Sold to the Wolf Chief for a Debt, but His Wolf Knelt First novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Long Kitchen

At Ardach House the Chief sets her terms, the Reeve asks her mother's name, and a black wolf lies across her attic door.

The Chief drove me to Glen Ardach himself, in a mud-streaked Land Rover that smelled of wet dog.

His hands stayed on the wheel for forty minutes, and he never once turned his head toward me.

My wrist still burned where he had held it, and I kept it in my lap under my other hand.

The Reeve's car followed us up the glen road with its headlights on our back window.

The tarmac gave out at a cattle grid.

After that there was only black hill on both sides and a long stone house at the end of the track.

Every window was lit.

"Kitchen," the Chief said, and went in ahead of me without holding the door.

The kitchen at Ardach House ran the length of the house, with a flagged floor, a green range and a table that could seat thirty.

A stout woman in a quilted dressing gown stood at the range with a kettle.

She had short grey hair, a broad kind face and flour on one sleeve.

"That'll be the Gow lass," she said. "Sit before you fall down."

"I'm not tired," I said, and sat.

The Chief stayed by the door with his arms folded.

"Seven years," he said. "You'll work where Peigi puts you, and you'll do what she asks."

"Fine."

"The cord covers your hands and nothing else of you."

I looked at him.

"What's done with the rest of you is your own business," he said.

"And I'll not be doing any of it, so you needn't wonder. Don't mistake that for kindness."

"I wouldn't mistake you for kind," I said, "if you paid me."

Something moved in his jaw.

Peigi put a mug of tea in front of me and a plate with two slabs of shortbread.

Then she gave the Chief a hard look that he did not meet.

The Reeve came in stamping his boots.

He carried a ledger with a green cloth spine, and he set it on the table beside my tea.

"The Book," he said pleasantly. "Every tie in Ardach is written in it. Yours goes on the sixty-second line."

"Sixty-one hands before mine?"

"Sixty-one hands, aye. All mending their families' accounts."

He uncapped a fountain pen and wrote in a clerk's tidy hand.

"Gow, Ishbel. Seven years from the eleventh of October."

Then he looked up.

"Your mother's name was Morag, I think."

"It was," I said.

"And she came from where?" the Reeve asked.

"Merkinch."

"Before Merkinch."

"I don't know," I said. "She never said."

The pen stopped.

Behind me Peigi set down the kettle harder than she needed to.

"A pity," the Reeve said, and capped the pen.

He took the Book away without another word.

The Chief went out after him without a glance at me.

Peigi sat down across the table and pushed the shortbread closer.

"Eat that," she said. "Don't mind either of them. The Chief has his moods, and Dugald has his stories."

"Which is worse?"

"Ask me in a week."

She took me up four flights to the attic.

The room had a skylight, an iron bed with a patched quilt and a hook for my coat.

It was cold enough that I could see my breath.

"There's a hot bottle in the bed," Peigi said. "I've put another quilt on it. You'll be warm by morning."

"Thank you."

"Sixty-one of us in this house, hen," she said from the door. "You'll not be on your own."

I lay down in my tunic with the cord itching on my wrist, and I did not expect to sleep.

I woke in the dark.

The house was silent, but I could hear something on the other side of the door, breathing slow and heavy.

I got up and put my hand on the latch.

I opened the door a hand's breadth.

A black wolf lay across the threshold, bigger than any dog I had ever seen, with its head on its paws.

It lifted its head when the light fell on it.

Its eyes were brown, and I knew them.

I stood with the latch in my hand and waited for it to rise and snarl and put me back in my bed.

It did none of that.

It put its chin flat on the boards and laid its ears back.

It looked up at me.

It was not guarding the door.

It was waiting for me to tell it something.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend