Valerie

Chapter Three

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"I go to sleep and for three seconds it feels like freedom. Then I wake up and tie my apron-shackle around my waist again."

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To say I was looking forward to our daily meetings was a long, and rude, stretch of the truth. I just knew that by the third day, I should better up my dosage of scent blocker. Where the King went, other Were were sure to follow.

"Have you read the other poems?"

"Yes, your Majesty."

"Did you like them?" I loved them. "Yes, very much so."

"Do you like to read, Valerie."

"I do not have time or need to read to serve well, your Majesty."

"That's not what I asked, Valerie."

These little standoffs, though I can't call him that because I had no power to my name, set my stomach spinning. They always made me sick. "Yes, your Majesty." I heard he could scent lies, so I hadn't and would never try them on him.

"I have something for you."

"Your Majesty?"

"Come get it then."

I turned, moving away from my cleaning and pausing for a second to see a cloth bound parcel in his hands. I took it and swept the fabric away, finding the gold embossed cover of two novels. Fiction. I blinked away the familiar burn of tears. It had been a long, long time. I couldn't say I couldn't take them, but at that, I didn't want them. Not from him. All good things have their prices, sometime down the road.

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Do you like them?"

"Yes, your Majesty."

He sighed. "You must speak freely when we talk like this. Ask me a question," he commanded and I was compelled to do it. His authority overrode my own common sense reaction of fear.

"Why do we talk like this?"

He blinked and I shrugged back. It was his fault for forcing my mouth to move, not mine. I would've stayed silent if-

"I like your take on the stories. I would like them much more if you spoke freely. You must speak freely with me." It carried that same authority to it and it made my stomach protest.

"Yes, I must, your Majesty." I held the books to my chest, feeling their cool leather on my collarbone. So close to my skin. So close to my heart.

"Good. Valerie." I looked up at my name and his hand snatched my jaw. My eyes welled up with surprised and frightened tears. I missed my old schedule. The new servants think it's an honor, but working the upstairs is humiliation and degradation over and over again, in a merciless cycle. "Is there something different about you today, girl?"

"No, your Majesty."

His eyes searched mine a long time and I crawled more and more in my own skin. I'd have a chaffed soul by the time this was done. "Alright," he said, slow. It reeked of suspicion. "You may go."

I picked up my bucket and ran out of the room.

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"He suspects you?" Hilla asked. "Of what?"

"Do you think he can tell the subtle changes in the scent blockers?"

Hilla went stiff in her bed. "Pray he can't."

"I don't pray. The goddess isn't on my side."

"We're almost out," she whispered. "Not enough for a double dose as you always do."

My eyes widened. Crawling onto my knees, I ate my words. I prayed.

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The Were Madame wore a pleasant pink dress, made ugly by her cold, haughty eyes. I supposed her mate liked it and that's all that mattered in the end. "The party I mentioned, at the beginning of the month, all my usual upstairs girls will serve it." I hid my sigh. What I would do to peel potatoes in the basement right now. "You will wear the formal maid gown. If there is any damage, it will come out of your paycheck."

Hilla glanced at me. The formal dress wasn't beautiful, but in its simple cling at the waist, it wasn't ugly. It meant our makeup process would be even more tedious. I might even draw on a unibrow.

"And I've received word that some maids may be using tactics to make themselves look dreadful." I clenched up. "Therefore, all of you will report here, with a clean face and I will do your makeup. This is the Royal Palace, not your farm."

There was a general sense of horror in the room, that I could tell in the pinched unibrows and puckered chapped lips. Of the girls I've been with a long time, Hilla, Kathleen, Tilda and others, we make subtle, constant alterations to our look on top of scent blockers. It keeps us looking sickly and diseased. It keeps us safe. Walking around the palace without them is like walking into a lion's den. A wolf's den. "Is there a problem with this?" There was silence. "Good, dismissed."

Before we could move, the door slammed open, hitting the wall with a bang. As the door creaked away, I could see the hole in the plaster, battered even deeper than before. A man stood in the doorway and he looked a cowering girl, dread pale. Anna's younger sister. I spun around. I thought we got her on a scent blocker. It had been three weeks since her sister's departure. 

"Come here lovely," the man cooed, extending a hand in her direction. She didn't go anywhere, of course, she stood and shivered like a creature dying of hypothermia. "Lovely." He crossed the room and his eyes flared yellow. I studied him. He looks about eighteen, maybe nineteen, no older. Not much of a man then, but I wouldn't call a werewolf a boy. Even as children, they could tear a human to shreds with their teeth. His hand settled atop her hand. "No need to shiver."

She stopped shivering, just as he said. Instead, she moved into loud, loud sobs. I knitted my eyebrows and looked at Hilla, whose face read extreme boredom. We offered her scent blockers. Another girl looked at me, her eyes narrowed and her mouth pressed into a thin, you're stupid, line. She mouthed a few words to me. "She said no."

Well, you can't save those who don't want to be saved.

He dragged her off like a stone statue. Thank goddess--if she cares about me--that he didn't mark her here. No need to shake up the newcomers again. I wanted to return to my former kitchen duties eventually. When the door shut and the sobs disapatted, the Were Madame issued a zanny smile. It must have pleased her to see a sight like that. And between her smile and that girl's sobs, it made me think that it's most of what we were here for. To be discovered in a high visibility role.

"You are dismissed to do your duties. You may go."