Chapter Two

 

“My Lady, I really must protest. Security is not what it once was in Gilt Hollow, with all of the soldiers and guards dead. The safest place for you is inside the palace.”

Isadora Eastmore, daughter of Emperor Eastmore and better known as Princess Isa, glared at her guard. He was one of the few security guards in Gilt Hollow who had not been poisoned, and he had been insufferably vigilant ever since the poisoning incident. Isa constantly felt like he was smothering her.

“You know I’m not the kind of person who can sit still, cooped up inside. I want to get out and see how things are in the city.”

“I can tell you how things are. Chaotic.” The guard was careful to keep his voice respectful, but Isa could detect the underlying note of frustration. He’d been arguing with Isa for two days that she should wait until things settled to venture out of the palace, and perhaps a more reasonable princess would have agreed. Things were chaotic out there.

But Isa had never been the reasonable type, and she couldn’t stand to sit here one moment longer, wondering how the shifters were being treated.

“I’m going to see the chaos for myself. The royal family has a responsibility to stay personally informed on everything going on in Gilt Hollow.”

The guard sighed. “Your father has kept himself informed. Isn’t that enough?”

“Nope,” Isa said, already pulling on her glittering wool cape. The temperature today was again colder than normal, and although the walk to the Arena wasn’t too long, the last thing Isa needed was to catch a chill and get sick. If she came down with a cold, that would only be one more reason for the palace guards to insist she stay inside.

The guard sighed again, finally realizing that he wasn’t going to win this argument. “Very well, my Lady. But we must be careful.”

Isa only grunted in response, then swept out of the room and toward the stairway that would lead her to the palace’s front entrance. She stormed out the front door without pausing to acknowledge the guards who stood there saluting her. Normally, she tried to be polite to all of the household staff, but she didn’t have patience for politeness right now. Not when she’d heard rumors that her father had ordered all of the shifters in Gilt Hollow to be caged up like wild animals.

The rumors are bound to be true, she fumed. Even before the poisoning incident, everyone in Gilt Hollow had treated the shifters like animals. Isa had always been bothered by this, but what could she do? Any attempt at sticking up for the shifters made her father look bad, and angered him to the point that he’d even threatened to disinherit Isa.

I should have let him disinherit me. But I was too much of a coward. Isa had lived her whole life in the easy, pampered world of royalty. It was all she knew, and she feared she did not have what it took to make it outside of cushy Gilt Hollow. The time had come to put her fears aside, though. She could not live another day standing by and doing nothing while an entire group of people was harassed just for being different. She was going to find a way to help the shifters.

But first, she had to see what she was up against. How serious, exactly, was the shifters’ situation. And would they believe her when she told them she was on their side?

Isa walked briskly toward the Arena, thankful that her guard had fallen silent now. She was tired of wasting words arguing with him. She saw the frown cross his face as they drew closer to the Arena, but he did not comment. He remained stoic and professional as she walked into the entrance, but when it became clear that she was heading toward the room that held cages for the wild animals, his anxiety over the situation bubbled up again.

“My Lady, the shifters are being held under the highest security. There’s no need to check up on them.”

Isa narrowed her eyes. “I told you. I want to see things for myself.” She stormed through the building and made her way toward the room that used to hold the wild animals. She knew this Arena well. Too well. She’d spent too much time here over the years, most of it in the stands, watching as shifters were forced to fight in the ring against their will. But she’d also spent plenty of time wandering the halls behind the ring. She knew every hallway and room like the back of her hand, and she took the fastest route to get to where the shifters were supposedly being held.

She threw the door to the room open without knocking or announcing herself, and the guards inside the room jumped and pointed their guns in her direction. A split-second later, when they realized it was her who had entered the room, they lowered their guns and dropped to their knees.

“My Lady! My apologies. We weren’t expecting you.”

“Everyone out,” Isa said, her voice tight with anger. The guards looked at each other uncertainly.

“But, my Lady. We’re not supposed to let any of these shifters out of our sight for even a second, and—”

“I said, out!”

“Yes, my Lady.” The guards started scurrying toward the door. Isa turned toward her own personal guard.

