He picked up the satchel he had stuffed with weapons, along with the belt he had attached a bow to, and put them in the closet we had just been standing in before covering them with the hems of the long cloaks and closing the door.
“Follow me,” he whispered. He led me out of the room and into a small bedroom that contained a fireplace and a double bed draped in blankets. Perhaps Bastien had detected that I was cold, because he immediately went to the hearth and began to kindle it until a fire blazed. I freed my feet and ankles from my socks and boots before sitting on the rug in front of the fireplace. I inched as close to the halo of warmth as I could.
“So we just wait here until dark?” I mouthed to him.
He nodded, before his gaze fell to my injured ankle, still swollen and bright red. He turned and left the room, returning about a minute later with a long piece of white cotton. He took a seat next to me and, not even asking for permission, began to wind the fabric around and around my ankle until he’d created a surprisingly firm support for it.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
He did not acknowledge my thanks as he sat back again.
“What makes you think we’re safe here until dark?” I asked.
“I never said that we were,” he replied. “But I know my cousin to be a coward, and I doubt he will strike when I’m awake. It would be so much easier to wait until I fall asleep. Hence, I say we should leave at nightfall.”
He stood up and went to the oval window. I could only imagine how breathtaking the view was; I did not want to get up to witness it myself just now. My ankle had stopped hurting and I was feeling comfortably warm by the fire. I just sat watching him as he gazed out somberly. A prince who had lost everything—his family, and now even his kingdom. Contemplating Bastien’s plight gave me some perspective on my own situation.
He turned unexpectedly and caught me watching him. I looked away, turning my focus back to the fire.
He cleared his throat. “I suggest that you lie down and try to sleep for a while. I don’t know when you’ll next get the chance,” he said.
I nodded. I supposed he was right, but I was under no illusion that I would be able to sleep. Still, I crawled over to the bed and slid myself beneath the warm covers.
He turned his back on me again and resumed his melancholy stare through the window. I continued watching his back and pondering over all that I was yet to understand about this man, this stranger… until the crackling of the fire and the heat billowing around the room put me to sleep.
I woke to firm hands gripping my shoulders. My eyes shot open and I found myself in a daze of confusion as I gazed up into Bastien’s gray eyes, alight with urgency. The room was dark now. The lanterns had been extinguished, and the fire no longer crackled. Fear surging through me, I sat bolt upright.
“What is—” My whisper trailed off.
I heard it.
A soft scraping of metal, coming from the front door of Bastien’s apartment.
I didn’t understand. Why had we waited for them to come for us? Why hadn’t we left sooner? I wanted to ask Bastien, but now was not the time. He hurried my feet into my boots before gripping my waist. He hurled me over his shoulder, even as I realized that he was already equipped with his belt and satchel, which hung over his other arm. He darted with me out of the bedroom, along a corridor, past the armory and into a sitting room. I was immediately struck by how cold it was in here, and how… breezy.
I realized that the windows were open and—
Oh, God!
With alarming speed, Bastien had already leapt up onto the window ledge. The next thing I knew, he had leapt out, clinging to the frame with a single arm, the other pressed around my body. I dangled over Bastien’s back, face downward over hundreds of feet of sheer, jagged mountainside. I felt like I was going to vomit.
From the inside of the apartment came the creaking of the front door swinging open.
Bastien let go of the window frame. I could not strangle my scream as we went hurtling downward in a freefall. With a jolt that winded me completely, he caught hold of an overhanging ledge, and with one hand, he began to lower us down more slowly, rock by rock, ledge by ledge, like a gorilla. What is this werewolf?
Growls echoed down from above us. Arrows sprayed from the window, whizzing past our ears, even as I wondered how wolves could shoot arrows without human hands. However they were managing it, the shafts were falling hard and fast. This only made Bastien increase his already breakneck pace down the mountainside, dodging right and left to avoid being hit.
As we finally touched down on a grassy mound at the base of the mountain, I exhaled a sigh of relief. He set me down and shoved the satchel and belt into my hands. His limbs began to billow and sprout fur. His clothes ripped off him. He resumed his wolf form. Collecting the satchel and belt from my hands and holding them between his teeth, he nudged me onto his back before launching into a bound toward the nearest line of trees.
I just had a chance to glance back up at the mountain before we disappeared through them. Nobody had made any attempt to climb from the window and follow Bastien. I guessed that they would be making their way down through the castle right now in order to emerge from the main exit. But we had already made too much headway for them to have a chance of catching up with us now. Especially as Bastien zigzagged through the woods, making me disorientated as to which direction, exactly, he was heading in.
Perhaps half an hour passed before he felt confident enough to stop. His ears stood erect, his eyes wide and glistening as he listened and sniffed the air. Once again, although I’d been sitting squarely on his back the whole time, it felt like I’d run the distance myself.