Chapter 4.

Feyre’s POV

I was taken to a much smaller room than the one I’d originally been shown, given the progression of events. My neck still ached, the memory of the Lycan King’s crushing grip etched into the slate of my consciousness. Garrick wordlessly showed me inside, turning back out and bolting the door shut so that I was locked it alone. I turned around to take in the room.

There was a narrow bed inside along with a modest desk and chair. Nothing else adorned the room by way of furnishing or decoration. A single door stood on the other side of the wall. I opened it to see a small bathroom with a shower installed to boot.

A tiny window opened to the outside, the only source of light and ventilation. Two scones were perched on the wall, but the fading rays of the sun, still yet to set, provided enough light for the moment. I didn’t bother to put them on.

Evening was fast approaching, I thought walking to the window. I had somehow managed to survive my first day within that ruthless man’s grasp, if only barely.

Literally and figuratively.

My hand crept up to my mother’s necklace, the familiar edges of the leaf pressing against my thumb as I rubbed it mindlessly. It brought me little comfort, my mind far away from the few sweet memories I had of the past due to the threat of the future that loomed oppressively. Fear rooted in my chest at the thought of what had happened and what could.

I stood there, mind heavy, watching as darkness fell over the city. A knock came at my door two hours later and I did not bother to go to it, seeing as it was locked from outside. I turned instead, both afraid and relieved for as little as the sight of another person. The thud and creak of the bolt being lifted reached my ears and then the door opened, revealing a maid holding a tray.

I didn’t realize till then how hungry I actually was. I had no real appetite, but I hadn’t even had breakfast. It would do me some good to eat. I thanked her as she placed it on the desk, resisting the urge to call out as she left. She was not here to distract me from my misery or anxiousness. Besides, it was only the first day. I had no right to be lonely already.

I was already used to solitude in a sense. I’d faced enough of it for many years even in my father’s house. Anxiousness licked at my insides at the thought of him. Would King Xaden carry out his threat to destroy my pack? Would I be sent back? I shuddered. Father would kill me for failing a task as little as this. I wasn’t even good enough to be a whore. How useless could a daughter be?

I forced myself to eat what I could of the lamb stew I had been served. In truth, it was lovely. Very well spiced, the lamb tender. I simply did not have enough joy to find pleasure in it and I abandoned it after my stomach no longer cramped.

I stayed alone like that for the rest of the night, haunted by my many thoughts and growing fears.

The next day, the knock came again. The maid entered once more, with more food, and water.

Garrick came in the afternoon, shortly after the maid had dropped off my lunch. I was as relieved as once could be to see their captor’s right-hand man, my eagerness for interaction trumping my dislike of him. Passing the hours staring at the walls did things to a person. Made them crave other people. No matter how undesirable the conversation.

“Has the maid been attending to you?” He said even though the tray of my untouched lunch was perched clearly on the table.

“Yes,” I answered, nervous as to his presence here.

He nodded curtly. “Good.” To my horror, he turned around, reaching for the door.

“No!” I burst out, making him pause. He glanced back at me with a raised brow.

“I─I… What’s happening? Out there I mean?” I asked awkwardly. He frowned.

“I haven’t been instructed to inform you of anything Miss Manning. You’ll be called upon when you’re needed.” He said and started for the door again. I shuffled forward, pushed by my paranoia about my impending fate.

“Please,” I begged, desperate for any crumb of information I could get. He hesitated a moment, before closing the door and turning back fully to me. I clutched at the skirt of my dress, fingers white at the knuckles, unable to contain my eagerness

“Yesterday, the King contacted your father and threatened war in retribution for bringing you for a prize instead of a wolf who can shift. He demands a replacement be brought before him within the next twenty-four hours and this time, he was rather specific about who he wants. Your half-sister Phyna has been requested in your stead.”

I gasped, the sound echoing in the space between us. Phyna was barely eighteen, the first child of my father and his fated mate. The woman he’d met and married shortly after my mother died. We’d never really been close, with her having inherited her mother’s distaste for me, but she was barely a child. Not even eighteen yet. Surely he didn’t mean to have her as his… disgust filled my belly. The gods spare us all from this man’s evil.

“If not met, His Majesty promises to raid the entirety of your pack and capture as many females as he can for himself and his men. Those they do not need, they will sell to other packs.”

My legs trembled so badly that I thought I would fall. I knocked my knees and stared at him, fear stealing the color from my face.

“Your father offered his most profound apologies for the King’s dissatisfaction. He requested to come to the palace to renegotiate. He is on his way to the capital as we speak and is expected to arrive in the evening. We will review his terms and His Majesty will decide if it is enough to compensate for this… misunderstanding.”

I swallowed.

“A─And… And me? What does His Majesty mean to do with me?”

He shrugged lightly as if we were not discussing my very existence. Resentment unfurled in me, a flower newly bloomed underneath the glare of my pain and uncertainty.

“You’ll likely be called upon after your father’s arrival. His Majesty will decide what to do with you then.”

I swallowed again, my mouth inexplicably dry. Did I want to know what he was going to do with me?

“Will that be all My Lady?” Garrick asked, the tinge of impatience in his tone snapping me out of my inflection.

“Will he let me go?” I asked in a small, tired voice. I knew he probably didn’t have the answer or power to respond to that, but I was scared. It had been almost a full day and my neck still stung, the bruise left by his grip only just starting to heal. I touched it gingerly, wincing at the contact. His eyes followed the movement and some of the annoyance seeped out of them.

“I genuinely have no idea. We’ll find out after your father comes.”

He left me after that, alone and in even more turmoil than I’d been before this information.

The King had asked for my sister and instead of eagerly offering her like he’d done with me or just giving in to stoke further wrath, my father was coming here. To renegotiate. For her. Something he would never, ever do for me.

It hurt. Badly.

I suppose I should have been used to it by now. It was no secret to anyone my father valued the family he’d made with his fated mate almost as much as he resented me.

He’d married my mother out of necessity for his pack. Not love. And now, her tainted lineage, as he always put it, had cursed one of his children to never have a wolf form like a normal werewolf.

He’d found his fated mate barely a year after my mother’s untimely death. I was happy my stepmother had come in the aftermath. I couldn’t imagine what it would have done to my mother to watch him treat us like that. My stepmother Marissa had contributed to making life difficult for me in my father’s house, but he had been my biggest detractor. Their two children Phyna and Alaric were as loved by the pack, both already possessing the strong vibrant wolf forms that had been expected of me.

Father absolutely doted on them, especially Phyna. Was it any surprise that he would hurry over here to see how he could save his precious daughter. After all, she unlike me, would be very useful. She had a wolf. A strong one at that. One who would find a high-ranking mate and create a strong alliance.

A knock came at my door in the evening and I rose from the bed on which I sat, anxious now for what was to come.

The maid clambered in a moment later, her usual tray of food and water in hand. She dropped it on the table after a short bow and then turned back to the door, completely oblivious to my held breath.

“Wait!”

I stopped her this time. She paused and turned to me with wide eyes.

“Yes, Miss?”

I hesitated. Was she not aware I was to be at the meeting? Or had the King not asked for me yet? Had my father even arrived? I needed to know what was going on.

“I… Is my father here yet?” I asked out of all the numerous questions that flitted about my head.

“Oh no, ma’am. I’m not trusted with that sort of information. I just deliver the food.”

And with that, she turned back to the door.

“No! Wait!” I called out again but she paid me no mind. In another moment, she was gone leaving me to wonder where my father was and what fate awaited me after he arrived.