“You too.”

His eyes went wide. “Princess Isa! I cannot leave you alone in here with these beasts. What if one of them attacks you? The Emperor would never forgive me if anything happened to you. And I would never forgive myself.”

“Oh, wake up! They’re not wild beasts. They’re only men. And they’re all in cages that were designed to hold lions captive. They’re not going to be able to harm me.”

Her guard still hesitated. “I don’t understand why you need to see them alone.”

“Because I want to talk to them in private, to hear how they are really being treated. And I don’t want their responses to be watered down because they are afraid the guards will hear what they’re saying and retaliate against them.”

This wasn’t the truth at all, but it was the best excuse Isa could give. The truth was that she wanted a chance to ask the shifters what she could do to help them. She could hardly do that with her guard looking on. Her guard gave her quite a bit of leeway—probably much more leeway than her father would have liked. The guard looked the other way most of the time when she took risks her father would have considered too great. But the guard’s leniency would not extend to looking the other way when Isa committed treason against her own father, of that she was sure. If the guard had any clue of what she was actually about to do, he would have run back to her father and told him right away.

He didn’t have a clue, though. With a frustrated sigh, he turned back toward the door. “Very well, my Lady. I’ll wait right outside the door. If you need help, just yell and I’ll be back in this room in an instant.”

Isa waited until the door had clicked firmly shut behind him, and then she turned to face the shifters. They all sat watching her warily, eyes dark with anger. She could not blame them. Her people had mistreated them in nearly every way imaginable. For a moment, she considered turning and running back through the door. This task was too hard, and she was not brave enough. How could she ever convince the shifters that she was on their side?

But if she didn’t help them, then who would? She forced herself to stand her ground, and to lift her chin stubbornly.

“Hello, everyone. I’m Isadora Eastmore. Most of you probably know me as Princess Isa.” The introduction wasn’t necessary. Everyone in here knew who she was, and they probably all hated her just for the fact that she was related to the Emperor. She had to prove to them that she was more than her bloodline. She took another deep breath, and plowed forward.

“I would like to know how you all have been treated. Have you been provided with ample food and water?”

A derisive snort came from the cage right in front of her. The man inside had striking green eyes and the biggest muscles Isa had ever seen. He looked vaguely familiar, but that didn’t surprise her much. Most of these shifters she had seen in the ring before, she was sure of that.

“You want to know how we’ve been treated?” the man asked, his voice taking on a tone of incredulity. “Look at us. We’re in cages. How do you think we’ve been treated?”

Isa swallowed hard and told herself to remain calm. Getting defensive wasn’t going to help anything, and these shifters deserved to be angry. Isa was going to have to take a chance on being straightforward with them, and hope she could get them to listen.

“I’m sorry. I know it must seem like a joke to you that I’m asking how you are, and I know you must hate me because of who my father is. But the truth is that I am nothing like my father. I’ve grown up watching you all be mistreated and I’ve hated every second of it. I should have stood up and said something long before now, yes. There’s no real excuse for my silence, but I hope you can all give me some grace and give me a second chance. It isn’t easy to stand in the shadow of a man as cruel as my father and try to change things. But I’m here now. Better late than never, I hope. I want to help you, and all of the other shifters, too. I…I’m no warrior. I don’t know how to fight. But if you’ll show me how to help you, I’ll do my best.”

The shifter who had first spoken up rolled his eyes. “Oh, great. The pretty little princess’s conscience is bothering her, is it? Does it make you feel better to give us a speech like that? ‘Oh, I can’t do much and I don’t know what to do, but I do feel bad. Really I do.’ Are we supposed to be impressed by that?”

Isa took a deep breath to steady her nerves. This was not going well. “I’m not trying to impress you. I’m trying to help. Maybe I’m not the perfect savior, but you guys are all locked up in cages right now. Surely, you’d rather accept imperfect help than get no help at all?”

The shifter crossed his arms. His eyes flashed at her, and normally Isa would have shrunk back at the anger in them. But she found herself strangely fascinated instead. She’d never seen eyes so handsome. How had she never noticed that when this man was in the ring? When he only glared at her without answering, she decided to take a chance on asking him who he was.

