Calista

My neck throbbed where Eric's fingers had been, and every instinct I had told me to look at the ground. I had spent my whole life looking at the ground in this place.

Valerius's hand was still under my chin, so I looked up instead.

There were more people than I had realized. They stood on the steps, along the edge of the lawn, and in the open windows above us.

A group of she-wolves near the fountain whispered behind their hands, and a young man near the gate looked away the moment I met his eyes.

Then an older man by the steps pressed a fist to his chest and bowed his head to me. The woman beside him did the same.

"They are bowing," I whispered.

"They should be," Valerius said. "Keep your head where it is."

"It hurts when I lift it."

"Then we will have it seen to. The head stays up until we reach the car."

I almost laughed, and it hurt too, but I kept my chin raised anyway.

He took his hand from my chin and settled it at the small of my back.

We walked down the steps together, and the crowd opened in front of us without anyone being asked. Wolves who had called me names for years pressed themselves to the edges of the path and said nothing at all.

"Do you always have this effect on people?" I asked quietly.

"Only when I am angry."

"And when you aren't?"

"They are still afraid of me, but they hide it better."

Zelda was waiting beside the car with the rear door already open. Zelda's eyes went to my neck, then to Valerius, and then they dropped to the ground.

"My lord," Zelda said. "Lady Calista."

I stopped walking. "Lady?"

"Is something wrong?" Valerius asked.

"Nobody has ever called me that."

"Then they will have to get used to it." He nodded toward the open door. "Get in."

I slid across the leather seat, and he got in beside me. The door closed with a soft click, and the shouting and whispering outside disappeared. For the first time all day, I could hear myself breathe.

The car pulled forward. I watched the packhouse shrink in the window until the trees swallowed it.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Home."

"Your home?"

"Yours as well, now." He was looking straight ahead, but I could tell he was paying attention to every word. "You will live under my roof."

"As what?"

"As my mate."

"That's all?"

He turned his head, and one of his eyebrows rose slightly. "That is a great deal, Calista. A mate is not a guest. You will live in my house, and you will have whatever a mate has."

"And what does a mate have?"

"Whatever she asks for."

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking a little, and I pressed them flat against my knees until they stopped.

"What happens if I ask for the wrong thing?" I said.

"There is no wrong thing."

"There was in my old house."

He did not answer right away. The car went around a bend, and the sunlight moved across his face.

"You are not in that house anymore," he said.

I stared out the window for a while. We passed a long stretch of fields, then a row of stone walls. I wanted to ask the next question more than I wanted to keep my pride, so I asked it before I could change my mind.

"What if they don't want me there either?"

"Who?"

"Your people. Your staff. Whoever lives in your house." I swallowed, and it stung. "Eric's pack never wanted me. I don't know why yours would."

"Calista."

"I'm only saying that I would rather know now."

"Look at me."

I turned, and his dark eyes were steady on mine.

"Nobody in my territory will treat you the way Eric's pack did," he said. "I will not allow it, and neither will anyone who works for me."

"You can't promise that."

"I have never made a promise I could not keep."

"That's a very confident thing to say."

"It is a fact, not confidence." He looked back out of the front window. "You will see."

I wanted to argue, but my throat hurt too much and I was too tired. I leaned my head against the seat instead. A little later, I felt his fingers brush against mine on the leather, and I let them stay there.

I did not realize I had fallen asleep until the car stopped.

"We have arrived," Zelda said from the front.

I sat up and wiped my eyes. Through the window, I could see a house so large that I counted three floors of windows before I lost count. Lanterns burned along the front steps, and the gravel drive curved around a fountain that was bigger than my old room.

"That is where I live?" I asked.

"That is where we live," Valerius said.

He got out and came around to my side to open the door himself. When I stepped out, a woman in a gray dress was already waiting at the bottom of the steps with her hands folded in front of her.

"Welcome home, my lord," she said. Then she bowed to me. "Welcome home, my lady."

I did not know what to say, so I said nothing.

"This is Marta," Valerius said. "She runs the household. If you need anything, you ask her and it will be done."

"Anything?" I asked.

"Anything," Marta said warmly. "Your room has been ready since this morning."

"Since this morning?" I looked up at Valerius. "You prepared a room before you even knew about me?"

"I prepared a room for my mate," he said. "I did not know who she would be."

I did not know what to say to that, either.

"Marta, take her upstairs," he said. "I will send someone to look at her throat."

"I'm fine," I said.

"That was not a question."

"I know. I'm saying it anyway."

The corner of his mouth moved, and I had the strangest feeling that he was trying not to smile. "Then say it to the doctor. Go with Marta."

I followed Marta through the front doors and up a wide staircase. Every step I took seemed too loud on the polished floor. We went down a long hallway, and she stopped in front of a pale wooden door at the very end.

"This is your room, my lady," she said, pushing it open. "The bathroom is through there, and the wardrobe is full. If you want something that isn't there, you only have to tell me."

"Thank you, Marta."

"Of course. Rest well."

She closed the door behind her, and the room went quiet.

It was bigger than the entire omega wing where I had slept for years. There was a bed with white sheets, a wide window with the curtains drawn back, and a bowl of fruit on a table that somebody had clearly set out.

Never had someone be so prepared to have me in their life. I didn’t know how to react to it.