Page 126 of The Ashpaw: Part One

“I know it’s empty,” Fern snapped, using her sleeve to dry her cheeks. “No need to rub it in my face.”

No, it’s not that. It’s… wrong.

Fern sat up, letting herself settle, until finally getting up to see what her wolf had been yapping about.

And she immediately noticed it too.

The pillows… no, she liked the round one in the middle, and the long one on the side.

And the blanket was smooth. She liked it wrinkled.

She then checked her rocks, and suppressed the desperate whine before it sounded. The order was incorrect. The green one was supposed to go on the end.

Fern sniffed, smelling someone, but no one she recognized.

Panic and unease clawed at her chest, even as she tried to rationalize it.

A Solvekh who’d tidied up, perhaps. Someone who didn’t know not to touch it.

Wrong! her wolf barked. Bad!

“It’s okay,” she assured her. “Easy enough to fix.”

She spent the next ten minutes setting, resetting, taking everything off and restarting, and finally settling on the way it should be.

But the creeping feeling of the minor violation was still disorienting, so she quickly changed into her nightgown and hopped in, hoping that being surrounded by her things would quell the rushing sound in her ears.

It did, but not until near dawn, allowing her only a few fitful hours of sleep before her mute attendant arrived to ready her for breakfast.

Chapter 29

Fern

For once, Darion was true to his word, and Fern joined the alphas at the head table again the following morning for the first meal.

Kyntha and Darion were already there, and Fern almost laughed when she saw that Kyntha was sitting in his lap like Fern had been the previous evening, her neckline pulled nearly halfway down her shoulders to showcase the numerous love marks she assumed Darion had given the previous night.

Made with the same mouth that brought her such pleasure…

And later been used to wound her.

Kyntha’s high-pitched giggles grated on her ears, her stomach twisting with the knowledge that Darion could forget her so easily and hop into another’s bed. And then she wondered, if it were so common for Lurvekh to take Naravekh, then why did Kyntha fight it, doing everything in her power to keep Darion away from her?

Reinn and Eidan beckoned her to sit near them again, and she was happy for their company.

“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” Eidan asked, grabbing the honey pot and handing it to her as a Solvekh set a bowl of porridge in front of her.

Reinn took a few berries and placed them on top.

The attention was enough to make her blush.

“Better than the last ten or so,” she said, although a part of her considered if that were even true.

“I didn’t know you were such a marvelous dancer,” Reinn said, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.

She could have sworn she felt Darion’s burning gaze upon her, but when she glanced up, he was looking at his plate.

Fern turned back towards Reinn and smiled. “I wouldn’t say marvelous. I was just lucky it was a dance I knew.”