Chapter 35 Ashbounds
Finn walked off in a storm.
“We have an agreement,” I said loudly, trying to make him see reason. “They healed me.”
“And will kill you!” he banged his hand beside the stove, and pans jumped. “Aren’t you scared? Twelve months! What could anyone possibly do in twelve months? You can’t start a family, you can’t watch your parents grow old, you can’t even explore the world.”
My throat closed up.
How could I tell him I still planned to do all that?
That despite moving in with all intentions to trade my life to walk again, the plans had changed since the wedding night.
There was a high chance of me leaving here alive if I stopped being so weak and put a distance between us, between me and any love triggers.
That I could still go on to have a family, and watch my parents get old if I summoned the courage to lock him out.
“None of that would have happened if I stayed paralyzed,” I said instead.
His eyes narrowed, furious. Then he shook his head and turned away from me.
Muscles shifted in his arm as he deftly patted dry a slab of lamb that had been left out to temper. “Is there, like, something I’m missing? Why aren’t you mad?” he mumbled more to himself.
He picked up a knife and made the first incision across the meat.
I winced. Anger was almost an alien emotion to me.
“I cried for days, Finn.” I took quiet steps into the kitchen, “I cried, and did not stop crying from the moment I fell till I started to walk again.”
He spun around, plucked a cast iron skillet from the hanging pot rack overhead the kitchen island and banged it on the stove.
Blue flames leaped, licking at the edges. “Lys.” His jaw was tight. “I…I could get you out. We could just…” his eyes met mine and flashed. “We could leave tonight.”
My eyes popped. I glanced at the door, hoping Draki was not within earshot. Did not care to listen in from wherever he was in the mansion.
“Bring your voice down.” A rare fierceness crept into my tone, as I turned back to him. “Do you have a death wish?” I asked, closing the distance between us. “Do you really think you can go up against those men?”
He grabbed my hands. “I’ll fight every god there is if it means you are safe.”
“You.only.just.met.me.” I said through clenched teeth, terrified at whatever this madness was that made him believe he could challenge the Hearthrown Alphas.
“Is that how you feel?” He stepped back.
“Finn.”
“You’ve been talking to Daine, yea?” He was back to cooking, lashing the skillet with olive oil, before placing the slab of meat in it.
The pan hissed. Flames leaped up, and we stepped back instinctively.
“Because those were his exact words at the hospital,” His forearm was tense as he tilted the pan an inch on the stove. “Is that how you feel, Lys? Like I am a stranger?” He glanced sideways at me.
And I could only stare.
He’s patient, and devoted and continuously sweeps you off your feet.
Earlier in that vault, I had feared for a second that I may be Draki’s queen reincarnate. Part of the reason I asked him to look in my mind was so he could see for himself.
But I wasn’t. He would have recognized her soul inside me immediately.
However, staring at Finn now… He’s patient and devoted and continuously sweeps you off your feet.
What greater devotion could be there if not this? Willing to challenge the Hearthrown Alphas for my sake. A plan he knew meant certain death.
“I feel like I have always known you.” I stared deep into those aqua-colored eyes.
All those times in your past life where the moon goddess took you before you could become lovers, it was for a reason.
Was he the mystery man then?
But if Draki did not see me become a monster in the future, that meant the witch’s words were a lie.
Except she meant something else.
If I went with Finn’s plan, and ran away from the men who saved me after promising them my life. That made me worse than an oathbreaker.
It made me a monster.
Only a monster would betray the only people who took pity on her even after her family abandoned her. My shoulders shivered at the memory of Gianna’s gun with the silver bullets.
Finn grabbed my arms immediately, massaging, bringing warmth back to my bones.
“It’s mutual.” He stared down into my eyes. “I feel like I have always known you. Like you’re my responsibility or something. Like it’s my job to protect you.”
“But it isn’t.” I whispered. He glanced back to turn the stove off.
“I’ve accepted this as fate. It could have been anything.” My eyes dropped to the slab of lamb, seared and golden brown on both sides. “I could have choked on my favorite meal, been in a plane crash, even cancer.”
“So you’ll...just die?” That incredulous look was back in his eyes.
I turned away from him to the island. “What can I help you with?”
Just like Arthur and Grandma, there was no seeing reason with him. They were too terrified for the future to really hear me.
And I could never bring myself to tell them my real plans.
“It’s a serving for just five. I can manage,” he said after a slight pause, grabbed the batter he had been folding and headed for the refrigerator.
“Five?” I watched him pull the silver door, set the glass bowl inside and shut it again.
“Yea. Daine is meeting with his court.” He walked back around the island and started to prepare the lamb for the oven.
“Court?”
He smirked, “Kinda forgot you’re new.” His hand closed around a bottle of red wine on the counter. “Daine’s got four discreet Ashbounds. They make this whole indirect rule thing a real breeze for him.”
There was a disapproving smirk on his face as he poured the red wine into a glass bowl half filled with dried figs. “Strategy, bank, legal and visions.”
I did not understand a word of what he was saying.
He turned the bottle to me and tilted. “You know… like how your packs got the Alphas, betas and Gamma, Delta and stuff?”
I gave an attentive nod.
“Daine’s got a chancellor, Hoards Keeper, Night advocate, and an Oracle.” He tilted the bottle of wine again, but I shook my head.
“You can’t get you drunk. And it'll help you relax.”
I took the bottle, and turned west towards the rows of glasses hanging from a stemware rack.
“His night advocate has agents, and they handle security.”
“Oh.” I returned to the island and filled the glass up. “What are they, these court members.”
“Ashbounds.”
“You mentioned, but what are they? Werewolves?”
“No,” he squinted, confused. “They are Ashbounds.”
I paused with the glass on my lips. “Where do they come from? I have never heard of that.”
Finn pulled the oven open and slipped the slab of lamb he had been basting the whole time. Then he turned to me and pulled his gloves off. “Daine created them.”