Minerva

Chapter 4: Cage

Arms grabbed onto Minnie's shoulders, strong hands, jerking her out of the trance she was in.

Her hazel eyes looked frightening, like a doe meeting a lion, just for a moment. When it clicked that she was allowing her true emotions to outwardly show, she dropped her mask back into place, expression as controlled as always. 

"Did something happen?"

"Someone has arrived." Darin said, looking back toward the door they had used to access the courtyard. "I think we should head inside now."

"Can you hear them? In your head, I mean?" Her hearing wasn't as good as wolf's would be, but her powers often alerted her to the presence of others long before they showed themselves. She felt nothing, currently. But her magic was still pulsing from the interaction with her mother's memory. 

She couldn't quite call it that, though. Normally she could truly get into the headspace of the echo. Something had been blocking her from really accessing her mother's thoughts. In fact, most of the emotions she had experienced seemed to have been coming from the king, oddly enough. 

"I can only communicate with wolves when I shift," he said, gabbing her arm. He seemed to think better of it and released her, running a hand through his long hair. "Can we?" he asked, nodding toward the door.

He walked a few steps ahead on the path, holding the door open for her. The halls were just as eerily quiet as before.

"Are you hungry? We can go to the-"

Boom!

Minnie's body slid a few feet across the floor. Her shoulder felt like she had been hit by a wrecking-ball. She rolled to her feet deftly, looking around for the threat, not sure at all what to expect. 

It surely wasn't this beast of a man. He had a massive stature- equal to, if not more impressive, than Darin. His black hair was a bit shorter than Darin's, though, and far straighter. It moved up and down where it hung in wild strands in front of his face, puffing up and away from his tan skin with every exhale.

He looked familiar, from her mother's echo. One of the few things that came across clearly from the somehow-poisoned memory. It take a second of looking into his rage-filled eyes before the name snapped into place, like a rubber band snapping into place in her mind. Cage.

"What are you doing?" Darin worked his way between Cage and Minnie, shoving the heaving beast against the nearest wall. 

Why did it offend her that Darin didn't attack Cage as roughly as he had attacked her? It wasn't his job to protect her, after all. Still, she felt slighted. 

And altogether unsurprised. She had known from the start it was only a matter of time before dissent was felt in the ranks. All the welcoming committee had done was drawn out the inevitable. How could the wolves be happy with the daughter of the witch who had caused so many of their own to be murdered?

"Move, now." Cage hissed, shoving Darin out of the way.

"I can't let you do that." Darin had him pinned to the wall with a forearm across Cage's throat. His muscles flexed with the exertion of holding him there.

The castle was going to start shaking soon.

"She shouldn't be here," Cage hissed, dark eyes wild with fury. There was something else there as well. Shame, Minnie decided. She knew the feeling well.

His sharp gaze was locked on Minnie as he said it. Ready to eat up her reaction. He was obviously disappointed when she did not respond. She noted the surprise as he took her in. Perhaps he was expecting something much uglier, diseased- perhaps a long hooked nose and green skin?