The Lycan King & I.

//ten//

Part I: Chapter Ten
Elliette Mercer
The King's Home
October

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

I wake to my shoulder throbbing, sore from sleeping with my weight on it all night. Despite the ache, I remain completely still in the same position I fell asleep in. I do not want to risk waking the sleeping king on the other side of the bed. His bed is ridiculously large, a easily a few feet separating us, but he still feels too near.

The room is still dark. The faint blue hues of dawn in the early morning barely peek through the gaps of the window's curtains. It must be dawn, or close to it. My body had been throughout conditioned many long years ago to rise with the dawn, regardless of whatever amount of sleep I receive the night before.

This is my first time sleeping in the same bed as a man. If this was the Southern Isles, I would be setting myself up to be the scandal of the town. The ladies and aunties would gossip for days, not to mention the impact this would have on a future marriage. Humans are much more conservative than wolves, and also much more prone to public scrutiny. I'm not sure where it came from- whether it was passed down through the generations or beaten into us by wolves, whom could not fathom intimacy outside of a fated mate pairing.

It's too quiet.

It's unnerving, this is likely the farthest I'd ever been from a city, save for the boat ride years ago when first arriving in the Middle Kingdom. It's weird. If I'm not minding a houseful of children, I live in Underling Housing. Overpopulation and thin walls makes for a noisy life. Pipes clanging, shouting in the streets, other humans arguing over the bathroom... this is the symphony of my mornings.

Now, the only noise is the kings breaths, even and deep. I listen to another twenty soft inhales from him before deciding to rise out of the bed. Tiptoeing like a mouse over to the room he indicate last night as the bathroom, I freeze with my hand over the doorknob after my knees crack. His breaths remain even, undisturbed. I gently close the door behind me before turning on the light.

The bathroom matches what all I'd seen of the rest of the cabin so far, spacious but cozy. It's not as unnecessarily extravagant like the one as the castle, but still nicer than any bathroom I've ever had. With dark hardwood floors and a large marble vanity that spanned the length of the room, holding two different sinks. Another door led to the toilet, while another led to a large closet. I'd need to start labeling each door, there were too many that looked all the same. A large, legged tub sat on the far end of the room, overlooking the windowed walls.

I inspect myself in the mirror expanding across vanity. Luckily, I still look clean from my bath last night. My hair still neatly braided and skin fresh from their rich lotions. Unfortunately, there are some things the pampering couldn't get rid of: the sharp bones poking through the collar of my nightshirt, dark purple shadows below puffy eyes, nor the unnatural paleness of my face.

I do what I can with what I have, splashing my face with ice cold water. Good enough.

Stepping into the closet, I feel tears begin to well behind my eyes once I see it: my trunk. My things. My entire life.

His closest is bigger than any bedroom I've had, shelves and hangers surrounding the entire room. My trunk sits on the side that is oddly bare. The small piece of familiarity has me feeling embarrassingly sentimental, I look up towards the electric light of the room until the tears burn away. Undoing the buckle as quietly as I can, I root through until I find one of my work dresses. Grey cotton with a modest collar, and a skirt ending at my knees.