“What’s your name?”

His frown deepened, and for a second she thought he wasn’t going to answer. But a moment later he said, “Leo. Leo Ashworth.”

Isa furrowed her brow, trying to remember the name. She couldn’t recall ever hearing that name at the Games. “Are you a newer competitor?”

Leo laughed. “I’m not a competitor. I was a shifter guard for House Severson. Been there about two decades. Saved those bastards’ lives on more than one occasion, but it doesn’t matter. They have no gratitude. All they’ve ever done is mistreat me.”

He’s a guard! That’s why he looks vaguely familiar. I must have seen him now and then when I visited the Severson estate.

Isa’s father was good friends with Fritz Severson, the patriarch of the Severson noble family, and because of that Isa had been to countless dinners at the Severson estate. She had firsthand knowledge of how the Seversons treated their shifters, and she couldn’t blame Leo for being angrier than most. If he’d been a Severson guard for two decades, he’d suffered countless indignities, of that she was sure.

“Well, Leo, I can’t change what the Seversons have done. Or what my father has done for that matter. But I can help you now. What do you need?”

Leo rolled his eyes again, and before he could say anything, the shifter in the cage next to him spoke up.

“Don’t waste your breath, Leo. She’s probably been sent here by the Emperor himself to act like she cares. She’ll try to be all buddy-buddy with us and then try to get information out of us on what our plans for attacking Gilt Hollow are. This is all a giant trap.”

“It’s not a trap!” Isa insisted, turning to face the other shifter. She recognized him instantly. Otto, the wolf shifter. He’d been Champion of the Games on numerous occasions, and he’d always pushed back a little against the Gilt Hollow system. He’d been able to do that, since he’d won so many trophies for the Seversons. Rumor had it that he had been the ringleader behind the recent shifter rebellion, which wouldn’t have surprised Isa at all. He’d always had bit of a rebel look in his eyes. Right now, he was looking at her with eyes that said he would not trust her if his life depended on it. Before Otto could say anything else to her, though, Leo was speaking again.

“If it’s not a trap, then get us some food.”

Isa turned to look at Leo. “Food? Are they not feeding you?”

“Leo, that’s enough!” Otto said.

But Leo ignored Otto and spoke anyway. “No, they’re not feeding us. They’re trying to starve us to death. They think that the Bear Hollow shifters will submit to them again if we all start dying in here. It won’t work. Bear Hollow will never submit again. But I wouldn’t mind a damn sandwich.”

Isa blinked at Leo, processing everything he’d just said. She should have realized that this was what was going on. She’d heard her father talking about how he didn’t have enough soldiers to hold back the Bear Hollow shifters, but that he could still hit them where it counted. Isa hadn’t been sure what he meant by that, but now all the pieces were falling into place. Her father was going to kill these shifters slowly in hopes that this would scare the rest of Bear Hollow into submission. Her stomach lurched at the thought. Sometimes, she wondered how it was possible that her father was actually her father. How was it possible that she was the daughter of such an awful, cruel man?

She didn’t have answers to that question, but she did know one thing. She wasn’t going to let her father get away with this. She was going to get these shifters food somehow, even though she’d have to risk her own safety to do it. And in the process, she would prove to everyone in these cages that she was more than just her father’s daughter.

The cruelty stopped here. She looked Leo directly in the eyes, startled again by how intense those green eyes were, and even more startled at the way her heart fluttered when he looked at her.

“I’ll be back,” she said, doing her best to sound strong and confident. She was a princess after all. “And when I’m back, I’ll have food with me.”

She turned on her heel and reached for the door handle, determined to get out of that room before Otto could make some sort of sarcastic reply. She let the door slam shut behind her and didn’t bother to slow down or explain to the guards that she was done. She stormed toward the Arena exit with her own guard scrambling after her in confusion, but she didn’t offer him any explanations either. She didn’t have time to make excuses to her father’s man.

She had work to do, and shifters to help. And she had determined that she was going to help Leo Ashworth if it cost her life.