Chapter 16 Full or Half Truths...
Chapter 16 Full or Half Truths...
Wilhelmina mutters to herself as she ushers Amaris back into the cottage, scolding the universe under her breath for sending summons without warning. She grabs an old travel satchel from a peg by the door, dusts it off with a few sharp slaps, and then waves Amaris toward the inner bedroom.
“You need clothes, soap, comb, something warm, something decent, something not torn, and something that doesn’t smell like their kitchen,” Wilhelmina insists, already pulling open drawers. “I don’t know what that palace is planning, and with the midday crowd headed there, no one will have time to hand out blankets or food. I am not sending you unprepared, absolutely not.”
She stacks folded clothes into the bag with the determination of a woman preparing for war instead of some sort of meeting with the King.
“Jon,” she calls without looking back, “watch the girl. I’ll be just a moment getting some things inside.”
She disappears down the short hallway, and her footsteps fade into the quieter part of the house.
And suddenly Amaris is alone in the room with Beta Jon…
Alone with him just like less than twenty four hours ago, when he’d managed to have her pushed against the wall, his voice thick with want as he called for her in the dark of the ‘unwilling visitors’ room.
Silence settles heavily, thick enough to feel.
Amaris grips a loose thread at the edge of her sleeve and stares at the nearest piece of furniture, an old stool with a wobbling leg, because somehow that is easier than looking at the man standing beside the hearth who most likely is staring at her.
And true enough, Jon watches her like he’s studying a puzzle he hasn’t quite solved. His posture is relaxed, but his eyes are too sharp, too focused on the naïve looking girl. It feels like he’s sorting through every memory of last night and fitting it against the girl standing in front of him.
Amaris clears her throat and looks at the ceiling beams, sneaking a glance his way.
He doesn’t look away so she does, hurriedly.
She glances at the window.
He is still staring…
She pretends the crooked stack of books is suddenly the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen.
And then… “I owe you an apology,” Jon says quietly, randomly.
Amaris blinks, startled.
Of all the things she expected him to say, this is not one.
He takes a step closer, not enough to intimidate, but enough that she feels the weight of his presence. “For yesterday,” he continues. “I was… brash and abrupt. And I shouldn’t have been, especially to a young and unaccompanied woman like you, that I am sorry for.”
She hesitates. “It’s fine. You were just…”
“No,” he interrupts gently. “It wasn’t fine, I didn’t even let you speak and had you cornered like that, I completely lost it.” His expression softens, the intensity in his face easing slightly. “I didn’t know who had brought the letter. I was too curious, too on edge, and I let that get the better of me.”
She swallows and looks down. “I was simply the one who delivered it.”
He shakes his head before she can finish. “You were more than that. You were the one holding it, and that was enough to get most of it on you.”
She frowns faintly. “Enough for what?”
Jon exhales slowly, and there is a brief flicker of something like embarrassment under the Beta’s composed demeanor. “That letter… its scent. You have no idea what it did to the men in the hall. Every unmated wolf went feral… All of them. I barely held myself together.” His jaw tightens as he remembers. “If the king hadn’t burned it when he did, someone would have lost control.”
Amaris’s pulse thuds unevenly. “Burned it? The letter had gotten burnt?”
Jon nods. “He destroyed it before we got a chance to read a single line. Smoke was the only thing left of it and that was the time that the ones who’d gone all wild regained their senses and the meeting had to be cut short because of the incident, no one could really focus anymore and the King had been furious too, thankfully, he did not take it out on you, it could have gotten very bad.”
Her stomach twists.
She suddenly understands the question building behind his eyes.
“So,” he continues carefully, “I need you to describe or summarize it, whatever was written inside.” He looks straight at her. “Just enough for me to understand what the letter was meant to do and why it came the way it did.”
Her blood runs cold.
He has no idea.
No idea that the scent wasn’t written on it, it was smeared with it. No idea the scent was not hers. No idea the letter had been soaked in something else entirely, something dark and vile that she herself had thought smelled strange until her own wolf had to tell her, and even then she had to have her own self washed thoroughly because she thought it was disgusting.
Jon waits, calm and patient.
Amaris’s heartbeat stumbles on its own invincible number of feet. Her throat goes dry.
The room feels too small again.
Her wolf’s ears flick upward, suddenly alert. ‘Careful whatever you say...’
“I did not…” Amaris starts, then stops.
Panic flutters beneath her ribs, fast and frantic. Her hands twist together uselessly, her tongue feels thick and her mind scrambles in vain for something that sounds truthful but safe enough to keep her head.
Jon watches her reaction closely, eyes narrowing just a fraction.
He has noticed.
Wilhelmina rustles in the back room, humming as she packs, unaware of the storm brewing in the quiet space between her son and the almost trembling girl standing right in front of him.
Jon steps closer, slow and deliberate, voice dropping into something gentler.
“Amaris,” he says, “what was written in that letter?”
Her breath catches.
She is cornered by a truth she cannot give him.
‘Lie,’ her wolf urges softly. ‘Or tell him a half-truth, anything but the whole thing or he’ll have your head and have it served to Rhea, the pink witch later when he finds out that she is the one who’d sent the sweet smelling letter to him. Save your head until you are out of here at least… I don’t want to die on the same day I came into full existence…’
Jon waits.
And Amaris panics.