Chapter 11: Your Scent Is Wrong

The king's chamber was at the top of a stone stair that smelled of wax and cold iron.

The captain opened the door and stepped aside.

"Alone," he said. "His Majesty's orders."

Edric's eyes met mine for one second, wide and desperate.

Then the door shut, and I was alone with the Alpha King.

The room was large and bare, with a fire burning low in the hearth and one window shuttered against the night.

He sat in a hard chair beside the fire in his shirtsleeves, and he did not get up.

Up close, he was worse than he had looked on the horse.

His face was grey and his hands were shaking on the chair arms, and a faint sheen of sweat stood on his forehead although the room was cold.

He was the Alpha King of Highmoor and everything beyond it.

He had plainly not slept in a month.

"You rode past me today," he said.

His voice was low and rough.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"The physicians say you cannot leave your bed."

"I felt better."

"Come here."

I crossed the floor and stopped an arm's length from his chair.

I had stood in this room once, in my last life, on the first night I was brought to him.

He had not looked up then.

He was looking up now, and his pale eyes went over my face feature by feature.

"You came out of the tower at noon," he said. "Why?"

"I wanted to see the city."

"The Healer has never once asked to see the city."

I said nothing.

"She curtsies," he went on, "when she enters. She waits to be told to speak. She has not once met my eyes in nine days."

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