“What is it?”

“Our cook, Mrs. McDonald, is always complaining that she needs help peeling potatoes in the kitchens.”

***

The past week, a restless energy has been growing within the castle. The Wolves are angry about the attack against Ryan, but there’s more to it than that. It feels like the days before a big storm where the air is close and humid.

It feels like something big is about to happen.

I see less of Callum during the week than I did in my first few days here. It is partially because I’m spending my time in the kitchens.

When I first arrived here, someone made a comment about the cook, Mrs. McDonald, being like a dragon, and they were not wrong. She is truly a formidable woman—with greying hair and a sharp tongue. She is constantly shouting at me.

Her hatred doesn’t come from the fact that I am human; rather that I am incompetent in the kitchen. I have no idea how to make a stew, I burn the bread, and I’m constantly knocking things over.

I have never had to do these things before. People always served me my meals, so it’s no wonder I’m useless. I have a feeling that even if Mrs. McDonald knew I was a princess, she would not sympathize.

I don’t like being constantly scolded—for the first few days it was difficult to bite my tongue. But there’s actually something refreshing about someone being unguarded around me—not fearing that I’ll have them executed if they speak to me in a way I do not like.

It makes me feel. . . normal.

The other plus side of being so useless is that after a few days the kitchen maid Kayleigh, who snarled at me for making her drop her potatoes on that first day here, starts to take pity on me—even if she is still cold. She begrudgingly shows me how to dice an onion, and grumpily walks me around the kitchen gardens one day to show me the different herbs.

On the fifth day, when she cuts herself, I offer to take her to the infirmary and she blanches—clearly terrified of the dark-haired wolf who occupies it. I help her clean it so it doesn’t become infected.

After that, she is a lot more pleasant, and even starts to gossip with me.

“What’s Callum like in the sack, then?” she asks one day.

“In the sack?”

“You know, in bed.”

I flush, remembering people are supposed to think I have been intimate with him. “Kayleigh! Can we change the subject, please?”

She giggles. “You Southerners are so shy. I bet he’s good. I’d be shouting about it from the rooftops if I had a male like that in my bed.”

Callum hasn’t been anywhere near my bed again since he massaged me, though.

He tells me he is busy. He’s trying to stop the Wolves from attacking Sebastian in retaliation for what he did to Ryan. Their best move, he says, is to wait until the return of the Wolf King—when he can put his plan into play and get hold of the Heart of the Moon.

But there is more to it than that.

Even though he has spent time with me every day—eating dinner with me in the Great Hall, and teasing me about Mrs. McDonald—he is more guarded around me. He’s certainly been less physical and seems to avoid touching me.

I should be glad about that. Yet I’m worried I have offended him in some way. Or perhaps he has just lost interest in me.

I ask Fiona about him one day, when she shows me the stables on my lunch break.

“Don’t take it personally,” she says. “As the full moon gets closer, the wolf gets stronger. It brings certain. . . animalistic traits to the surface.”

“Like what?”

“Like the need to hunt, to kill. . . to fuck.”

My eyes widen and I splutter, “Goodness!”

She laughs and gives me a half-shrug. “All I’m saying is, he’s trying to suppress the wolf around you, that’s all.”

There is an irony, I suppose, that for so many years, I tried to suppress my emotions and now Callum is doing the same. I think of that recurring dream I had, where I was a statue in the palace grounds. I haven’t had that dream since I came here.

In fact, I no longer feel like stone at all.

I feel as if I’m finally waking up.

As the days pass, a restlessness grows inside me. It’s wild and dark and aching. It is as if my soul is responding to the crackle of energy that pulses through the castle as the full moon approaches.

And I feel alive.

The day of the full moon, I’m dismissed from the kitchens early. Apparently, the Wolves fast during the day, and hunt during the night, so there is no work to be done.

It is raining, so I spend my day reading.

I find myself thinking about my mother’s symptoms and searching for answers within the countless medical tomes within these chambers. I wasn’t allowed access to such books at the palace—they were reserved only for the healers and the educated men—and I wonder if I may finally find my answers here.

I’m distracted, though. My skin itches, and every time I see the word “wolf” on the page, I think of Callum’s eyes. Every time I shift position on the bed, I think about how he massaged me. Every time I catch the smell of woodsmoke drifting from one of the rooms below, I’m reminded of his scent.

Twilight arrives, and my room is painted in grey shadow. I’m reading about how a wolf bite can activate the wolf gene in a half-wolf, when someone knocks on the door. I drop the book.

I expect Callum to walk into my room, but instead, Fiona enters balancing a tray laden with bread and cheese, and a fresh jug of water.

Disappointment swells within me.

Is Callum not going to visit me tonight? I thought he would.

Fiona arches an eyebrow as she sets down the tray, as if she knows what I’m thinking.

“He sent me to tell you to stay in your room,” she says. “He says you’re not to come out for any reason.”

She’s even scruffier than usual. Her shirt is untucked and her dark hair is loose down her shoulders. I catch the scent of alcohol on her breath, and her cheeks are rosy.

“Where is he?”

“There’s a ritual on the night of a full moon, out in the forest. We’re all expected to be there to welcome the Moon Goddess. The alphas especially.” She leans back against the writing desk. “Callum’s there already.”

I try not to feel hurt. I try not to feel anything. It shouldn’t bother me that he is having a good time without me. Why should he give me a second thought? I’m just the bargaining chip that he will use to get his Heart of the Moon.

It’s just, I’d started to think. . . I’m not sure what I thought. It was a silly fantasy, I suppose, that the powerful alpha of the Highfell Clan could fall for the spoiled Southlands princess.

I’m betrothed to another, anyway. Callum has always intended to give me back to him. And I have always intended to give my father information about the Wolves, so I might escape my fate with Sebastian.

How could anything ever happen between us?

I try not to think about the crude things Fiona said, about what the full moon makes Wolves want to do. If Callum wants to enjoy himself, then that is his right, and there are certainly plenty of females who would happily enjoy him.

Something dark and ugly twists in my chest. “What do you do at the ritual?”

“We drink, and dance, and cut loose.” Her eyes are bright. “Then the moon rises, and we shift.”

She pushes off from the desk, and heads to the door.

“No one will bother you tonight. We’ll all be hunting in the forest. Stay in the castle.” She nods at the letter opener on my bedside table. “Keep that close, too.”

She leaves me to join Callum and the others.

As the room darkens, so do my thoughts.

The old me—the one who existed before I was taken—would have accepted that someone as important as Callum would not visit me before an important event. When I was left at home while my brother went hunting, or when I was sent to bed by my father at feasts so the men could talk, I accepted this without question.