her, yes, but clearly she hadn’t taken that to heart. She also hadn’t told anyone about our . . . meeting the night before. The gods only knew how she’d rationalized it, likely not recognizing our true mate bond or maybe even knowing what that was. Those without access to their animals didn’t usually get much coaching about shifter life or, like with true mate bonds in general, far-fetched possibilities. She’d left her cottage thinking she’d return home at some point.
My heart thumped against my chest painfully.
I’m ripping her away from her home. A place she clearly loves and looks after.
Breathing heavily against guilt I couldn’t control, I glanced at the books stacked on a side table. Gardening mostly, but with a couple action-adventure titles randomly stuck in.
I ran my finger over the lettering on the spine. Action-adventure was a genre I gravitated toward, liking it above all others. Add in a little murder mystery and I was in heaven. I didn’t recognize these titles.
I’d look them up when I got back to the castle. I didn’t need to know her reading habits for this duty but fuck it, I wanted to. I wanted to know what made her tick. Who she was. Why we were destined for each other.
Honestly, I wanted to conclude that the whole “true mates” business was nothing but random, primal bad luck. That it had nothing to do with me personally. It would make my duty that much more bearable.
She had two bedrooms. I avoided where she slept for a moment, choosing instead the other room, the door closed tightly. Curiosity burned through me as I opened it slowly, feeling like I was entering a secret space. A private space, somewhere no one entered but her. And likely that was the case, given what was said by Mr. Poet and then her neighbor, two people who should’ve at least been congenial. Instead, they’d sounded like they’d wanted her to be taken away, both because of her “affliction” and because of her role in the community.
One of those I couldn’t fault.
The door swung open fully exposing images that assaulted me in the best of ways. The walls held drawings made with pencil and charcoal; the room was crowded with art, each one more interesting and eye-catching than the last. I looked at every one, seeing a bird from an interesting viewpoint, a tree with such exquisite detail I felt like I was looking at the real thing, a fantasy land with a sense of longing. Every one of them sucked me in, leaving me captivated until I had to tear myself away again.