Kind of my fault. Even though I use up more than 5 minutes’ worth of water just thinking about washing my long, thick, and naturally curly hair, I might have pushed for some extra stringent climate controls. Did I mention I could be a petty bitch? Especially when it came to the Yellow Mountain Wolves. Well, I’m paying for it now. I won’t be able to get fully clean, because I was too busy thinking when I should have been lathering up my body.
This smart house is turning out to be a real pain in the ass—
Wait, smart. The gatehouse is smart! I cut off my lament when I suddenly realize I might be able to use a wall to get some kind of communication out. What did Mom use to call those formal text messages you had to type out on a non-biological device and send through a special server? Email! Maybe I could use the wall to send some kind of email to one of her old accounts. Which I hoped to God she still checks.
Suddenly I’m a lot more eager to return to my bedroom. But then I cringe when I note what’s missing from the bathroom.
Namely, towels. Or any kind of robe.
Okay, it seems the whole point of this abduction is for the universe to yell at me, “You, Ola Greenwolf, are a complete lie.”
“You better represent for us fly girls and wear that bikini!” How many times had I told my sister that? She’d been self-conscious about our tall, double-wide brickhouse bodies growing up. And I’d been more than sure it would be a privilege for any man to see our banging curves on display.
But all that body positivity flies right out the window now. But to be fair, nobody in their right mind would want to walk naked into a room maybe still currently occupied by the Greek statue of a dragon shifter who kidnapped her ass.
Please don’t be out there. Please don’t be out there, I beg the universe as I tentatively open the door.
And you know what? The universe ain’t shit.
Of course, Damianos is still in the bedroom, standing by the front-of-house window big as day.
He turns his head to me in that slow dragon way of his and openly stares at my naked body.
And my wolf…goddamn her. She stands up again, making me breathless for reasons I refuse to deliberate on.
“Don some attire, then join me at the window,” Damianos commands. Then he cuts his gaze away like he’s not at all impressed by anything he saw.
I am not upset. I am not upset about Damianos non-reaction to seeing me naked. This guy has kidnapped me. Kidnapped me! I don’t care one way or the other if he doesn’t find me as hot as I know I am because I’m not a stick like a lot of young rich women my height want to be.
I shouldn’t care…
So I won’t, I decide as I palm open the closet.
It doesn’t take me long to decide what to wear. There are only linen nightgowns. Ten replicas of the one I woke up in. I check the push-button drawers underneath just in case. I would kill for my normal around the house wear, a t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants. But the drawers are empty. No underwear even. So, I guess old-timey sleepwear it is.
I slip it over my head then covertly look around for a smart screen or a set of controls. Anything I could use to get a message out…
“Have you forgotten the second part of my order?” I look up from my search to find Damianos once again regarding me now that I’m covered up. “Come, stand with me at the window. I would like for you to see this.”
He raises one huge arm and beckons me forward.
It would almost seem like a friendly invite, if not for the stone-cold look on his beautiful face.
I go to him. Maybe playing along will get him out of here faster, so that I can spend some quality time with that smart wall.
I reluctantly go to stand next to him at the window, and the view hits me like a gut punch. Most of North Dakota is flat, and we’re on a mountain. So you can see farther than expected. The original state pack village sits, nestled among the trees further down the mount. And if I squinted, maybe I could see all the way to New Wolfsburg, the North Dakota pack’s current kingdom town, where my kingdom mansion sits, like the largest jewel in a crown dotted with houses. From this vantage point, New Wolfsburg feels so close.
But it’s so far away.
“Don’t look out,” Damianos commands. “Look down at the gatekeeper. I believe you referred to him as Kirk.”
I don’t want to look down. But something inside me won’t let me not look. And that’s when I see Kirk.