Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“What do you think?”
“It’s all very nice, thank you.” I choke out the words, not wanting to seem ungrateful, but ingratitude is the least of my emotions. The real feeling is something closer to rage. Why do I have a tiara today, when yesterday I was locked in a closet so I could not run before being sold?
“It is overwhelming, I imagine. Don’t worry. You’ll have maids to help you dress if you like.”
“Oh, good. I was worried I’d have to dress myself.”
I try not to be sarcastic, but it seeps through, earning me a concerned look from Armand.
“You’re tired,” he says, unable to even consider the notion a young woman might be anything less than wildly impressed by being festooned with finery.
I’m living the dream, but I know that it overlays the misery of the rest of my life, and the reality of the world outside these walls. It can’t be real, and if it is, it shouldn’t be.
“Yes,” I say. “I think I am.”
I try to force a smile. It doesn’t feel natural, but it seems to satisfy him.
“Do you want to eat, or nap, or…”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“I’ll have some food brought to the bedroom,” he says. “And we can talk.”
“What are we going to talk about?”
“Everything,” he says.
Nothing, I think to myself.
“You knew you were a wolf when you were young. You told the people at the orphanage, and they punished you, but you knew. Does that mean you have memories of being part of a pack?”
A bowl of grapes sits between us. I am not hungry. The question alone makes me nauseous.
I stare at him blankly. He might own me, but he does not own the access to my memories.
He pauses, then tries again.
“Last night, on the train, you took your wolf form. So you know how to shift.”
I can’t deny that, but I also don’t need to confirm it, so I stay silent.
“How old are you exactly, Beatrix?”
“They tell me I’m almost nineteen.”
“And how long have you been shifting?”
I shrug. I don’t like being asked questions at the best of times, and being interrogated puts me in a very bad mood. Who is he to simply demand knowledge from me? My secrets are the only things I have, and I have learned over painful years to keep them to myself.
I shrug. “I don’t know,” I lie.
“Can you tell me the first time you realized you could take the form of an animal?”
He rephrases the question, and I realize I am going to have to tell him something. He’s not going to stop asking if he doesn’t think he knows, and I don’t want to sit here in this fancy chair for hours while he grills me.
“I’ve always known that was possible. Since I was little. I don’t remember a time I didn’t know. Except for when they drugged me into not knowing, and called me a liar, and told me I was sick in the head, and I got confused about it, but…”
I see the tension in him rising as I tell him those things. He doesn’t like them. They make him feel sorry for me. I don’t want that either, so I stop talking.
“Someone told you what you were?”
“I don’t remember. I just know I knew.”
He nods. “So you must have had contact with someone who told you about yourself. Your parents, perhaps? Do you remember them?”
I shake my head. “I don’t remember anything before the orphanage. I was seven years old when I was taken there, and it feels like that was when my life started.”
“But you knew then you were a wolf.”
“Yes.”
“And at some point, you shifted for the first time.”
“I don’t remember that either.”
He frowns, as if he doesn’t believe me. He’s right not to. The first time I shifted is blazed into my mind and my body. I could never forget it, even if I wanted to.
“Why does the answer matter? How old were you when you first shifted?”
“I was rather prodigal, just seven years old, but women, female wolves, they tend not to be able to shift until they reach full maturity and meet their mate. It is part of the bond.”
“Huh,” I say, as all the ramifications of that statement kick in, this finely painted ceiling developing cracks around the chandelier, metaphorically speaking as all the obvious inferences and such come crashing down around us. This is why he cares. He’s not trying to get to know me. He doesn’t care about my terrible past. He’s trying to work out if I am a virgin or not. I’d laugh, if it wasn’t so tragic.
“You think I’ve been fucking other guys.”
“Have you?”
“None of your business.”
“I disagree,” he says. “It’s very much my business.”
“Why? How many women have you been with?”
“A number, but that is not important.”
I laugh at his open double standards. I wonder if anybody has disagreed with him in years. He is like the orphanage director, so used to being able to dictate reality to people who have no choice but to obey him, he has forgotten that it’s possible for someone to say no to him, or disagree with him, or otherwise defy him in some way.