Page 63 of A Wolf's Treasure
“Aye,” he told Brock. “I believe I do.”
Throwing Vina into drive, he spun around and tore out of the apartments.
When he hit the main road, he took a deep breath, braced himself, and headed east.
Chapter 21
Ryanne stared across the wide cavern at the man who had helped bring her into being. She wasn’t really surprised that, somehow, he’d know exactly where she was, and he’d swooped in and taken her away the first chance he’d gotten.
Tired of waiting for him to say something, she let her attention wander. Actually, this secret hideaway of his was more of a cave than a cavern. It wasn’t completely underground. It was hidden behind the waterfall she could hear in the distance. The roar of the water filled the silence and weighed down the air with moisture, causing moss to cover the stone. But overall, it was a rather pleasant sound.
Still, this father/daughter bonding experience would be more to her liking if she weren’t being held there against her will. One could argue that as there were no physical bindings holding her in place, that was not the case. Yet, the four turned werewolves surrounding her were a great deterrent in case she had any thoughts of trying to make a run for it. Two of them she recognized as the survivors from the night Duncan was attacked. The others were new to her, but she assumed they were also from Thomas’s pack. New recruits, perhaps.
With nothing else to distract her, she turned her attention back to her father.
The prince, with his long, white hair and unlined face, looked exactly the same as he had the last time she’d seen him. This was no surprise to Ryanne. He had been ancient before she’d been born and if he followed a Faerie’s natural life span, it was to be expected he would live many more years.
But not if she had anything to say about it.
Duana, the reigning princess of thean olc, stood to his right. She was staring at Ryanne like she’d just grown another head.
“What’s wrong, sister?” Ryanne asked her. “Didn’t our father tell you I was still alive?”
She said nothing for a long time. Without taking her eyes from Ryanne, she told her, “No. No, he did not. But unless you’ve changed your opinion of your own people, your being here is an obstruction in our plans we really don’t need right now.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like our father.”
“Well, I am his daughter.”
As if she wasn’t. “Sorry to upset things by being, you know, alive and all that.”
Duana narrowed her eyes at her and made a small noise in the back of her throat that said she took Ryanne’s apology exactly how she’d meant it. Which was not at all.
Prince Nada finally decided to join the conversation, his tone calm, almost conversational. “How much have you told the wolf?”
“About what, exactly?”
“Don’t be coy,” he told her. “You know exactly what I am referring to.”
Ryanne very nearly blurted out that Duncan—and now Cedric—knew very nearly everything. But that probably wouldn’t be the best move. However, she also couldn’t lie. The prince had an uncanny ability of pulling out the truth, especially where deep emotions were concerned.
And her emotions for Duncan ran very deep, indeed.
“I told him I was your daughter. And I told him you thought I was dead, that I’d died during the last war.” All true. “And I told him I was here to stop you from releasing the ones who need to stay in their own world.” She let her eyes flicker over to her sister for a split second before they returned to her father. Hopefully, it would give him the impression that last statement was aimed at Duana, and not of him, as Duana’s part in this game was well known by the wolves.
“Has he told his pack?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he seen your eyes, child?”
That question stopped her for a brief second. Almost violently, she pushed the memories of Duncan screaming in the mud, out of her head. Kittens. Think of kittens. Cute, sweet, tiny kittens with blue eyes. Little hellions with sharp claws and teeth. “Not that I know of.”
The prince was silent.
Ryanne never took him from her line of sight, never broke the connection, and thought about kittens.
She felt no which way about the little furballs. Could take them or leave them.
