Chapter 87

Ruby

“I know what you’re thinking,” Atwood says as he finishes his glass of wine and pours another for both of us. “I know you’re scared. But I’ll protect you. You know that.”

His words make me blush, which is only heightened by the alcohol.

By the time we finish our second glasses of wine, we’re both tipsy and decide to have another. Before I know it, both of us are completely drunk, laughing and joking with each other like old friends. Normally it would feel strange to be so open and jovial with Atwood, but the alcohol has given me courage.

It has also given me enough courage to ask him this question: “Will you stay with me tonight?”

A small smile plays on Atwood’s lips at my question. He doesn’t answer; just nods and stands, holding out his hand for me, and leads me to my room.

When we get to my room, I gently push him down on the bed and start unbuttoning his shirt. He pulls it off when I’m finished, revealing his sculpted upper body, then I move to his pants next. My hands shake a bit as I unbuckle his belt, but my nerves calm when he puts his hands over mine and helps me to remove his pants.

Next, Atwood helps me undress. He pulls my sweater off over my head, his hands trailing across my breasts and down my waist to my pants, which he pulls off with ease.

Atwood pauses after pulling off my pants to look at me, his orange eyes glowing stronger than ever. Even sitting, his head comes past my shoulders.

I can’t explain why -- maybe it’s a bit of my wolf coming out -- but a soft growl escapes my lips. When it does, Atwood growls too and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me down to the bed.

We keep our promise to not have sex until we’re married, but that doesn’t stop us from being intimate with one another for the rest of the night. By the time I fall asleep in Atwood’s arms, my whole body tingles with the feeling of his touch and his kisses.

In the morning, I wake to find that Atwood is already awake. He’s standing in front of the mirror buttoning his shirt when he sees me sit up and looks over his shoulder at me with a smile.

“Sleep well?” he asks, to which I simply nod sleepily.

“I have work to do today,” he says, “but I’ve already sent for breakfast for you -- and don’t worry. I’ve had Polly prepare it for you, and she’s someone we can definitely trust. Eat up and do something enjoyable today, okay?”

I nod again, too sleepy and hungover to say anything. Atwood finishes buttoning his shirt and comes over to me to plant a soft kiss on my forehead before leaving.

Breakfast comes while I’m still in bed; it’s a delicious and luxurious spread of fresh fruit, Belgian waffles, and sizzling bacon. As I eat in bed with the sun shining through the window, I finally start to feel like a real princess.

After taking a hot, fragrant bath -- and trying not to fantasize about Atwood while I’m bathing -- I throw on some comfortable clothes and try to decide what to do for the day. I have barely seen the Queen, Alice, or Edith for some time, which makes me feel more comfortable. The horrors of my etiquette lessons seem like a thing of the past at this point. Perhaps they’ve given up on trying to torture me since they clearly plan on poisoning me instead, just like they did with Vivian.

Eventually, I decide to head over to the library and read for a few hours. Being there makes me wonder what ever actually happened to Robert; I’ll have to ask Atwood if he knows anything. I suspect that the Queen and her minions may have done something horrible to him. Did they poison him, too? Is that why he suddenly fell “ill”?

The library is warm and sunny when I enter. The light beaming through the large stained glass window casts the room in soft pink and purple hues. The smell of the books calms my nerves, and as soon as I’ve found a good book to read and am curled up beneath a blanket on the sofa, all of my worries have melted away.

I must have been reading for well over an hour, completely enthralled in the story that I’m reading, when I’m pulled out of my daze by the sound of my phone vibrating on the coffee table. Setting my book down with a sigh, I sit up and check to see that Nancy is calling me. I’m glad that she’s calling me after what happened yesterday with her mother, so seeing her name on my phone screen makes me smile.

“Ruby, you’re not gonna believe this!” she says as soon as I pick up.

“Well, hello to you, too,” I answer sarcastically.

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” she responds, clearly too excited for pleasantries. “Listen, I was just watching TV and saw your brooch!”

“What do you mean?” I ask, furrowing my brow. “Why would my brooch be on TV?”

