Chapter 7

Fiona's POV

I quickly snapped the case shut, zipped it up, and dragged it toward the wardrobe in the corner of the room. Several heavy winter coats hung inside; with some effort I shoved the case all the way to the back and covered it over with the clothes.

At that very moment, the doorknob turned.

I hadn't locked the door—doing so would only have looked suspicious.

I turned around, forcing myself to stay calm, and stood in the middle of the room with a freshly folded sweater still in my hands.

The door opened.

Arthur stood in the doorway, his dark gray eyes appearing especially deep and fathomless in the dim light—like a pool of stagnant water, betraying nothing.

"What are you doing?" His gaze swept the room and finally settled on me.

"Sorting my clothes." I kept my voice as level as I could.

He walked in slowly, his leather shoes striking the wooden floor with a sound that set my heart on edge. He came to a stop before me, close enough that I felt I couldn't breathe.

He studied my cheek. There should have been a scorched scar there; instead, amid a tangle of red hair and dried blood, the skin was smooth and whole.

He narrowed his eyes.

I hurried to explain. "It's the golden-wolf blood—that drop of it Caleb gave me. It really is remarkably effective."

"Is that so?"

He ran a suspicious gaze over my whole body, then reached out.

His fingertip brushed lightly across my cheek and came to rest on the spot where I'd been wounded.

"It doesn't hurt at all anymore?"

His finger was ice-cold, and I flinched before I could stop myself.

"It—actually, it still hurts a little," I said, steeling myself.

Arthur stared at my face and spoke slowly. "I do wonder—without that costly drop of golden-wolf blood, just what state your face would have rotted into."

My whole body went rigid, my fists clenched tight at my sides, my heartbeat quickening in wave after wave.

"I don't know what you mean, Uncle. Werewolves fear silver weapons above all else. That's common knowledge."

"Is that so?" Arthur mused, turning the question back on me, the suspicion in his eyes not easing in the slightest.

I was terrified. Terrified he would see through the secret I was hiding, terrified he would learn that my power to heal myself went far beyond what a single drop of golden-wolf blood could do.

Knowing Arthur as I did, once he saw through me to the powerful golden-wolf bloodline within, there was no telling what kind of hell this heartless, faithless merchant would cast me into.

I lowered my head, both hands gripping my skirt tightly.

"Uncle, if there's nothing else, I'd like to rest."

"Rest, yes—it's getting late, after all. Tomorrow you have an important dinner to attend. You'll need to conserve your strength, so you can appear as Professor Thorne's most fitting fiancée."

Arthur placed the thin invitation, faintly scented with sandalwood, into my hands.

He told me, too, that inside the leather case out in the hall was a magnificent gown Caleb had prepared especially for me.

"Compared to whatever's in that shabby old black case of yours, it will make you shine at the dinner."

Instinctively I glanced at the black case I'd just packed, and my heart lurched as though it had been dropped into a pot of boiling water and rolled about hard.

Arthur had shrewd, calculating eyes. He had seen that I meant to flee.

"Uncle," I said, holding my ground, "I'll say it one more time. I will not marry Caleb. What happened in the library conference hall today was my formal declaration of war against him. There is no way I will turn up the day after tearing my fiancé's mask off, standing beside him at some aristocrat's dinner as if nothing had happened."

The clock struck twelve, dull and heavy as a sound carried down from ancient times.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Fiona, it is already the day after. Whatever happened yesterday—better to let it pass. Trust that your fiancé is more than capable of making the whole matter vanish from people's gossip soon enough, and that the student named Emily will pay the price she deserves. No one will ever know—"

"I will know!" I cut him off sharply. "I will know, Uncle. I cannot convince myself to pretend I don't. Caleb's betrayal is a fact now. However shameless his excuses may be, I cannot imagine whether I'd be sick enough to vomit the day I have to look at that face and say I do."

"Your mind is made up?"

The false patience drained from Arthur's face, leaving only cold, heartless calculation in those dark gray eyes.

"Yes."

I simply dragged the black leather case out from the wardrobe and looked at Arthur with resolve. "Uncle, I'm leaving."

I told him, word by word: "Ten years ago, when both my parents disappeared, it was you who brought me here and gave me a shelter that never felt like home. I'm grateful you didn't leave me on the streets as a child. But that is not reason enough for me to be used by you for the rest of my life."

"And where do you intend to go?"

Arthur ran his hand over the oak walking stick, layer upon layer of dark gray settling over his eyes.

"The library? That forbidden place reeking of ancient rot?"

He stepped up to me and suddenly reached out to grip my jaw.

"Look at me, Fiona! Do you think I know nothing? That filthy mixed blood running through your veins—only in a place like that can you soothe its maddening turmoil. You're afraid of turning into a monster, aren't you?"

Stunned, I stumbled back two steps and wrenched his hand away with all my strength.

"You—"

I stared at him in disbelief. Countless thoughts rose in my mind, only to be cast, one after another, into a pitch-black abyss.

He knew my secret?

He knew I had to hide away in the library to calm the turmoil I couldn't control?

Then did he know—or not—that the blood of my mother's people running in my veins was the very golden-wolf bloodline that tens of thousands would kill to possess?

No, he couldn't know. Otherwise, how could he have let me live free and unbothered all these years?

He must not know.

I prayed it, over and over, in my heart, using a look of weakness to hide my deepest secret.

"Uncle, I only don't want to hurt anyone!"

"Then you should understand that I do all of this for your own good. The uncontrollable power of a half-blood werewolf could tear your frail body apart at any moment. Only the mighty coexistence-strength of the Thorne family can grant you the protection fate has marked out for you."

Arthur had a talent for dressing up his hypocrisy as something so very noble.

He didn't breathe a word of his deal with Caleb—not knowing that more than an hour ago I had already heard every detail of their conversation.

But I could no longer expose him.

Because Arthur said, "If you insist on breaking off the engagement with Caleb, you will lose your position at the St. Mary's Library forever."

My eyes went wide, my voice trembling with fear and dread. "What did you say?"

Arthur smugly stroked his whiskers. "Oh, perhaps you didn't know. The St. Mary's Library holds tens of thousands of documents and works of art requiring vast sums to restore. If I, a shareholder, hadn't put in a word, do you imagine you'd ever have had the ability to land such an easy little post?"

In that instant, I finally understood.

Arthur was using the library job to threaten me. If I refused to marry Caleb, he would exercise his authority and shut me out of the Silver Moon Forbidden Section for good.

Without the protection of the ward that could quiet the turmoil in my blood, sooner or later I would be treated as a half-breed out of control—thrown onto the asylum island where our kind were imprisoned, or reduced to a slave woman to be bought and sold at will in the underground werewolf gatherings.

"I'll give you one night to think it over."

Arthur kicked the leather case smugly to my feet. "Either you put on the gown and wait for your fiancé to come for you. Or you jump out of that window and wait for the Werewolf Council's cleaners to execute you on the spot as a raving, out-of-control creature!"