Valerie

Chapter Seven

❂ ❂ ❂ ❂

"They brought her back from the dead, it seemed, no longer human."

❂ ❂ ❂ ❂

I opened my eyes, feeling warm. Warm all over, but mostly my back. My memories came on slow. I had to blink a little while to recover them. I woke up in the infirmary, I almost made it out, but didn't because of that annoying gutter creature, Yona. I proceeded to show Yona just who exactly I was and then I was yanked here. He said he wanted insurance, so he bit me before I could lash out. I furrowed my brow. I had no memories of what happened after the bite. I reached up, pressing on the half-healed wound at the base of my neck. It stung to the touch, but also sent a jolt up my spine. I sat up, fully expecting to be alone in a sterile bed, but instead finding the comforter on top of me a shared thing.

His eyes twitched and I froze, because I have a tendency to neither flee or fight. Just freeze, like an animal, a prey animal, caught in the light. I ran my hands along my skin. A prey animal, riddled with tooth marks. A helpless prey animal, made to be consumed. His eyes popped open. "You're awake?" He asked, his vision becoming instantly clear.

"Yes, your Majesty." He sat up and I glimpsed the bare skin of his chest. I didn't give it another glance. Instead, I kept her gaze painfully fixed on her eyes. They could not....could not wander anywhere else.

"Call me Aeneas. Or anything you want, actually, save a formal title."

Selfish monster?

"My neck is sore, si-" I clamped my mouth shut. "Force of habit. My neck hurts."

He reached forward and I leaned back. He frowned, reaching again and simiarly, I moved away. "Let me see it. Stop moving." With a sigh, I met the Alpha command and my bones became still. Aneas brushed a finger across my neck, putting a shiver in my spine. "It's healing well." He pressed a kiss to my shoulder and another to the bite. 

I dreamed, I let my mind wander. I wished Hilla were with me. Or my sister, whose face I had not seen in years. I wish to be in the orphanage, though the others there would slap me fiercly. But I would've rather stayed a girl, then become whatever he intended to turn me into.

He set his hand down at last. "Do you have questions?" 

I looked around the room. His bedroom? "Must I sleep here, everynight?"

"Where else would you sleep?"

"I thought...nevermind it." I studied the pattern on the comforter, bunching it up in my hands. "Were all your matches that bad?"

"Excuse me?"

"No ninety-nines, no ninety-fives?"

His voice was tense when he next spoke. "I'm a King. I should have no less than a true match."

"But if you didn't?" I met his gaze. "Would you have waited forever? It's bad luck when there's no Luna. Crops start failings, babies die at birth. Disease reigns."

A shadow covered his face. "What are you trying to say?"

"That it didn't have to be like this."

This comment made him bristle and I could see it. His shoulders turned a little inward, but his face was deeply set. "The moon goddess demands it so it must be so. You'll learn the customs, the right set of customs befitting your new status-"

"I'm still human."

He tilted his head. "We can fix that."

"Why would it need to be fixed? What's wrong with it?"