Page 28 of Claimed By the Sinful Dragon
“Rook? You decent? I’m coming in.”
I pushed the door open, keeping my eyes averted just in case I caught sight of any naked flesh and came down with another case of ovaries-before-brains.
Then I jerked my head up with a frown, which deepened as I scanned the empty—and immaculately made—bed. It was one of the few jobs he took care of himself round here, having muttered some shit not wanting my scent filling up every inch of his personal space when I first got here. And the other thing about being in his room, which I refused to think about whilststanding in his room.
His empty room. His deserted room. The room in which he clearly had not been for hours.
He must have gone out this morning. But I’d have heard him if he’d left while I was up. My hearing wasn’t as good as most shifters, granted, but it was still good enough to have heard a fucking dragon taking off. No-one could miss the sound of those wings.
Which meant…
He’d left before I was even up. He’d left, knowing I was going to get up shortly and spend an hour making food for him—food he wouldn’t be around to eat. Knowing I’d have to sit around in the dining room, waiting for him whilemyfood went cold.
What an asshole.
I left, slamming the door behind me. Ugh. Trapped for my entire life with an inconsiderate, egotistical asshole. A rude one, at that.
Well, fuck him.
If he wasn’t here, then that meant he wasn’there.Which meant I had the run of the place. And I sure as shit wasn’t wasting that time cleaning.
It was time for a morning off. Hell, yeah.
Chapter 14
Kaylee
I was fartoo wide awake and worked up by now to go back to sleep, much as I probably could have done with a few more hours. Rook was working me to the bone…or I was working myself to the bone trying to meet his expectations. Whatever. He’d dumped that whole ridiculous list of chores on me when he dragged me out here, and I didn’t want to find out what would happen if I didn’t keep up. I’d been starting early and finishing late, and spending all my spare time in the kitchen creating food that could probably be considered weaponized.
But now was my chance to finally get some downtime, and I didn’t intend to squander it. Not that I was sure there was a whole lot todoaround here. Back home, I’d spent most of my spare time hiking through the woods, enjoying nature around me, the feeling of strength in limbs as I climbed and scrambled, then finding a spot to relax with a good book. It had started as a way to get away from the shifters who’d decided they hated me when my wolf didn’t appear—which was most of them—but it rapidly became more than that, and I’d spent almost all of my free time out there.
I’d never see those woods again. Rook had made it perfectly clear that this house and its grounds were my world now. I’d never have my freedom again.
No. Nu-uh. I had an actual morning off, away from Lord Asshole, and I wasn’t going to squander it by feeling sorry for myself. Plenty of time to do that tomorrow—onhistime. Today was mine. Or however long I had until he came back, anyway, and I wasn’t going to waste a moment of it.
What I needed was a nice, long, relaxing bath. I’d rushed through every shower I’d had here—which honestly was sacrilege, given that Rook seemed to have an unending supply of hot water. I’d been dying to test out how far I could push his plumbing, you know, withoutactuallydying when he caught me slacking off. The limit had been about two minutes back home, which made for a very fast shower, and meant I practically never bothered with baths.
I was pretty sure I deserved a nice, hot soak after all the hard work I’d put in. It was the least I was owed, really.
*
It was, without question, the most decadent bath I’d ever had. You know, out of the seven I’d had in my life. I stayed in the bath until the water cooled, then topped it up with hot again—twice. And I was totally over the hot Lord Asshole and his rudeness by the time I got out. Well, okay, not totally, but close enough. It was hard to be angry when I felt completely boneless with relaxation. And when my skin felt softer than I could ever remember it feeling. I toweled off my hair while thinking about what to do with the rest of my free time. The obvious answer was to invest some serious time in snooping, but cleaning this place top to bottom meant I’d seen pretty much everything there was to see. Other than my glimpse this morning, I hadn’t been in Rook’s room—but I hadzerodesire to poke around in there.
That left his study—which I’d rather avoid, seeing as how he’d smell my lingering scent and I’d prefer not to find out if he’d been joking about the flaying, and…
Grinning, I hurried down the stairs and along the main hallway until I found what I was looking for. He hadn’t, strictly speaking, banned me from this room. He’d just told me not to touch his books. But there was no harm in looking, right? It’s notlike he was going to have anydecentbooks, anyway. Probably just old stuffy tomes on the history of being an asshole and enslaving shifter populations.
Or maybe it wasn’t a library at all. Maybe he’d just said that to keep me out of here—which he’d have known wouldneverhave worked if he’d spent even a minute getting to know me before locking me away here. Maybe this was where he kept his hoard. That’s what the old stories that had survived from before the war said. Dragons had hoards of their treasures. Of course, they also said that dragons were mythical, so on balance, they might not have been the best source of information.
There was only one way to find out.
I sucked in a deep breath, and pushed the doors open. One foot crossed the threshold, and then the other, seemingly without any instruction from me whatsoever. My eyes roved across the vast room—the polished wooden floors, the paneled walls, the stunning chandeliers suspended from the high ceiling—and my breath left me in a whoosh. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling. They were everywhere. Books. I’d never seen so many books in all my life. It was…it was magical. There was no other word for it. Bookcases were on every wall, and tall shelves, packed with books on both sides, divided up the room. I hadn’t imagined there were this many books in all the world.
All at once, I understood how small my packlands were. How small my life had been. And that I was standing at a gateway to something much vaster.
I stepped farther into the room, slowly, reverently, approaching the nearest rack to me. I stretched one hand out but stopped just short of touching the books. These ones were leatherbound, with faded titles on the spines, each one biggerthan the largest knife in Rook’s kitchen, and probably hundreds of years old.
I moved on, trailing my eyes everywhere my fingers longed to touch. Books of all sizes and colors, from leather and cloth bound, to bright paperbacks with scenes I couldn’t quite make out from just their spines. I itched to pull them out, to look closer, to choose one and curl up with it in the comfortable looking armchair beside the fireplace, or sprawl out on the rug beside it, imagining myself on the mosses of the forest, the sun beating down on me as I lost myself in some story of another place, another time. Another life.
