Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…
I left the office feeling truly exasperated and beckoned a passing servant. I asked for Demoiselle FitzRoy. The servant’s mouth tightened and I sighed inwardly. Not another spoilt princess.
Turns out she wasn’t quite that bad. More a little mouse of a girl whose formidable duenna wasn’t out to make friends. She tried to impose her will on me but when she found out I couldn’t be pushed, bullied, or frightened she relaxed fractionally.
“Maybe you will be some use after all,” she muttered.
I raised one eyebrow and the girl seemed to shrink even further into her hooded robe.
“Do you ever go outside?” I asked the cringing girl.
“She does,” it was the duenna who answered for her.
I turned slow and easy. “Madonna, when I want to speak to you I will so indicate. Until that time do us both the favour of remaining silent.”
The woman bulked her muscles and all but bristled with annoyance, but she shut up.
“Please don’t mind Bella. She is only like this because she loves me.”
“Even more reason for her to keep a still tongue in her head and let me try to sort out your safety.”
Bella inclined her head and I turned my attention back to my client.
“Where do you go apart from your lessons?”
“I walk in the garden daily to keep my lungs clear.”
“Which garden?”
“The one in the centre of the academy. The one that’s safe from the outside world.”
I looked at Bella. “Do you stay with your mistress at all times?”
“I do now.”
“Good. Keep it up. Because I’m really not at all happy about the security in this place.”
Bella smiled, albeit grimly. “Me neither.”
“I’ll have to see what can be done about it. In the meantime keep your mistress close.”
I put up the hood of my grey robe and walked on quiet feet towards the solitude of the garden. I badly needed to think, and to talk to Moth and Mandrake. There was a slovenly looking sentry at the garden door. She barely looked up when I passed through onto the manicured grass. Even it the depths of winter the hot springs under the earth kept this garden warm and verdant and I lifted my face to the sun.
The next thing I knew for sure was waking up with a dull thumping pain in the back of my head. I was laying face down in a fast-moving vehicle with my wrists and ankles tied in one bunch around about the small of my back. I could have sworn I made no sound, but somebody was very alert.
A voice from the front seat grunted.
“Demoiselle FitzRoy is awake. Give her the injection. We can’t afford for her to make any noise.”
“I could just give her another smack.”
“Do as you’re told or I’ll give you a smack.”
While I now understood that I was here because somebody wasn’t even efficient enough to make sure they kidnapped the right female, I was fairly sure that wasn’t going to be of much help. I could only put my faith in Moth and Mandrake. Even as I thought, a needle was shoved very roughly into my left buttock and I knew no more for a longish time.
I woke a lot more slowly the second time. My head hurt, my mouth was dry, and I felt as though I was in a different vehicle. Whether that was right or not, I was now propped upright in the rear seat of rather a large car. My ankles and wrists were still tied but now my hands were in my lap and my bare feet were on what felt like an extremely dirty floor. I had the sense of inimical entities around me. Weres of some sort I was sure, but I couldn’t bring my head together enough to even hazard a guess what.
There was something big sitting beside me. I could feel breathing and smell stale tobacco breath.
I felt whatever lean forward and the voice identified him as male.
“I’m hungry.”
“Yeah. Me too. We’ll stop for breakfast in about a half hour.”
“What about sleeping beauty here?”
“What about her?”
“What we gonna do with her while we eat?”
“Leave her here. She ain’t going nowhere.”
“What about if she wakes up.”
“She won’t. The collector gave her another shot before he handed her over.”
“He liked the needle didn’t he?”
I picked up on the past tense and the worm of worry in my gut wriggled some more. If my captors were killing their confederates to make sure nobody knew where I had been taken I was in a lot of trouble.
The driver laughed. It was an ugly sound.
“I wonder what she done to earn the big man’s anger.”
A third voice spoke. It was deep and cold and it chilled me to the very bones.
“The woman did nothing. It’s her father the Lion is wroth with. He was fool enough to renege on a deal. So she pays the price. Lion intends to kill her with his own hands. Slowly. Then he plans to send the pieces to her old dad. Just as a reminder of who it doesn’t pay to trifle with.”
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