Read with BonusRead with Bonus

CHAPTER 9

I toss and turn in bed, attempting to sleep for a few hours before I finally give up trying and re-open another book. I’d already finished one and had moved on to the next. It’s when I'm nearing the end of the second book in my lap when something happens. It’s a small sound at first—so small that I barely notice it at all. A low rumbling. Almost an echo of a hum—but it’s so quiet in my room that it’s noticeable. I pause in my reading, fingers freezing where they cling to the pages, straining my ears to listen.

I would force myself to ignore it and keep reading except for the fact that the noise is getting louder. Increasing from a low humming to a reverberating rolling noise similar to thunder. As the noise increases, the bed begins to tremble beneath me. The chains linking me to the wall clink loudly as the floor and walls quiver in uncontrollable tremors. I cling to the bedding with white knuckles, my heart a staccato rhythm in my chest.

What in the world is happening?!

The desperate sound of clanging bells cut through the rumbling earth followed by screams.

The sound of screaming has a bead of sweat trickling down my neck. I don’t think I can be any more on edge, but I’m proven very wrong when the door to my room bangs open so hard that it bounces against the stone wall behind it. At the unexpected crash of the door, I jump probably five feet into the air, only unclenching my hands from their death grip on the bedding so I can scramble back into the headboard.

Commander Lothbrook, the Shifter King, stalks into the room and I don’t know whether to be relieved or even more terrified. I take in the grave expression on his face, his smooth but hurried movements and my stomach clenches in a way that’s reminiscent of when the fever overtakes me.

“What’s happening?” I shout over the thunderous noises echoing among the stone and the sound of the furniture rattling around the floor.

He doesn’t answer at first, sliding the key in his hand I hadn’t noticed into the lock securing my chain to the wall. “Time to move, Princess. Now.”

With the lock undone, he untethers the links from the hook on the wall, looping the chain around his wrist. “Let’s go.” He says, tugging me along by the chain that still binds my wrists.

I trip over my own feet in my struggle to follow along, my bare feet catching on the hem of my borrowed night dress. The King sets a brutal pace, tugging me through the doorway. In the hallway, the other noises are louder—the clanging bell and screams deafening, as the world rocks on its axis around us.

The hallway is a dark narrow tunnel, lit only with a row of golden sconces lining the wall. The guards who were supposed to be outside my door are nowhere to be found as we make our way into the dim rumbling walkway.

The cuffs on my wrist chaff and sting as Commander Lothbrook drags me along. I’m not used to moving so quickly—practically sprinting down the passageway— let alone with the floor shaking beneath my feet, and we don’t make it very far when I finally trip fully. My hand automatically goes to the stone wall beside me in an attempt to catch myself, but I only manage to scrape my skin uselessly against the rough surface, free-falling to the ground.

Before I can hit the floor, a strong band of hard-muscled arm whips out and catches me, keeping me upright. He doesn’t say anything, and doesn’t attempt to keep dragging me along down the hallway. Instead, in a single fluid motion, he shifts his massive hands to my waist and unceremoniously throws me over his muscled shoulder. Like I weigh no more than a sack of flour.

My breath whooshes from my chest as I land hard and he takes off again. I don’t even have time to protest as he moves down the hallway faster than I thought possible. Bouncing along on his shoulder, the walls blurring behind us, I realize with a grimace that what had been a breakneck speed for me had been moving slow for him.

We wind our way up a narrow set of winding stairs. He comes to a sudden halt outside a doorway, yanking it open and striding inside. I expect him to put me down hard, and as he reaches for my waist to put me down I brace myself for the impact. Instead, he sets me down startlingly gently. He sets his hands on my shoulders to brace me while I gather my balance on the quivering floor.

When I’m steady, he takes a brusque step back, giving me enough space to eye the room he’s brought me to. It’s small and empty—appearing more like a storage closet than anything else except for the fact that there’s no furniture or boxes to speak of. Light comes in from two tall and skinny gaps in the stone—too narrow to fit through, but enough to let light in.

He goes to the gap in the stone—glassless windows of some sort—peering out into the world below, one of his large hands bracing on the wall.

“Why did you bring me here? What’s happening?” I ask though it’s hard to even hear myself over the grating rumbling that’s still tearing its way through the building. Admittedly, the floors weren’t quaking as hard as they had felt to be as we had been moving down the hallway, my teeth not rattling in my skull as they had been before.

He turns to glance at me over his shoulder, his long and wickedly sharp canines glinting in the light from the window, “This is one of our safe rooms. I brought you here to wait out the storm. We wouldn’t want you to get caught in an unexpected cave-in, would we?”

I shudder at the mere thought of being caught chained in that room as the walls came down around me. Gratitude managed to pierce through me despite everything else happening around us. I’m a prisoner—he could have just risked it and left me there, leverage or not, but instead he’d braved the quaking halls carrying me to a safe room. “Thank you. For coming to get me.” I say, copying the way he's bracing himself against the wall.

He peers down at me, consideringly, dark eyes looking especially dark in this lighting—as black as the wickedly sharp horns protruding from his forehead. He dips his head in a single nod before peering out through the gap in the wall again.

“What sort of storm causes all this?” I ask, biting my lip as the trembling continues to increase. The bell outside suddenly ceases its ringing, the world falling quiet around us without its constant clanging.

“A bad one,” He growls, “And you need to get down, because it’s about to get worse.”

“Wha—” before I have time to even follow his command, his large hands go to my shoulders and press down until I’m crouching on the floor. My heart gives an unsteady fluttering beat as the rumbling roaring earth manages to turn even more chaotic. But even more shocking than that, the monster in front of me curves his massive body over mine like a protective wall, sheltering me from what is to come.

Previous Chapter
Next Chapter