Chapter 11
616words
Only then does he release my hand, turning to face me. In the lamplight, I can see the damage from the fight—a deep gash across his cheek, claw marks on his shoulder where his shirt has been torn away, bruises already forming along his jaw.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, his eyes scanning me for injuries.
The question breaks something inside me. After everything—Lucas's cruelty, my fear, the violent fight I just witnessed—Kayden's first concern is for me.
"Am I hurt?" My voice cracks. "You're bleeding, and you're asking if I'm hurt?"
He touches the cut on his cheek as if just noticing it. "This is nothing. It will heal by morning."
I shake my head, tears suddenly threatening. "I don't understand you. I'm just a servant—a human. You didn't have to fight your own blood relative for me."
"It wasn't just for you," he says, moving to pour water from a pitcher into a basin. "Lucas has been challenging my authority for years. This confrontation was inevitable."
"But I was the cause," I insist. "If you hadn't claimed me—"
"If I hadn't claimed you, you'd be dead or worse by now." He dampens a cloth and offers it to me. "Here. You have blood on your face."
I take the cloth but don't use it. Instead, I step closer to him. "Let me," I say quietly, reaching up to dab at the cut on his cheek.
He goes still under my touch, his amber eyes watching me intently. I clean the wound gently, noticing how quickly the bleeding has already stopped. Werewolf healing, I suppose.
"I thought I was going to die," I whisper, focusing on the task to keep my hands from shaking. "When Lucas found me in the garden shed, I was certain that was the end."
"I shouldn't have left you," Kayden says, his voice low. "I knew Lucas couldn't be trusted."
"You had duties. You couldn't have known what would happen." I move to the deeper claw marks on his shoulder, carefully cleaning away the dried blood. "How did you know to come back early?"
He's quiet for a moment. "I felt something was wrong. I can't explain it better than that—just an urgency to return." His hand comes up to catch mine where it rests against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Freya. Sorry I brought you into this world. Sorry I wasn't here to protect you."
The sincerity in his voice makes my throat tight. "I feel so helpless here," I admit. "So small and weak compared to all of you."
"You're stronger than you know," he says. "You survived Lucas. Not many humans would have."
I shake my head. "If Lily hadn't interrupted when she did, if you hadn't returned when you did..."
"But I did return." His fingers tighten around mine. "And I won't leave you unprotected again."
I pull away gently, setting the bloodied cloth aside. "Why did you come back for me that night in the village? Why claim me personally? Lucas kept asking what makes me special, and I don't know the answer."
Kayden moves to sit in one of the chairs by the fireplace, gesturing for me to take the other. "While I was at the border, I made some inquiries. About your knife. About why it was able to cut me."
My hand instinctively goes to where the knife is hidden in my clothing. "Did you find answers?"
"Pieces of one." His eyes meet mine. "I need to know about your mother, Freya. Everything you can remember."
