Chapter 40: Say That Again. Louder.

"Oh, come ON," Maria said, shielding her eyes. "Is it getting heavier?"

"Feels like it," Nova answered with a shiver. Wolves ran hotter than slaves did. The temperature was dropping fast enough to prove the point.

Seraphina glanced at Nova, not understanding.

"Why is she shivering?" she asked Maria, like Nova wasn’t there.

Maria looked at Nova, also confused. "Your lips are turning blue, Nova. Do you find this cold?"

"She’s fine," Celeste clipped, without looking at them. "She’s slept outside in rain and snow. Colder than this."

Seraphina and Maria traded a look over Nova’s head. Nova assumed it was a this bitch is unwell look because Celeste’s statement there probably sounded batshit crazy to them.

"Have you slept in a real bed before?" Maria asked Nova, point blank, dead serious. The question was so innocent that it made Nova smile.

"Yes," Nova answered.

"Why were you sleeping outside then?"

"It’s how they learn, Maria," Celeste snapped like she didn’t have time for stupid. Then she knocked the water bottle out of Nova’s hands onto the muddy ground.

Nova’s lips parted, genuinely not expecting that. The water bottle sat in the mud. She looked at it longingly because she was really, really thirsty.

Before she could pick it up, Celeste smashed it with her boot and grabbed her chin. "Go back to your spot and stop making this about yourself."

Both princesses went rigid. Nova gathered that the Celeste they usually got was the watered-down edition. Tonight they were meeting the original.

It was at this moment, that Nova had to sneeze. She inhaled sharply, and tried to cover her mouth and turn her head away but Celeste’s grip on her chin was not letting her.

The sneeze won. Right in Celeste’s face. Point blank. One inch of distance and zero warning.

Celeste recoiled like she’d been hit with the glow pox plague. Her hand flew off Nova’s chin. Her mouth opened in silent, full-body horror. She looked at her hand. Looked at Nova. Looked at her hand again.

"Apologies, Princess," Nova said, mortified.

Sneezing in someone’s face was horrifying regardless of whether that someone had just knocked her water into the mud. Nova was definitely coming down with something though. She could feel it all over her body.

The princesses lost it on both sides of Nova. Maria turned away, shoulders shaking. Seraphina was covering her face with both of her hands.

"You. SNEEZED. On MY FACE." Celeste grabbed Nova’s chin again. It was her signature move and she went back to it the way a dog goes back to a bone. The same grip, the same angle, the same complete disregard for the fact that the last time she’d held Nova’s chin, the chin had sneezed on her.

A throat cleared behind Celeste. Nova couldn’t see who it was.

Celeste turned her head and let go of Nova’s chin like she had been burned. The transformation was instant. Terrifying. The fury drained from her face like water from a sink, and what replaced it was warmth.

"Oh, how thoughtful. Perfect timing because 7709 was just about to go back to her spot." She patted Nova’s shoulder with the same hand that had grabbed her chin three seconds ago.

It wasn’t the Thunderfang who had carried her earlier. It was the other one and he was holding a cloak in his arm. He ignored Celeste completely and held the cloak out for Nova to take.

Nova looked at it and then back up at him like she needed to double check that he hadn’t mixed her up with someone else or wandered over from the wrong apocalypse.

"F-f-for me?" she managed. The shiver and stutter definitely sounded pathetic and she hated that they joined forces for that.

"Yes." He draped it around her shoulders, not waiting for her to take it.

The cloak was night-and-day warmer.

"Thank you," she said softly.

The man nodded, then looked at Celeste.

"She stays where she is."

He turned without another word.

Celeste’s eyes followed him for exactly two seconds, then snapped to Nova. The look lasted less than a heartbeat but it carried the full weight of a woman who had been publicly ignored, publicly overruled, and was now standing next to a slave wearing a ranked wolf’s cloak. Every one of those facts was being stored.

"I warned you, 7709. You will be dealt with."

Nova face forward and pretended not to hear.

"You face me when I am speaking," Celeste gritted. "The disrespect you have shown is appalling. No one is going to buy you and you are only making it worse for yourself. Sterilization."

"That’s not true," Maria commented. "My brother is going to buy her after this and make her his mate."

Celeste head slingshotted from Nova to Maria like this was new information.

"It’s true," Maria said, looking forward.

Celeste let out a laugh that was so genuine, it was almost funny.

"Buying her doesn’t mean mate, Maria. Father probably already had his men look at her earlier. In fact, I know he did. Slaves get inspected. They make sure she is a virgin and she gets sold as a whore. If your brother is buying her, it’s for that and it’s probably not for himself."

Nova faced forward and stared at the ground ten feet in front of her. The problem was, Celeste wasn’t wrong. That’s what usually happened.

She swallowed that down, refusing to get worked up over something she had zero control over. Celeste was just being Celeste and trying to get under her skin. Nova’s plate was already a dumpster fire. Celeste could wait outside with the rest of the trash.

Maria squeezed Nova’s arm. "My brother is a good man. He would never do that."

"If he buys her, it’ll be for his men, Sweetheart," Celeste stated. "He’ll pair her with a slave on paper to meet the mandate. But make no mistake, she’ll be a whore that he’ll give to someone or loan out. Because that’s what she is. A whore."

Maria’s head turned slowly to look at Celeste. "Say that again. Louder so my brother can hear you. I dare you."