Trust No One

*Rowan*

I knew this was a fucking bad idea!
I see Hezzlie rushing through the woods. Dean is a few steps behind her, but through the mind-link he says he’s afraid to chase her because she’s veering dangerously close to a ravine so deep, if she falls, she’ll likely die.
Sure enough, she rushes through the trees, looking over her shoulder, and her feet slide out from under her.
I catch the back of her coat in my teeth, leaving her hanging there for a moment to emphasize how close to death she’s come before I spin around and fling her back into the trees.
She’s still screaming when I shift and walk over toward her, not caring that I’m completely naked.
“Hezzlie, shut the fuck up!” I order in my Alpha voice. “You’re fine!”
She wraps her arms around her knees and peers up at me through slitted eyes. “Rowan?”
“Yeah.” Part of me feels sorry for her. I’m sure she’s scared as hell. And the fact that my mate almost died has my wolf wanting to tear James and Dean limb from limb, but my cooler head is prevailing, for once, at the moment.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” she demands.
I shake my head. “You’re welcome, Princess.” I’m not sure why I call her that. Maybe because I’m pissed. It’s not wrong. It’s just… since she thought she was my sister a few days ago, apparently, I’m sure she’s even more confused now.
At the moment, the only thing she should be is grateful.
Dean shifts in the woods a few yards behind her and grabs some pants from the stash where we keep them. He slides a pair of joggers on and tosses me a pair. I step aside to put them on, leaving her in his care. I think I feel her eyes following my naked ass, but at the moment, I don’t care if she likes what she sees or not.
“Hezzlie, are you okay?” Dean asks, crouching down next to her. My wolf, still pissed at him, growls low in the back of my throat.
“No. I’m not okay. What the fuck?” I step back over to see she’s just as pale now as she was that first day when she arrived here, half-starved and fully confused.
“I didn’t think that was the best idea either, but the doc usually knows what he’s talking about.” Dean sits down next to her. “You’re okay.”
“Where-where is Jame?” She looks over her shoulder, but she can’t see him from here. He’s recovered from her assault and is making his way here in his human form.
Dean chuckles. “He’s still trying to find his balls.”
Hezzlie covers her mouth with one hand. “I didn’t know what else to do. First, I thought maybe you were going to… do something awful to me. And then, well, your wolf is huge. You’re… a wolf?”
Dean nods. “I am–sometimes.” He looks at me. “Rowan’s wolf is bigger.”
She is looking at me now, too, and I’m not sure what the expression in her eyes means, but I think she’s starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together. She doesn’t ask, though.
Hezzlie Stone is a complicated woman, one who continues to surprise me.
James steps out of the trees and shakes his head. “So… not the best idea I’ve ever had.”
“You think?” My wolf is growling again. “She almost died, James. If I hadn’t been out here, she would have. And you told me I shouldn’t come.”
“Thank the Goddess you never listen to anyone,” Dean throws in, and now I’m growling at her.
“Hezzlie, I think that’s enough immersion therapy for one day. I think it’s time you went back to your room.” Dr. Bolton offers her his hand.
She looks at it skeptically before grasping it. “I can’t figure out if I’m crazy or all of you are.”
“Everyone in this kingdom, more or less, is a wolf shifter,” I tell her. “You can ask Wilma about it if you trust her more. Or Natalie.”
“Who is Natalie?” she asks me. I just assumed they would’ve introduced her to the girl that’s just a bit older than her, but she doesn’t seem to know. I roll my eyes.
“She’s that girl with the brown hair that you met at your birthday party,” Dean explains. “She’s one of the maids. Nice gal.”
“Oh, okay.” She’s shaking a little as James leads her back the way she came, back toward the clearing, toward home.
I let them go, fully intending to shift again and finish my run as soon as she’s gone.
“Nice catch,” Dean says, offering me his hand. Reluctantly, I shake it. “I hope we never have to do this again, but if we do, we’ll know how not to do it.”
“We should’ve sent her to Darksky and let him figure it out,” I grumble.
“Are you kidding? You would’ve never have gone for that. Say what you want, you can’t stand when I touch your mate. How are you going to feel when it’s Darksky touching her?”
“I told you last night, you asshole, she’s not my mate!” I shove him, not hard enough to hurt him, but for emphasis.
He recovers easily enough, despite being barefoot in the forest–as am I. “Whatever, man. I’ve known you your whole life. You might be pissed off at the world, but we both know I'm your best friend. She is your mate. I can’t see you rejecting her.”
“I will absolutely reject her if she is my mate. But she’s not.” I follow him back to the clearing where he collects his shirt and shoes. I would invite him to go on the run with me, but I don’t want to be with anyone right now. I just want to be alone with my thoughts.
Before he can say anything else, I tear off through the trees, shifting, and shredding my pants.
I run for several minutes, but ultimately, I end up in the exact spot I should be avoiding–the place where I can see into Hezzlie’s room.
She’s there now, standing in front of the window, crying. And this time, even though it’s not nearly as much my fault as it was the night before, I feel it in my soul.
She lifts her head and meets my gaze. She doesn’t look frightened or curious as she has before when she’s seen my wolf. Instead, a knowing look settles over her, like she recognizes that it’s me.
I’m the person in this world she should be most afraid of. But when she settles her palm on the glass and leans forward, I feel like she’s beginning to trust me, like she thinks I might actually have saved her today because I care about her.
That will prove to be a huge mistake.
***
*Hezzlie*

