Page 24 of The Ashpaw: Part One

Tentatively, she placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing once. “I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

Fern’s eyes found Hyde at the other side of the room, a woman’s hand grazing down his arm. He looked up, his expression pleading, and she nodded, taking a deep breath.

Her fingernails had been chewed down to the skin as she’d worked up the courage to approach the head table that evening. And with her hair freshly braided and her apron clean, she held her hands in front of her, her gaze lowered as she walked and stopped before the head table.

“Alpha Darion?”

The alphas all stopped talking, watching her carefully as she curtsied.

One of them chuckled.

She dared to flick her eyes up to see Darion’s face. His jaw was set tight. Beside him, his mate-to-be, the Lady Kyntha, was unreadable.

“What is it?” he asked, his tone a little harsh.

Fern flinched, fighting the urge to turn tail and flee back into the kitchens for the rest of the night, but she had to say something. She’d made a promise, and there was no going back now.

“T-thank you for the pillow.”

“Pillow?” Kyntha asked, her tone soft and lyrical. She tilted her head, breathing in deeply and looking at Fern more carefully now. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

She’d never wanted more to disappear than she did in that moment with her body shaking and sweat dripping down her back. “No one, my Lady. Just—”

“Just the unpaid debt,” one of the alphas laughed. He was around the same age as Darion, slightly smaller but not by much, and his hair shone with hints of red in the firelight. But there was a spark in his eye that warmed his features, bringing life where Darion’s dark stare could feel like a promise to end it. “I’m surprised he could have forgotten this one. I would have returned to snatch her back the minute the full moon had set.”

“You never would have marked her to begin with,” said one of the older ones.

The alpha gave her a wink. “I think I would have made an exception.”

The other alphas added their agreements, and Darion rested his hand on top of Kyntha’s, who had stiffened in her seat. “Is that really what you interrupted our dinner to say?”

Her wolf whined, and she shook her head, her eyes scrunching closed. “No, Alpha. Sir, I just… I wanted to ask a favor—”

“A favor?” His voice rose as his body did to a stand, his hands curling into fists and resting on the table. “Have I not done enough for you already? Or perhaps too much, if you think you are in any position to request favors whenever the fancy strikes you.”

The other wolfkin were all watching now, the room quieting as they tried to listen in.

“It’s not for me, Alpha! I… a friend, from the kitchens, was wondering—”

“Ah, so you wish to leverage the guilt I felt in forgetting you existed for these ten years into favors not only for yourself, but all of your ‘friends’ as well?”

“No, sir, I would never—”

“Away from me, she-wolf!” he said, dismissing her with a flick of his wrist.

Her eyes blurring with tears, she picked up her skirts and ran for the safety of darkness and solitude in the hallway. No one followed as she kept going, past the kitchens and down the stairs, until she finally collapsed against the wall, sliding down to sit, her chest heaving to catch breath that had left and would not return.

Why did his admonishment affect her so? She’d been scolded before, by school teachers, her parents… even customers, who felt she’d mistreated them.

But this was consuming, the shame and fear of falling out of favor tearing at her gut.

Do you still wish for his attention now? she asked her wolf, wondering if she might throw up.

…. Aye…

Chapter 8