Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir
Chapter Three
After a truly enjoyable night of running at full throttle through the woods at a furious pace, Theo returned back to the castle during the wee hours. He walked back through the hidden entrance, still panting and catching his breath from the run, and holding his shirt in his hand as the dim candlelight reflected off the beads of sweat that rolled down the muscles of his chest.
The forest had been beautiful, and he had run for much longer than he had anticipated. Fortunately, at night in the castle, no one was out of their rooms this late. When he got back inside the castle walls, he headed to get a glass of water to take to his room. He thought about how much he would have preferred to stay in the forest all night; to drink water from the fresh, cool stream instead of the kitchen spigot; to fall asleep against the soft moss instead of the rickety wooden bed in the castle. But he knew that he couldn’t stay out until the morning. There would be no way to sneak back in without anyone noticing him in daylight, and his absence for an entire day would surely not go unnoticed. So instead, he would have to settle for the water from the kitchen.
What were the chances that he would bump into Marquette again within the course of the same few days? At least this time, he noticed her before he knocked against her. He didn’t, however, notice her before he lost his chance to slip away unseen. They were both walking toward the kitchen from opposite directions in the corridor.
“Theo,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you down here.”
“I didn’t expect to see you down here either,” he said in surprise. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Marquette answered.
He noticed that she looked troubled as if she’d had a nightmare.
“I thought that I would come and get a glass of water,” she said as she looked at him. Her eyes trailed over his bare chest and glistening skin. “Were you training at this hour?”
Theo suddenly thought about how odd it must have looked that he was shirtless and sweating in the middle of the night when he should have been soundly asleep. He guessed that training was probably a more believable excuse than any he could have come up with on the spot.
“Yeah,” he said quickly. “I couldn’t sleep either so I thought that I would get in some extra training time. Then I got thirsty, so I came to get water too.”
They stood transfixed on each other in the hallway. Neither seemed to want to move, and neither knew what else to say. But then, when the light in the corridor caught Theo’s eyes at just the right angle, Marquette let out a little gasp and took a step closer to him.
“Your eyes,” she said in awe.
Theo was startled and didn’t know what she was talking about. Her proximity to him was dizzying. He could smell the intoxicating scent of her skin, and it felt as if all of his senses were heightened, even more than usual.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“They’re glowing.”
Theo immediately put his hand up to cover his face. After just having come from a run in his shifted form, and then being so enthralled by Marquette, he hadn’t been thinking about controlling himself. He had walked into the corridor with his wolfish eyes still glowing yellow. She reached up to pull his hand down, and when her fingers touched his, it made his body tremble.
“Don’t,” he said.
He didn’t know what else to say. He had no plausible explanation as to why his eyes were glowing yellow. He couldn’t blame it on a trick of the light, not when Marquette was so close and too smart to fall for such a lame excuse. The only thing that he could do was prevent her from seeing anything more and downplay and dismiss it. He was getting good at ignoring things, and maybe Marquette would just ignore it too. But the more Theo tightened his hand against his face, the more Marquette gently wrapped her fingers around his and stepped even closer to him still.
“Theo, please,” she said. “Let me see your eyes.”
“No.”
He could feel that she had gotten closer to him. He could feel her warm breath against his face and the soft silk of her nightgown against his chest. The small space between them was thick with a sexual angst that hung heavy in the air.
“You don’t need to hide from me,” Marquette said. “But I won’t force you to open yourself to me either.”
Marquette loosened her hand from his, but instead of just letting go and walking away, she reached for the hand that was hanging down by his side instead. She took the shirt from his hand and then threaded her fingers in his.
“Come on,” she said as she started to walk slowly toward the kitchen, guiding Theo along with her as she went. “You can keep your eyes covered if you want, but I know you’re still thirsty.”
Theo didn’t quite know what to make of the situation. On the one hand, it almost seemed as if Marquette knew. He knew that she had seen his glowing yellow eyes, and yet she didn’t seem afraid. She didn’t press him about what it was or what he was. It was almost as if she already had a hint of knowing. He thought back to childhood, but he couldn’t remember any time that she might have seen anything that would have given away his family’s secret. They had always been so careful not to reveal themselves, even to Marquette. And anytime that Theo recklessly and accidentally slipped up with a shift or partial shift that wasn’t supposed to happen, his mother always came through with some sort of convincing way to explain it away to any human that may have caught an unsettling glimpse.
As they walked hand-in-hand, Theo felt the softness of Marquette’s palm against his. And he felt the occasional rub of their shoulders next to each other. He tried to focus on something innocuous to get control over his feelings and then over his body. By the time they had reached the kitchen, he could feel that the simmering in his eyes had gone and that it was safe to remove his hand from his face.
Theo slowly dropped his hand and looked at Marquette, who was still standing beside him. She stared into his eyes, which were now back to their humanly dark brown color. She looked at him intently as if there were a proclamation that hung from the tip of her tongue, but instead, she said nothing at all. She did what Theo had become so good at doing; she pretended it hadn’t happened. When Marquette slid her hand out of his to go and pour them both some water, Theo’s fingers held on to hers for a moment. She hadn’t expected him to tighten his grasp, but when he did, she stopped and turned back toward him. He didn’t want to let her go, and she didn’t want him to either.
Eventually, though, the moment had to go in one direction or the other. If one of them didn’t move soon, then ignoring it would no longer be a viable option. Theo loosened his grasp enough to let Marquette pull her hand out of his again. She handed him back his shirt and then went to fill their water glasses. Then, they both walked to the doorway together. This time, when they walked down the corridor beside each other, they were silent and kept their eyes either toward the hallway in front of them or gazing down at the floor. Marquette put the glass to her lips, and as she drank, Theo imagined what it would be like to taste her lips on his. When Marquette reached the door of her room, she politely said goodnight and waited to see if Theo had anything else he wanted to say to her.
“Goodnight, Marquette,” was all that he said.
After she had gone inside her room and closed the door, Theo stayed standing there in the hallway outside her room for a lingering minute. He wondered if she was standing just on the other side of her door, not wanting to go yet either.
When he got back into his room, he set his cup and shirt down and then laid down on the top of his bed. He stared up at the ceiling, and his mind became flooded with thoughts of Marquette. He had gone running in the wilderness as a wolf tonight to clear his mind, but instead, he now found it more cluttered than ever. This time, it wasn’t cluttered by thoughts of duty and responsibility that made him feel trapped and constricted. This time, it was overrun with thoughts of Marquette, which made him feel free and more content than he had ever felt before. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and wondered if she was lying in her bed consumed with thoughts of him as well. If he could have peeked inside her door, he would have been able to see that she was.
As he drifted off to sleep right before the dawn began to break through the sky, he was focused on a singular thought that was suddenly strong enough to overcome the reservations that he had before. He realized that he wanted, no, needed, to spend more time with Marquette.