He’s back–that large golden wolf with the familiar eyes. Everything that’s happened in the last hour or two seems so absolutely surreal. And yet, as he turns and lopes away, I know that it’s Rowan.
I didn’t get much of a look at him when he grabbed me by the back of the jacket and flung me back into the woods to spare me from dying a gruesome death.
I did get a pretty good look at him after he shifted into his human form and came to yell at me–one hundred percent buck naked.
Damn, that man is gorgeous, and he knows it.
Not that I have a lot to compare him to. I haven’t exactly seen a load of naked dudes, but one of my friends in high school did like to watch porn sometimes, and when we were over at her house, sometimes we’d watch it together.
Otherwise, I’d know nothing about how anything works since my mother wants to pretend I’m eight years old.
I shake my head to clear it. I can’t be thinking about Rowan that way. I have bigger problems on my hands. Like, either I’m even more insane than previously thought or everyone who lives here is.
But I saw Dean leap into the air and transform into a massive wolf. I saw it with my own eyes. I know I did.
A light knock on the door tells me Wilma is here to check on me. I call for her to come in and am happy to see her sweet, smiling face. “How are you, dear?” she calls. She has a tray in her hands, and when she sets it on the table, I see she’s brought me warm milk and chocolate chip cookies. I almost burst into tears at her kindness. It makes me miss my mom.
“I’m all right, I guess,” I say, dragging a hand through my hair. She steps over and picks a twig out of it, twirling it in her fingers before dropping it into a wastebasket nearby.
“I’m sure that was frightening for you. I brought you a snack to calm you down, but perhaps you’d like to soak in the tub? I could run you a bath.” Wilma reaches over and helps me out of my jacket. I hadn’t even taken it off yet.
“I think I’ll be okay.” I sit down next to the cookies, and she pours me a glass of milk. I thank her and sip on it absently. She’s lingering, which means she probably wants to tell me something, but she’s not supposed to talk to me about any of this–and I’m not supposed to ask her.
But then, what’s preventing me from trying?
“You can do that, too?” I ask, picking up a cookie and breaking a piece of it off. “Turn into a wolf?”
“Oh, yes, dear. Though I haven’t done it in a while. I’m afraid my wolf would be mostly gray now. Used to be the prettiest brown.” She sets her hands on the back of the chair across from me and gets a far-off look in her eyes.
“You can join me if you’d like.” I give her an encouraging smile, but she shakes her head and looks over her shoulder.
“No, I shouldn’t. The king will be in soon, I’m certain. You needn’t worry about it, though, dear. It takes some getting used to, but on your birthday, you’ll see how easy it is.”
“Does it hurt?” I pop the bite of cookie into my mouth.
She shakes her head. “No, no. Not at all. It’s exhilarating, actually. The freedom of running in one’s wolf form is spectacular.”
I want to believe her. It does sound amazing, but I’m still in denial.
And there are other questions I can’t help but broach with her. “So this kingdom and that one over there are full of wolf shifters. Are there other kingdoms like them?”
“Yes, dozens of them. But we don’t have much contact with them anymore. After the war, after all that transpired, Alpha King Rowan is reluctant to trust anyone. Even the kingdom of Twilight Crossing hasn’t sent delegates since, well, since the night of the attack.”
“Why were they here then?” I’m having trouble following her but don’t want to ask too many questions for fear she’ll stop talking. I take a sip of the milk, and it does make me feel better.
“Because of the ball. It was a grand celebration for Princess Mara’s birthday. Rowan wanted it to be spectacular, so he did a lot of the planning himself.” She laughs, but I get an oddly sour taste in my mouth–and it has nothing to do with the milk. “But that night, she was taken, his father was killed, and he almost bled to death before James could get to him. It was terrible. The contingencies from the other kingdoms left immediately. We sent troops into Darksky’s territory, trying to reclaim her, but with no one to lead them, well, Dean couldn’t do it all on his own, not against Darksky. He’s too old and wise for someone who was really a child to be able to handle it, and his father was also dead in his bed….”
I stare at her, stunned. A lot more went on here than I realized before. And it all had to do with Darksky.
“I’m afraid I’ve said too much.” She sighs and shakes her head. “Unlike some people, I do feel that honesty is the best policy, but no one really cares what an old woman thinks.”
“I care,” I tell her quickly. I’m still confused, but I think I’ve managed to put all the pieces together, at least to a degree. “Twilight Crossing was a close ally to us. Are they close to Darksky now?”
“No, of course not. They have the king’s granddaughter, after all!”
“Princess Mara?”
“Yes, of course. It’s all so sad.” She lifts a hand and wipes away a tear. “But… I will say, having you here has made a huge improvement, dear.”
I force a smile, but I know she’s just being nice.
She catches me. “No, no, I mean it. You’re the first newcomer in quite some time, and we are so happy to have you.”
“Well, I’m afraid I won’t be here that much longer,” I say, feeling her out. “Once I shift, I’ll be leaving.”
Her mouth draws into a thin line. “I guess he’s telling you more of the truth than I suspected. Well, at least you can prepare yourself. I should go before I get us both into trouble. If you need me, just holler.”
“Thank you, Wilma.”
She pats my cheek lovingly and then heads out the door. I don’t hear it lock behind her.
It’s tempting to go out now and see what I can discover, but I think I know what’s going on.
Rowan fell in love with Princess Mara, the granddaughter of the king of Twilight Crossing, their close ally. She was here, celebrating her birthday, when the castle was attacked and Darksky stole her. He killed Rowan and Dean’s fathers and grievously injured Rowan.
And now, Rowan is trying to get her back. But how?
I’m not sure on that last detail, and I’m honestly not sure I want to know.
I am pretty certain Rowan called me princess while he was yelling at me, but I was a bit distracted, what with his enormous cock dancing before my eyes and the fact that I’d almost died.
Surely….
I turn and look at the vague outline of Darksky’s castle in the distance.
No, that can’t be it. Regardless of where I was conceived, I can’t be his daughter.
I am not a princess–am I?