Ordering the Lycan Princess to Kneel? novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The First Order

Elowen gives her first public order and Dashiell carries her tray. Then she cannot call her wolf again, and he watches her drink her tonic.

I did not sleep, so at five in the morning I stood in front of the staff bathroom mirror and tried to wake my wolf.

I held out my left arm and stared at the scar.

"Come on," I whispered. "Come out."

The scar stayed a pale line, and nothing answered me at all.

I had done the same thing at eighteen, every night for a year, and I had stopped when the pity in the healer's face got worse than the silence.

I pulled on my black uniform and went down to breakfast.

Ironwood serves the whole pack in the long hall, and by six it is loud.

That morning, it stopped when I walked in.

Wolves I had poured coffee for three years looked up at me, and then quickly down at their plates.

One old man at the far end half stood before he caught himself.

I kept my chin level and went to the kitchen pass for my tray.

The Alpha was already sitting at table one.

He had not slept either.

His eyes were shadowed, and a clean shirt hung open at the throat.

Lavinia sat on his right with her hand on his arm, bright and rested and smiling at everyone.

My stomach turned over.

Nobody had told me what an order in public looked like.

I had made the rule in a panic.

Now fifty wolves were waiting to see whether I would use it.

Fenn leaned out of the kitchen door and whispered, "Do it. Please. I have money on this."

"On what?"

"On what you ask for. Aldous says you'll have him scrub the floor. I said coffee."

I took a breath, set down my tray, and walked up to table one.

"Alpha," I said.

Dashiell rose at once.

It was the strangest thing I had ever seen him do, because he had never stood for a waitress in his life.

"Yes," he said.

"I'd like my coffee."

The hall was dead silent.

He glanced at the pot on the sideboard and then back at me, and I saw the muscle jump in his jaw.

"Of course," he said.

He crossed the room himself, picked up the pot, and poured a cup with perfect care.

He carried it back and set it in my hand without spilling a drop.

At the far end of the hall, Aldous Greer thumped his cane twice on the floor, which I understood to be applause.

"Thank you," I said.

"Anything else?" Dashiell asked.

I heard a fork clatter somewhere behind me.

"Carry my tray to the sideboard," I said. "I'm tired of the weight."

That was a lie.

I had carried trays for three years, and I could have carried one in my sleep.

I wanted to see if he would do it, and he did.

He went around me and put his hand on the handle of the tray, and my hand was already there.

His fingers closed over mine.

It lasted barely a moment, but I felt his pulse hammering in his thumb, and the heat of him all the way up my arm.

He felt it too.

I knew because he did not let go when he should have, and I did not pull away.

"Your hand is shaking," I said.

"It's the coffee," he said.

He had not had any.

Lavinia laughed lightly from table one, and her eyes were a little too bright.

"Dash, you look ridiculous," she said. "Elowen, darling, you're enjoying this."

"A little," I said, and the pack laughed with me, the first time anyone in that hall had laughed at the Alpha's expense.

Dashiell took the tray to the sideboard.

I stood where I was, and my hand was still warm.

I told myself it was nothing.

Then Fenn tugged my apron, and I went through the kitchen door to hide how my face looked.

Once I was alone, I held up my arm again.

There was no light.

There were no silver lines, and nothing behind me but the white tile wall.

I reached for the wolf.

All I found was the same flat quiet I had lived in for six years.

"It was real," I whispered to myself. "I felt it."

"Drink," said Fenn, behind me, and held out the brown bottle.

I took my swallow of the tonic out of habit.

I wanted one thing in my life to stay the same.

When I turned around, Dashiell was standing in the kitchen doorway.

He was looking at the bottle in my hand.

"What is that?" he asked.

"My tonic. Lavinia gets it for me."

His nostrils flared, and a crease formed between his eyes.

He did not say a word.

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