The Lycan's Stolen Bride

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The party wound down slowly, guests trickling out through the front gates in twos and threes, carriages pulling away down the long drive one after another. Callie kept working through it all, collecting empty glasses, clearing trays, moving quietly between the terrace and the kitchen until her arms ached from the weight of dishes.

By the time the last of the loud laughter faded from the sitting room, she was exhausted in a way that went deeper than her body. She carried a stack of dirty glasses into the kitchen and set them down carefully by the wash basin, then paused, letting herself lean against the counter for just a moment before someone noticed her resting.

Two of the older kitchen maids stood near the back door, voices low, heads bent close together the way people spoke when they thought no one else was listening. Callie recognized them both, women who had worked in the house for years, women who knew things long before the family bothered to announce them.

"Did you see him tonight?" one of them murmured, glancing toward the hallway like she expected someone to appear. "Barely made it through the party. I thought he might collapse right there on the terrace."

"I heard the Madam talking about it earlier," the other said, voice dropping even lower. "He's a general. From the Northern Isles. Sent ahead of some important person, an escort of sorts, tied up in all this business with the alliance talks."

Callie kept her back to them, busying her hands with the glasses, careful not to make a single sound that might remind them she was standing close enough to hear every word.

"He's been sick for weeks," the first maid continued. "Something happened to him before he even arrived here, some kind of attack, dark magic they're saying. A wound that won't close no matter what healer looks at it. They've had three different healers try since he got here and none of them could do a thing."

"Dark magic," the second maid repeated, voice tight with unease. "That's not something regular healers can touch, no wonder they're struggling."

"That's exactly the problem," the first maid said. "The Madam is beside herself worrying over it. If he dies under this roof, right in the middle of these alliance talks, it'll look terrible. She keeps saying it, over and over, we cannot have him dying here, not now, not with everything riding on this ceremony."

Callie's hands went still over the basin for just a second before she forced them to keep moving.

"You'd think," the second maid muttered, "they'd be more worried about the man himself. Whatever pain he's in. Instead it's all about how it looks."

"When has it ever been anything else in this house," the first maid said flatly, and the two of them fell into a quiet, knowing silence, the kind shared by people who had spent too many years serving a family they saw clearly for exactly what it was.

Callie said nothing, kept her head down, and finished stacking the last of the glasses before slipping quietly out of the kitchen before either maid noticed how long she had lingered.

She walked the back hallway slower than she needed to, turning the conversation over in her mind despite every instinct telling her to let it go, to keep her nose out of things that were not her business anymore.

A wound from a dark attack. One that ordinary healers could not close.

She thought of the pale, sweating man on the terrace, jaw clenched the entire evening like he was holding himself together through sheer force of will. She thought of the way his eyes had lifted to hers for just that one moment, tired in a way that went bone deep.

She should not care. She reminded herself of that firmly as she walked. She had her own plans, her own quiet countdown ticking away toward the day she finally slipped out of this house for good. She did not need to involve herself in the problems of some foreign general, no matter how sick he looked, no matter what unfair judgment her family had already passed on him without a shred of real concern.

And yet the details stayed with her anyway, filed away neatly in some corner of her mind she could not fully control. Weeks of sickness. Dark magic. Regular healers failing again and again.

Focus on the details, her second mentor used to say, back in the quiet corners of the camp where she had trained in secret. You never know which one will matter later. Notice everything, even the things that seem useless. Especially those.

She had not thought of that lesson in a long time, but it surfaced now, clear and steady, an old habit refusing to loosen its grip even after two years locked away.

By the time she reached the main hallway again, most of the guests had gone. A few carriages remained near the front steps, families saying their lingering goodbyes, promises to see each other soon at the ceremony exchanged with practiced warmth. Callie hovered near the edge of the hall, waiting for instructions, watching quietly as the last of the guests filtered out.