Page 5
His voice softens. “Your father won’t survive another winter either.”
I stop fighting him.
The problem with cruel people is that they rarely invent their weapons. They simply find the things you’re already afraid of and place them directly in front of you.
Every sleepless night. Every coughing fit. Every bowl of soup that went untouched. Every morning I walked into his bedroom to make sure he was still breathing.
All the fear I’ve carried for months comes rushing back at once. My throat tightens until drawing a full breath becomes difficult.
“I’ll take care of both of you,” Lucien continues. “You wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”
I look at him.
The offer should sound generous. Protective. Kind. Instead, it sits like a stone in my stomach. Because it isn’t an offer at all. It’s a negotiation.
And the price has always been me.
I wrench one arm free. Then I turn hard enough to break his grip completely.
“We’re doing just fine.”
The words feel weak the moment they leave my mouth. He knows it. I know it. But I say them anyway.
“But thank you.”
He steps backward. One polished black boot sinks into the mud left by yesterday’s rain. Annoyance flashes across his face as he jerks his foot free. He kicks at the sole, sending clumps of dirt across the path. He brushes an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve before looking at me again.
“I’ll have you, Boone.” The certainty in his voice sends a chill down my spine. “One way or another.”
The threat isn’t loud. He doesn’t raise his voice. That’s what makes it so bad. Those words are spoken calmly while the same pleasant expression remains on his face.
Because he believes them. Completely.
He isn’t hoping I’ll change my mind. He isn’t asking. He’s simply waiting.
Birds chatter behind the cottage. A breeze carries the scent of damp earth and freshly turned soil from the garden. The mountains surrounding the village are greener than they’ve been in months. In the distance, I hear the faint rattle of a wagon traveling along the main road.
Everything around me carries on as though Lucien didn’t just promise to take my choice away from me. Without my father here, without anyone standing between us, I understand just how alone I really am.
And the worst part is that I’m starting to believe him.
3
Rhys
Spring has finally reached the village.
I can see the evidence of it from the balcony outside my bedroom, even from this distance. The patches of white scattered across the valley floor have started disappearing under shades of green. The trees covering the lower slopes are filling out again, bare branches giving way to new leaves. I can’t see the village itself from here because it sits too far down the mountain, hidden by the forest, but I can see the thin ribbon of road that eventually leads there, winding through the valley until it disappears between the trees.
Villeneuve sits nearly a full day’s ride below the castle, tucked between the mountains like an afterthought. It’s small enough to disappear completely if you aren’t looking for it.
My world exists much farther north and much higher, intentionally beyond the reach of everyone else. The road leading here is treacherous and narrow, carved into the mountainside in places and swallowed by dense forest in others. It’s difficult enough in the warmer months that few people have ever bothered attempting it. Once winter settles over the mountain, it becomes nearly impassable.
The castle sits alone among thousands of acres of forest and mountain, protected less by walls and stone than by geography itself. The road leading into town hasn’t been maintained in decades. Saplings have forced their way through the cracked path. Thorny undergrowth has swallowed entire sections of it. Fallen trees remain exactly where they landed because no one comes this way to bother clearing them.
The few people foolish enough to attempt the climb rarely make it very far. The mountains take some. The weather takes others. And then there are the wolves.
People in the village prefer their own explanations, of course. They tell stories. They always have. Every one of them is stupid.
