Page 51 of How Does It Feel?

A hard body slammed into my side, knocking the wind out of me.

“Please let me convince him to spare you, Callie. If he or anyone else finds you now, you are as good as dead,” the tall brown-haired man spoke as he grabbed my arm and looked deep into my eyes.

Brown rat’s eyes stared back at me from the large man.

I stepped back to stare at him. In this form, he bore no resemblance to a rat save for his dark brown hair and eyes. Easily six foot three with similar broad shoulders to the prince, though not as muscular. He still looked athletic and lean with well-defined abs visible under his tight tunic. It wasn’t the same warrior body of Prince Mendax though. I scanned his features in shock as the recognition hit me.

“It was you. You were the guard they pulled from my cell!” I shoved free from his grip to take a few steps back. “It was you who stood and whined at my cell to get in and kill me!”

Pain filled his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to kill you. I was trying to protect you. I had just come from battle with the shadow army. I had fought in my wolf form, which tends to be a bit more . . . primal I suppose. When I returned, my wolf found you, and I was overcome with the blinding need to protect you.” He shook his head slightly, shaking his brown hair into his eyes before he brushed it back. “I only shift into a few forms other than wolf, rat is one of them. I just needed to do what I could to keep you as safe as I could until I could get you away from here.” He shook his head and looked down, hurt and confusion marring his handsome face.

“You didn’t keep me safe from Mendax or the bog,” I retorted, trying to fight off a feeling of hurt. “Where were you when your precious prince dragged me down a flight of stairs to see Alistair?” I bit out angrily, my eyes no more than slits as I watched his face fall.

Were all these Fae so handsome? It was unsettling.

I stepped around him. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not your responsibility. Tell the rest of the Unseelie animals to save themselves and stay far away from me.” I walked toward the stairs.

“I will escort you out. They will kill both of us if we are caught, but you stand no chance of making it out of here alive otherwise,” he stated, grabbing my hand in his large palm as he guided me faster down the hall.

“Tell me your name. Brown rat no longer suits you,” I said as I pulled my hand free from his, forgetting the name rule.

“I will not tell you my name now, nor ever for that matter. I want to protect you, but I don’t trust you if the prince doesn’t trust you, especially not with my name, but you may call me Walter,” he said, gently grabbing my hand again.

He continued to pull me down the aisle of the dungeon. He was going to help me escape.

“What if they catch you?” Though I was upset with him, the thought of him getting killed on my behalf sat heavily on my chest.

“Then I will die, I suppose,” he murmured as he pulled me behind him.

“Please don’t do this, Walter, just tell me where to go,” I pleaded to his back as he pulled me along.

I expected the stairs to be farther away than they were. They had felt a lifetime away from my cell when the guards had moved me.

We tore up the stone steps and out onto a small landing. It was obvious Walter was no stranger to the castle. What did he do here that afforded him so much knowledge of the layout?

“What do you do here? What is your position in the Unseelie court, Walter?”

Did he have ulterior motives, perhaps, and he wasn’t actually helping me at all? He could be the court’s executioner for all I knew. He had already lied to me once.

“Quiet. Stay in the dark as much as possible,” he ordered after I saw his features tense momentarily.

I listened and pressed my back to the stone wall. His task of staying hidden seemed like an easy feat when all I could see was darkness in the crevice of his back.

His broad, tapered body concealed me as he tucked me closer behind him and through a large iron and wood door. The air shifted, no longer smelling musty. Only then did I realize we had left the dungeon.

It was instantly brighter, though darkness still settled around us. It smelled luxurious with various almost spicy scents. The air even felt rich and warm in contrast to the dungeon’s stuffy moist air. My feet felt the contrast as well. Smooth black marble with thin veins of white and gray slapped coldly against my feet. Walter stopped and turned his head to scowl his liquid brown eyes at me.

“If ever anyone believed you an assassin, they ought to listen to you walk, be quiet! We will never escape with the sounds of your troll feet clapping for attention,” he scolded.

He was so tall he had to bend to whisper. Had I not been a prisoner in an unfamiliar realm, I would probably have looked at Walter quite differently. He was beautiful. All the Fae seemed to be—even the prince was uncomfortably attractive.

We were taught as kids that evil is ugly and crass and beauty is honest and good, but that is a dangerous lie. It’s so much more unsettling for your villain to be ungodly good-looking. It made it even harder to decipher the obscure feelings they elicited from your mind and body.

I rolled my eyes at his words. Troll feet. I was too distracted by his nearness to come up with a retort. He was so different from a rat now.

Thinking of the rat reminded me of the fox. My curious mind forced me to ask in case I did die before I could leave the castle’s walls.

“Have you ever seen a red fox that shimmers gold in the sun?” I whispered at his back.