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In the days that followed, I felt sure I would have lost my mind if it wasn't for Whisper, my familiar. Whisper could take on any form he wanted, but in order to keep our secret, he most commonly disguised himself as a wolf. Keeping him had been a trial - Sienna had threatened to take him from me, and I'd been forced to beg on my knees to be allowed to have him by my side. Sienna had "graciously" accepted, but had warned me that if I caused any trouble, she'd personally strip me of Whisper, being of the opinion I didn't deserve to have my wolf, and that I should be made to live my days completely alone.
Roger had, luckily, told her that such threats were not acceptable, but he'd told me that he wasn't keeping Whisper and I together out of kindness, which had quelled any gratitude I might have felt towards him for sparing me from a fate worse than death. "I intend to see you live your days in good health," he'd told me. "That doesn't mean I hold you in any regard. You are here so I can bring your parents to heel - you need to be on your best behaviour at all times. Otherwise, I'll make sure you suffer in ways you could not begin to imagine."
That threat was even worse than Sienna's, and for the first few days, I tiptoed around my section of the palace, fearing hidden cameras and bugged rooms. Whisper, however, assured me there was no such thing, and he used his magic to effoetlessly mask us, his spells negating any spying Sienna might undertake at a moment's notice. After a few days, when neither Sienna nor Roger came into my wing in a fury of vengeance, I finally allowed myself to relax. Being a prisoner was no fun, but that didn't mean I couldn't enjoy my surroundings. And I had Whisper, which made the most difference in what was otherwise a trying time.
It was the nights that were hardest - I often felt Sienna trying to pull my mind into hers so she could make me "watch" while she had sex with Zach. But Whisper always leapt into the breach and pulled me clear before I could be drawn into my sister-in-law's lusrful trap. One time she'd almost succeeded, before Whisper managed to pull me away, but that was the one moment where my worst fears were realised - Zach was as unwilling a "guest" as I, with our younger siblings' continued safety relying on his complete obedience to the whims of his mate. He too had been isolated whilst growing up here, and Sienna had used that isolation to make him wholly reliant on her.
But that brief contact I'd had had told me he was using his innate magic to ensure one part of his mind remained free of Sienna's control, and his familiar, Blackjack, was performing the same service as Whisper was doing for me. But unlike Whisper, he had to keep Blackjack a secret. If Sienna ever caught wind, she'd send the word to the packmates who still had my packhouse ringed, ready to kidnap the triplets on a moment's notice.
That remained my greatest fear - that my siblings would end up caught in Sienna and Wanda's crazy games. But Sienna wasn't having it all her way; she was having trouble conceiving, according to the gossip of the maids who looked after my section of the palace. The maids and other staff never talked directly to me, of course, and I made sure to make it look like I was deliberately eavesdropping, just in case I missed out on some gossip that might help me. If any of the staff spied me nearby, they'd stop talking until I left, so I always made sure to never be in the same rooms as them.
Most of the gossip was boring, but it was Sienna's failure to conceive that had me on tenterhooks. I didn't want to be blamed for "putting a curse" on her, or some other equally ridiculous notion, but as summer moved into autumn with no sign of a pregnancy, things took a turn for the worse.
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