Lycan Alpha Claim 3 (114 page)

Clara looked warily at another member of the Band and noticed how they all looked so much alike, all huge males with the strange gills. The other males looked like the men of her sphere. The woman looked ordinary compared to him. Deep brown hair grazed the swell of her collarbone. She had sapphire eyes and honey-colored skin. It was her ready smile that caused a great, aching sadness in Clara. Lillian reminded her of Sarah. She controlled her expression. Her sadness was not something she wished to reveal to anyone.

She looked back at Philip. The odd expression still rode his face. She remembered the tingling when he’d touched her and wondered at its significance. She put her hand to her chest and looked at Lillian and Jack.

Lillian contained her shock at seeing the Princess’ condition. Who had done this to her face?
She knew exactly what Jack must be thinking behind her. The poor waif. She took in the disheveled hair, the ruined dress, her delicate face in various stages of healing. To Lillian, it was obvious that she had suffered more than one beating. She would ask Bracus later. He would know more. For now, she was too polite to inquire.

Her eyes met Philip’s, and he shook his head, rubbing his arm in an odd fashion. Lillian made a decision. She would take care of the Princess while the Band reconvened. She knew they would go after Evelyn. She closed her eyes briefly. She
loathed
the
fragment
. They were the only thing that kept the clan from true contentment.

She looked at Clara. “Please, let me help you get settled. You need new clothing, rest and perhaps a hot bath at the springs?”

Jack looked at the sun's position. “One hour more...”

He looked at Philip, who nodded in agreement.

Lillian sighed. “Be off then.” She smiled to soften her remark, and the men laughed. Jack swooped down to land a soft kiss upon her lips, and Lillian pressed her body against his, mingling perfectly for the stolen moment.

Clara looked away, embarrassed. Relationships were very different Outside. She thought she might like it. They had an openness of expression that was sorely lacking in her sphere.

Jack left Lillian, looking back one last time. Philip watched Clara. She looked nervously away, not knowing what to think of it all.

“Come, Princess,” Lillian said.

Clara found her voice. “Please, call me Clara. That is what my friends call me.”
When the Queen is not in attendance,
she added silently.

“Alright,
Clara.
” Lillian walked away with the expectation that Clara would follow.

They wound their way through the small cottage. At its back was a small kitchen overlooking a ravine. Clara listened and thought she heard running water.

“What is that sound?”

Lilian raised her eyebrows and stood still listening. She smiled. “It is a wee creek.” She turned and stood before an odd-looking sink with a spigot. Clara looked on in fascination. All the plumbing of the sphere clanked and hissed with the steam-driven machinery, but Lilian turned a strange handle shaped like a T and out flowed a rush of water, frosting the spigot.

“How curious.” Clara reached out to touch the stream of water. Thirst immediately boiled to the surface. Her throat felt parched.

Lillian smiled, fetching a glass off a low hung shelf made of roughened wood, the glass's misshapen thickness sparkling from the dim light that permeated the windowpane.

Clara gulped the water greedily and looked about her, taking in the small house. She spied a looking glass and slowly approached.

Clara immediately regretted it. She looked atrocious. Her dress, once a beautiful turquoise, was a sodden, dirty green, and her hair lay unbound and filthy. She looked away, a high flush coloring her cheeks. She noticed with some relief that her face did not look as terrible as it had. That was something at least.

Lillian saw Clara's discomfort and put on a kettle to heat some water. When it became hot enough, she would stop up the sink and use soap to get the worst of the travel grime cleaned off. Tonight, they would travel to the hot springs, and Clara could soak for an hour and finally tell Lillian all she knew. Although, Lillian had the feeling that Clara was not a woman to divulge things readily.

“How many years are you?” Lillian asked.

“I just celebrated my Day of Birth. Ten and seven years.”

Seventeen years! Good Lord, she was young. Lillian wondered why her eyes held such age.

She set the kettle upon the stovetop. Heating water might take some time, and the President would arrive shortly. It would have to be a tepid cleaning.

Lillian turned. “Let us go to my chamber, and I will fetch you something else to wear.”

Clara nodded, weariness sucking at her. She was so tired her eyes burned, but she must stay awake long enough to clean herself.

She followed Lillian into her bedchamber and thought it lovely. Low ceilings hugged the room: muted cream-colored plaster with heavy, deep mahogany timbers bisecting it. A lone window stood at its center. Dim light softly illuminated a four-poster bed shrouded in a canopy of gauzy ivory material.

Lillian brought out several long skirts and blouses in soft colors.

“You are a tiny thing.” She studiously held up several different garments. “This should fit you. It fit me when I was ten and three years!” She laughed.

Clara asked tentatively, thinking of Olive. “Would you assist me in the removal of my...” She pointed to her back.

“Certainly,” Lillian said.

She unhooked twenty hooks and asked, “What is this strange garment you wear under your dress?”

Clara saw Lillian out of the corner of her eye. “My undergarment... with the stays?”

Lillian nodded in wonderment at the uncomfortable-looking contraption, grateful she had never had to wear such a thing.

“It is my corset.” Clara lifted one shoulder. “All women wear them.”

Lillian did not comment further but helped Clara slip out of the offending thing.

Clara covered her breasts, feeling exposed even in front of a woman.

“You cannot put the horrible thing back on,” Lillian insisted, eying Clara critically. “Here,” she rummaged in a simple dresser. The handles shone softly in the glow from the window, the brass like butter. “Use this.” She held up a bodice with built-in bosom cups. It seemed to Clara very much like the corset but without the stays. Lillian laced it up, and Clara's breasts spilled out the top in a most revealing way.

