“Yes, positive.”
He wiped his mouth with the napkin and whispered, “Thank you for saving my life.”
He scanned the table, most likely trying to assess who had it out for him.
“Earlsgaarde,” Prince Xander called out. “Please tell us why catching the beast is so important after all this time? Why now?”
Earlsgaarde stood to address the group. “Because the beast lives in your lands. It needs to be dealt with, as you can see by the unfortunate murder last night. And if you won’t hunt it down, then we have no choice but to bring our troops over and do it ourselves.”
“You speak of war!” Xander stood up, pounding his fist on the table.
“I speak of justice. What happened to our dear queen when she came into your kingdom? No one seems to know. Your father has been very vague on the matter of her disappearance. After this many years, we can only assume they’re dead. But how and by whose hand? Maybe this strange beast murdered them? Maybe it was a plot to harm our kingdom? But nonetheless, if you can’t solve a royal disappearance or find this strange beast, how could you possibly find yourself fit to rule?”
“We don’t know what happened to the queen of Florin and her child, and I’m very sorry for our failure.” Because I was so close to Xander, I heard the hitch in his voice and caught the lie. Hopefully, I was the only one. “But I can tell you we will not fail a second time. We will find answers. We will find this beast.” Xander stood up, taking his knife and plunging it into the table. “I won’t stop until it is dead.”
Scattered handclapping came from around the dining table until it built into a roar of applause. Earlsgaarde slowly sat back down. His face unreadable behind his stony mask.
Xander was riled up and continued his rant. “And I want to know where it goes in the daylight. How is it continually hiding from us, only to strike our men when we least expect it? Where’s its den?”
“You won’t find a den,” I cut in, “because you’re hunting a shapeshifter.”
The room stilled, my own heart thudding loudly in my chest at the words that even I was terrified to announce. Because of my dreams. I was connected to its thoughts, and even though they were gruesome, they weren’t animalistic. There was a human element to the thoughts, and the fact that I couldn’t get over the feeling that we were being baited.
Yassa hissed through his teeth at the word. Yasmin gave a cry and fainted. Only Xander turned to give me a curious look.
“They are just tales,” Yassa said, pounding his fist into the table. “There are no such things as shapeshifters.”
I fingered the sleeve of my dress and looked directly at Yassa, the old man squirming under my gaze.
“Oh no, they are very real, and that is probably why the creature has eluded you for so long. The beast is probably one of us, here in this room. Some are shifters by birth, whereas others become a were-animal after being bitten by another and thus shift because of a blood curse.” At that, Xander’s body stilled. I could feel the heat of his gaze boring into the back of my neck.
“How do you kill a shapeshifter?” Yassa asked.
My hands were wringing my napkin in my lap, and I could feel all eyes on me.
“Silver will stop the transformation,” I whispered, meeting Xander’s gaze. His eyes were begging me, pleading with me to stop, but I couldn’t. “And then he reverts back to his normal form, and you can kill him. But you don’t have to kill him. There are other ways to subdue—”
No one listened. The room had turned to chaos as Yassa, Earlsgaarde, and his men stood up and began to speak out at once.
“Quick, gather the silver candlesticks.”
“Heat the fire.”
“We’ll find the beast tonight!”
Yasmin, who had woken up with the help of her ladies, had once again fallen into a faint when she learned of the new hunt they had planned. Dinner was ruined, and I knew I could no longer eat. The one who had remained silent through all of this was none other than Xander.
His face was cold, his eyes dark as he stood up and glared at me.
“Look what you’ve done!” he snapped. In a fit of anger, he shoved his plate away from him, and it clattered along the floor. “More blood will be spilled because of your careless words!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I truly was. “But whoever is murdering these innocent people must be brought to justice.”
“I came here to do just that. But you don’t understand what it is we’re hunting. You don’t know what happened on the road eighteen years ago. You weren’t there.”
“And you were?”
“Yes!” he snapped. “You are right. It was a shapeshifter. A werewolf to be exact.”
I gasped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought no one knew what happened that night.”
He glanced down in shame. His voice lowered to a whisper, “There are only a handful of people who know the truth.”
“Then why don’t you tell Earlsgaarde. Explain to them about the werewolf and stop this.”
“I can’t. Because no one would understand. The lie is far better than the truth. It is a secret that will go with me to the grave.”
“I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.”
“You’ve done enough.”
“No, really—”
“That is an order! Leave here! I should never have brought you down. It was folly on my part,” he yelled. Gripping my wrist, he pulled me away from the table and spun me out into the hall toward the stairs. The momentum wasn’t much, but I was unprepared for the servant who crossed my path. I collided with them full-on and fell onto the stone steps, bruising my rib cage.
I gasped at the pain, wincing as I pulled myself up from the stairs. Xander was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
My skin burned and stretched, and my bones ached as I shifted. My eyes tuned to the darkness as I caught the scent of the hounds. Hungry. I was hungry. A burning in my stomach drove me. The moon’s light was enough to guide me as I sniffed the path. Not just horses. Men. Lots of men.
I feared no man.
I shook my head as their familiar scent now disgusted me, then howled, alerting their hounds to my presence. I scratched the trunks of a nearby tree, left footprints in the mud leading into the mountains—a trail that would keep them confused for hours while I hunted closer to home.
My long legs carried me back to the house, and I looked upon the manor. Lights were on in many of the rooms, and I smelled the horses in the stables. They caught my scent, and I could smell their fear. Their meat was not as pleasing to my tongue, but blood was blood, meat was meat, and I was hungry.
Laughter made me recoil, and I hunched down in the woods and watched as a couple came out of the house and made their way to the stables.
Yessss! Meeeat!
Saliva dripped from my lips as I remembered my master’s orders and growled.
I bolted upright in my bed and rushed to the window, scouring for the beast. I had touched his thoughts while I dreamed, and I recognized the stables and house he had come to.
It was this one.
Donning a robe over my chemise, I threw open the door to my room, rushing past the guards outside.