Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir
Chapter Two
Samar told them she had been accused of being a witch in her last kingdom because of her two different colored eyes, which she had been born with. And that the others in her kingdom were not only afraid of her for being different than they were, but that she had become afraid for her life when they started to follow her around the city and insinuate that she wouldn’t be around another winter.
“It was at that point that I knew I had to leave,” Samar said. “I ran straight out of the gates and didn’t stop until I had made it here to Grenvich. I had heard about your kingdom before. My mother used to tell me of it here. She always said that it was a thriving kingdom and that the city was tolerant, and the rulers were forgiving. That is why I came here. I seek nothing else aside from refuge.”
“Of course,” Cassandra said with a kind smile toward the woman. “You can stay here in the castle until you are rested. We’ll get you some dry clothes and a bed to sleep in, and when you are recovered and ready, you can find a home in the city.”
“Thank you,” Samar said. “It’s kind of you to take me in.”
Aeron watched the woman carefully from a distance while Cassandra welcomed her into the castle and showed her to a room. He wondered why no one else seemed to be able to tell that the woman was a shifter. He also wondered what else she was lying about. If Samar could lie about being a human, then she could be lying about anything. For a minute, he tried to give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe she was just scared about revealing her true nature to them, much like they kept their shifter identities secret from the humans in the kingdom. But he knew that she must be able to tell that he and his family were shifters, especially after he saw her eyes glowing. She must have seen his eyes react as well. So what was the real reason that she wasn’t being honest with them? And what was wrong with everyone else’s shifter instincts?
Later that night, after Samar had gone to bed in the guestroom that Cassandra had shown her to, Aeron had trouble sleeping. Cassandra frequently spent nights outside of the castle to spend them in the forest with Rubius, as was part of their agreed-upon arrangement. On the nights that Cassandra was gone, Aeron often found it hard to sleep. It wasn’t as if they were at all intimate with each other anymore, even though he wished that they were. But still, her presence calmed him.
Aeron got up to take the familiar walk through the empty and quiet corridors of the hallway while everyone else in the castle was either asleep or running through the forest. When he came to Samar’s closed bedroom door, he paused. He stood outside her door and pressed his ear against the wooden slab.
No sooner had his ear touched up against the wood than he heard strange noises coming from inside the room. The noises sounded like that of a soft yelp, and they certainly didn’t sound like any kind of noise that a human would or could make. Against his better judgment, Aeron pushed open the door. To his extreme shock, he saw Samar half-shifted and completely nude, standing in the center of the room.
Now, not only were her eyes a different color, but her shifted form was unusual as well. The only thing that she had in common with the other shifters was her golden glowing eyes. Aside from that, she didn’t look like a wolf. She looked more like a fox, with silken, chestnut-brown fur that was just starting to shift onto her skin and multiple tails protruding from her backside. Her face was narrow, and the tip of a snout was barely visible, and her physique was slender and delicate. It looked as if she had been caught just as her shifting began and had managed to halt it as soon as she saw the door open. Samar stood there looking startled and afraid, staring back at Aeron, who looked equally as shocked at what he was seeing.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Aeron said as he put his palm up toward her to show her that he wasn’t a threat.
Then he quickly closed the door behind him so that no one else would see and walked further into the room toward her.
“What are you?” he asked in amazement.
He was trying not to gawk, but she was so unique and so lovely that he could feel his mouth still hanging open. Samar’s form slowly melted back into that of a human and lost all traces of the shifted nature that she had a moment ago. Now, she was just an exquisitely beautiful human woman standing naked in front of him. Aeron watched as her chest began to heave slightly harder with the breaths that she was taking. He didn’t know if it was in reaction to his own appearance of being shirtless and visibly aroused in his pajama pants hugging the growing bulge between his legs, or because she was terrified of the fact that he had discovered her secret. Either way, he tried not to become too distracted by the rise and fall of her perfectly shaped breasts and instead focused on the matter at hand. He needed to know what she was and why she was there. He regained his kingly composure and asked her again.
“I demand to know who and what you are,” he said.
He immediately felt bad for the severe tone of his voice, especially when he noticed her take a step backward away from him.
Without reaching for clothes or moving any further, Samar looked Aeron in the eyes and answered him.
“I am a Kitsune,” she answered. “Descended from a fox-shifter mother and a wolf-shifter father.”
“I didn’t know Kitsune actually existed,” Aeron said as he continued to marvel at her. “But even so, I didn’t think Kitsune were created between fox and wolf shifter parents.”
“Typically, they’re not,” Samar said. “I am unique.”
Aeron already knew that much.
“That is why I ran from my pack,” she continued. “I wasn’t completely lying when I said that I was fleeing persecution. That much is true. I am the only known Kitsune currently alive, which is strange enough as it is, I suppose. But I am also an anomaly.”
Aeron’s mind jumped to conclusions about why she was on the run, but he didn’t want to assume. “Why were you being persecuted by your pack?”
“Because I am different,” she answered. “I can do things that neither shifters nor Kitsune can do. I am special, and that made them jealous and fearful of me.”
“Why come here?”
“My father died many years ago. He lived a long life, but as a Kitsune, I outlived even him. My mother lived for much longer than him, and she protected me against the alpha and other shifters in our pack. She was a very powerful woman, and they feared her too. When she died just recently, I had no one left to protect me. My mother knew that death was coming for her, and that it would be coming at the hands of our alpha. Before she died, she told me of the kingdom of Grenvich. She warned me that if anything should happen to her, that I was to come here and seek safety within the walls of your city. Once I arrived inside the kingdom, something else drew me here to the castle. I felt the need to come here, and so I knocked on your door.”
Aeron was astonished to hear that a pack alpha would kill members of his own pack, even if they were different. The thought of it was abhorrent to him, and he pitied Samar for having to have run from the very thing that she should have been able to find comfort and protection within. He wasn’t sure what to say or ask next, so instead, he moved toward the dresser in the room and opened the top drawer. He knew his wife, and so he knew that Cassandra would have made sure to put fresh, dry clothes inside the dresser for their guest. He pulled out a soft nightgown and handed it to Samar. For a moment, as she took it from his hand, they stared at each other in silence, and Aeron felt inexplicably drawn to this unusual woman. His feelings confused him, and he broke his gaze from hers.
“Sleep well,” he said as he turned and walked out of the room.
He could feel her eyes watching him go.