“It was on an antique appraisal show,” she says. “The appraiser says that it’s really rare and valuable. Here, I just sent you a link of the clip that I found online.”

Still feeling puzzled, I take my phone away from my ear to see the link that Nancy just sent me. Keeping Nancy on the line, I open the link to look at the clip.

There’s no way that it’s actually my brooch, I think to myself as the video loads.

However, my eyes widen when I discover that Nancy was right. That is my brooch on the screen! It’s sitting on a plush pillow between an old man -- the same man from the auction house, Al -- and an old woman who I don’t recognize.

“What can you tell us about this interesting piece of jewelry?” the woman asks as the camera zooms in to show the details on the brooch. It’s been cleaned and restored so beautifully that it shines in the light.

“Well, when I first saw this piece I knew it was special,” Al says with a smile. “It was a little worn and beat up, but with some TLC, it cleaned up beautifully. That was when I realized that this is no ordinary brooch. It’s a Swan artifact.”

The clip ends and I feel too stunned to say anything to Nancy.

A Swan artifact? No, there’s no way. Why would my mother have had a Swan artifact in her possession? My mother always told me that the brooch had been in our family for generations. My mother was human and my father was a Lycan, so there’s no explanation as to why either of them would have had a Swan artifact, nor would they ever have been able to afford it on my mother’s measly teaching salary and my father’s coal mining job.

And yet, the brooch in the video is indeed my mother’s brooch. There’s no doubt about it.

“Ruby? Hello?” Nancy says from the other end.

I put the phone back to my ear. “Uh, yeah, I’m here,” I say quietly.

“That’s definitely your brooch, right?” she asks.

“Definitely,” I respond, “but it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why my parents would have had a Swan artifact in their possession. The appraiser has to be wrong.”

“Everyone knows Al,” Nancy replies. “He’s never wrong about this sort of thing. Trust me. He’s, like, the most knowledgeable person in the kingdom on this sort of thing.”

My heart sinks a little bit. If the brooch truly is a Swan artifact, that means that I’ll never be able to get it back at the auction. Someone with more money than me will surely outbid me, and I’m too embarrassed about the fact that I sold it to run away to ask Atwood to help me buy it.

Selling the brooch was my decision, so I should face the consequences for being so quick to sell it for next to nothing.

Nancy and I say goodbye and hang up so that I can think for a bit.

I sit on the sofa for a while, biting my lip as I consider my options, when I decide to use my resources and try to find a book on Swan artifacts. Surely there’s something here, and maybe that will give me some answers as to why my mother had this brooch. I’m less so concerned about buying it back than I am about figuring out why this artifact was in my family.

After what has to be hours of searching through the entire library for a book on Swan artifacts, I finally find one at the very top of one of the shelves as I teeter on the sliding ladder to reach it. Once I have the large, dusty book, I clamber back down and run over to a desk to have a look; I’ve been in here for so long that the sun no longer illuminates the room, so I’ll need the help of a lamp to read.

The book seems pretty innocuous at first, mainly talking about ancient Swan artifacts such as pottery and wooden carved idols. I’m about to give up and call it a day, however, when I find a chapter on more modern artifacts.

“Swan sculptors and jewelers eventually started to favor the use of porcelain as a material at the turn of the 19th century,” the book reads. “Owning a piece of jewelry with finely carved and glazed porcelain, often surrounded by pearl, silver, or gold, was considered to be a status symbol amongst the women of the Swan Kingdom. The royal family, in particular, was known for commissioning renowned artists to carve unique pendants that were used for necklaces, brooches, or earrings. One such member of the royal family, Princess Rhea, had an extensive collection of porcelain brooches depicting her own likeness within her possession. Many of these brooches were destroyed or lost during the beginning of the Great War, but there are assumed to be at least seven brooches still existing in the world today.”

As I read, the information on the page only confuses me more. My brooch is not only a Swan artifact, but once belonged to a member of the royal Swan family?

It has to be a replica, or Al was wrong. There’s just no way that any of this makes sense.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to buy the brooch back at the auction and find out for myself.