“Nothing we can do about your figure. You are built like a wasp.”

“The creatures that sting?”

Lillian took her two index fingers and drew an imaginary hourglass in the air. Clara nodded.

“You did not need this contraption.” Lillian picked it up as she puckered her lips in apparent distaste, barely touching it. “We will burn it later.”

“Burn it?” Clara surprised herself by laughing.

Lillian grinned back. “Yes, I think that would be a good end for it, do you not?”

Clara did
and nodded. It felt wonderfully free to be without it. The new garment still bound her but not uncomfortably so.

Clara put on a brown skirt made of silk and cotton in a soft but crude weave. The waist was too large. Lillian found an interior tie and cinched it. Better.

She stood back. Sorting through the clothing, she handed a pale, teal-colored blouse to Clara. It fit perfectly.

“Evelyn's,” she answered Clara's unspoken question.

Lillian's eyes lowered then met Clara's in a steady way. Clara liked this new acquaintance very much.

“She came by our home one day past to help me with something, and she spilled some juice on it. I had to clean it right away.” Lillian's lip trembled, and Clara saw her use her teeth to steady it. “I washed the stain out and....”

Lillian turned her back to Clara.

Clara's heart went out to Lillian. She approached her from behind. “They seem very capable... your Band. I am confident they will return with Evelyn.” Clara placed her hand on the other woman's shoulder.

“It is true. They are. But it is you, Clara, who is the important one. You are our hope... our only hope.”

The kettle shrilled its whistle, and with a last lingering look, Lillian walked away from Clara.

Clara said nothing but wished desperately to know why she had been taken. Why was she so important? Other questions pressed as well. Why were there so few females? What was the
fragment
that would take a young girl? She would find out.

Lillian poured the warm water into a large pottery bowl and began to wipe the grime off Clara's face, carefully avoiding the worst of her injuries. Her hair, which had been carefully bound up had not suffered as much, but a few small twigs were removed, and a thorough brushing helped immeasurably. Clara felt almost human when they were finished. A soft rap at the door led them both to answer it.

An older gentlemen who had more clothes on than the Band, Clara noticed  with some relief, stood flanked by two of the Band: Bracus and the guard who made her uncomfortable. She kept her focus on the man she was sure was their President.

The guard remained outside. Bracus and the President entered as Lillian busied herself in the kitchen.

Bracus looked down at Clara and noticed she wore different clothing. She looked like she had rested. His heart sped. Her face was beginning to heal. Her eye was almost completely open.

“Greetings, Princess.” President Bowen inclined his head.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Clara responded automatically.

The President turned to Bracus. “You did not overstate her condition.”

Clara felt uncomfortable heat rise to the surface of her skin.

President Bowen noticed her discomfiture. “We made a decision to acquire you sooner, Princess, as Bracus determined your life might be in imminent danger if you remained in the sphere.”

She looked at Bracus, and he looked back for a moment then away.
Curious
.
He must have been on some scouting mission, seen her after what the Prince had done and hastened this kidnapping.

She put her attention back on the president. “My foremost question is this: why have I been taken?”

She held up her hand before he could answer. “I must state my thanks as it appears I was rescued from a fate far worse than this one.”

She waited for the president to continue, but instead he turned to Bracus who expounded. “We came upon the sphere, and the Princess,
Clara,
”
he corrected at her slight frown, “was being attacked. Her companion could not aid her as he was restrained.” He looked at her for confirmation, and she nodded. It was an accurate retelling.

Bracus turned suddenly. “Is he the one?” He gestured to her face.

Her flush returned. Her face felt on fire. “He is.”

She watched the strange reaction take over Bracus. His fists clenched and opened. A vein stood out on his forehead. “We should have ended him back in the sphere for what he did to you.” He swallowed, and Clara heard the dry click. “And for what he was attempting to do.”

The president turned his penetrating gaze on Bracus, and a look she could not decipher passed between them.

“Let us sit.” Bowen indicated the adjoining parlor with its few simple pieces of furniture. Clara sat in the smallest settee and Bracus in the largest, his huge frame engulfing it, long legs flung out before him.

“Princess,” President Bowen began.

“Clara,” she corrected quietly.

“You must call me Arthur then.”

She nodded.

“Forgive my bluntness, but in light of the circumstances of Evelyn's kidnapping and the death of her father, I feel frankness is the best course.”

Clara waited.

The President shifted in his chair. “We are losing people Clara, females in particular.”

Clara's mind turned quickly. The crowd as they had come upon it had seemed odd to Clara but with all the chaos of the last day she had not struck upon what was odd. Now she realized.

The lack of women.

President Bowen saw the look of comprehension come over her face and continued his unflinching commentary.

What could they want with her?
Then she thought of it. She stood so suddenly she tipped the chair she had been sitting upon, racing to the door that led to the hall. Bracus caught her easily.

“Clara! We mean you no harm. Please, let the president finish!”

Clara's heart beat like butterfly wings trapped in her throat. What was she to them? A woman to steal? To impregnate? She shuddered, thinking about the last day in an entirely new fashion. They were going to use her as some kind of elaborate breeder. Clara felt doomed. She had escaped the sphere only to have
this
as the alternative?

She would formulate a plan, but she must, at least on the surface
,
pretend to give them her ear. Then Clara would escape this place and reunite with Charles. Despair welled inside her, filling her with stagnation.