Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir

Chapter Thirteen

She was careful to leave the castle without being spotted. Rubius and Theo had already gone out somewhere, and Cassandra was busy in the kitchens talking to the servants about the winter feast, which was fast approaching, and telling them how to make sugared cranberries for the tops of the cakes. Holly was able to slip out of the castle relatively easily, and she wasted no time heading straight back into the town square.

There would be lots of people at the market. Everyone was buying food for the winter stockpiles, and they were looking for trinkets and oddities to exchange at the festival. When Holly got there, it was crowded and bustling with people enjoying the light snowfall as they looked around the market.

This was the perfect place, she thought to herself. It was full of pleasant townsfolk, lots of women and children, and some kindly looking merchants. She looked around to see if she could spot any of the hunting parties, and she didn’t see a single one. They were probably out in the woods, hunting for small game to salt and dry. She felt the blood rush through her veins and her heartbeat pound in her ear. It was risky and rash, and she knew that. But her mother had told her to follow her heart, and her heart was telling her something had to give. There had to be an inciting incident that led the humans to see and understand the presence of the shifters. Hiding and allowing fear to breed did no one any good. It was time for someone to force the hand.

Holly found a small raised pallet that had just been unloaded by a woman who was selling every kind of fresh flower and herb. It was near the center of the market, high enough that people could see over the crowd, and next to some friendly-looking merchants that smiled at her as she walked by. It was the perfect place. She sucked in a few deep breaths and tried to exhale her nerves before she stepped up onto the platform. She would shift, without announcement or fanfare—she would simply shift. Then she would sit docilely on the top of the pallet and watch the reactions of the humans as they were stunned and in awe. She expected some of them to be fearful at first, and all of them to be shocked. But she was hopeful that once they saw such creatures as shifters existed, and that they were peaceful and living right there among them, their misconceptions would be quickly dissolved. Then, when the humans were silently staring at the shifted queen, Holly would change back and explain to them the correct account of what shifters were like. She doubted that anyone would try to harm her right there in the middle of the open market in front of all the people and figured it was as good a plan as any.

Holly knew that her family would likely be furious, but that was something that she would deal with afterward. Once the secret was out, there would be no more reason to hide and no more reason to fear discovery.

When she had finally gotten up enough nerve to do it, Holly stepped up onto the low platform and turned to face the center of the market square. A few people, including the woman with the flowers, looked at her curiously and wondered what the new queen was doing standing up on a pallet to overlook the market. One woman even asked her if she was looking for something and needed help to find it. But Holly just shook her head and said, “No thank you,” as she stood there unwavering. When she was ready, she felt her yellowish eyes start to burn with transformation, and within a moment, she would be a wolf instead of a queen.

But instead of that moment arriving, a hand grabbed her ankle and yanked her down. As she lost her balance and fell off the platform, Holly’s shift was stopped before it had made it past her eyes. The hand that pulled her down now held her against a chest, and she looked up into Dex’s face as turned quickly around to walk out of the market with Holly in his arms. Even that was no short of a debacle. The townspeople already thought it was odd that the queen was standing on the platform as if she was getting ready to put on some sort of show. Then it appeared even more strange when the dark-haired man yanked the queen down and carried her off. A few of the market women called after the man, asking him who he was and where he was taking the queen. One of them even said that she would run to the castle and inform the royal family that the queen had been kidnapped. But a few of the elderly men in the market just laughed and started talking about how the man was probably the queen’s lover or a bodyguard that was taking his job much too seriously.

As Dex walked briskly toward the edge of the city with heavy and purposeful steps, Holly demanded that he put her down.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him furiously. Now she would have to start all over again.

“Put me down!” she said.

“No,” Dex growled.

Holly wriggled and struggled in his arms to get free from his grip. When he tightened his hold on her, she began to thrash her legs around and try to claw at his arms.

“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?” she asked with a wide-eyed fury.

“Well,” Dex huffed. “Despite wanting to get back to my den and forget about all of the problems here in the kingdom, and about you, I can’t seem to get you out of my mind. I lingered around in the kingdom because I feared you would do something impulsive and stupid. And I was right.”

“You have no idea what I was about to do,” she huffed at him, still dwelling on the fact that he had given her such an answer and that he had actually admitted to thinking about her.

“I know exactly what you were about to do,” he said with a troubled expression as he turned his head to look directly at her. “You were about to shift.”

She didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anything to say in response. She looked around as he carried her into the forest.

“You can put me down now,” she said. “If you intend for us to go back to your den to talk, then we could get there a lot faster if you put me down and we both ran as wolves.”

Dex just kept on holding her and walking.

“Are you afraid that I’m going to run away?” she asked with a smirk. “It’s not like you couldn’t catch me if I tried to. I’ve seen you run—you’re very fast.”

Still, Dex said nothing until they finally reached the campsite in front of his den. There, he put Holly down on her feet and waited to see whether she would stay or try to run. When she sat down on the ground next to the empty fire, Dex stood in front of her with a stern look on his face.

“Before you give me some sort of lecture that I’m sure Rubius and Theo have set you up to do, can you please make a fire so that at least we are not freezing out here during the miserable argument that we are about to have.”

Dex turned and started the fire, making sure to keep an eye on her the entire time so that she didn’t run off. Holly had no intention of running, though.