Chapter 4

Elowen's POV

My gaze followed the scent across the hall until it settled on Beatrice. She sat in the middle of the room, one wrist wrapped in a strip of white cloth.

I couldn't see much of the wound from where I stood, but there wasn't enough blood on the bandage to suggest anything serious. Even the scent was faint—a shallow cut, perhaps, and nothing that should have caused much trouble.

Yet Beatrice was crying as though the world had come to an end.

Her eyes were swollen and red, her cheeks wet with tears. She sat with her shoulders drawn in, looking utterly miserable, as if she'd suffered some terrible injustice.

I looked at the bandage again.

Whatever had happened to her, it seemed to have hurt her far more than the wound itself.

The Countess sat beside Beatrice, holding her injured wrist between both hands as though it were something precious and terribly fragile. She kept murmuring reassurances, brushing away her daughter's tears and smoothing her hair.

"There, darling. It's all right. You're safe. No one is going to make you do anything you don't want to."

The Earl stood nearby, his hands clasped behind his back. His expression was dark, and there was a deep crease between his brows. He looked far less concerned about the wound itself than about whatever had caused his daughter to cry.

I watched them in silence.

Every day, I cleaned wounds far worse than that. I scraped dried blood from the stones, dragged bodies with torn flesh out of the pit, and washed away what was left behind. My hands were often cracked and bleeding by the time I finished. No one had ever asked whether it hurt.

But Beatrice had one small cut on her wrist, and the entire household had gathered around her as though she were made of glass.

I lowered my eyes before anyone noticed me staring.

Once everyone had arrived, the Countess finally lifted her head. She glanced over the gathered maids, then gave Mistress Aud a small nod.

"Begin."

Mistress Aud stepped forward.

"All of you, line up. Her Ladyship requires a purity inspection. Any girl who is not a virgin may return to her dormitory. And don't ask questions about why."

A murmur ran through the hall.

One of the maids stiffened. "A purity inspection? You can't be serious."

Another let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Since when does working in this keep mean we have to prove what's between our legs?"

Katla gave an amused snort.

"What's the point of checking all of us?" She glanced back at me, her lips curling into a wicked smile. "You can skip the ugly one. No man would touch her, not even if she begged him to."

A few maids giggled.

Mistress Aud's eyes snapped toward her.

"Is there something you'd like to tell us, Katla?"

Katla's smile faltered. She quickly folded her arms.

"No. I'm just saying this is ridiculous. If Lady Beatrice needs a virgin, perhaps she should find one without dragging the rest of us out of bed in the middle of the night."

A few of the girls exchanged uneasy looks. No one dared laugh.

I stood very still, trying to make sense of it.

Why did Beatrice's wrist have anything to do with whether we were virgins? And why did the Countess look at us as though we had already done something wrong?

Mistress Aud's voice cut through the whispers.

"Enough. Her Ladyship has given an order. Step forward when your name is called."

She went down the line without a word of explanation, checking each of us—brisk and thorough, the way you would check a horse's teeth at market—and those she did not like she sent out of the hall with a flick of her fingers.

When she had finished, three of us were left standing on the flagstones—the girl called Signe, the girl called Marta, and me.

Mistress Aud stood before the three of us, her hands folded neatly in front of her apron.

"Her Ladyship has some good news for all of you."

Good news?

I glanced at Signe and Marta. Neither of them looked particularly pleased to be standing there in the middle of the night.

Mistress Aud continued.

"Miss Beatrice has decided that she is not ready to marry. Her parents have agreed not to rush her into a marriage she does not want. However, the Earl's family has already made arrangements with the royal household. So, one of you will take her place and marry Prince Aldric Auren."

For a moment, I didn't understand what she had said.

Prince Aldric Auren?

I knew that name. Everyone in Lunaria did, even someone like me who had spent most of her life in a filthy pit.

What made him even more remarkable was that he had never been granted a Pack territory or formally received the title of Alpha. Yet people said that if he ever claimed a territory and became an Alpha in his own right, even the current Alpha King might find himself outmatched.

I had heard the maids whisper about him more times than I could count. To the young she-wolves of Lunaria, he had been the dream prince—the kind of man they imagined would one day choose them as his mate. Even Miss Beatrice used to speak of him, sometimes with a dreamy smile, sometimes with a blush.

That only made the whole thing more confusing.

If Prince Aldric had once been every she-wolf's dream, why was Miss Beatrice so desperate to find someone to take her place?

Then Signe stepped forward.

"Are you lying to us?"

Mistress Aud's expression hardened.