Текст книги "The wolf king"

Автор книги: Lauren Palphreyman

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ryan’s chambers are warm and quiet.

A fire crackles in the hearth, casting light onto Callum’s face as he sits in the wooden chair beside it. He’s changed out of his blood-soaked clothes—as have I—and he’s bathed. His hair is damp and brushed back from his face. He looks younger and more boyish when he’s clean.

Becky snoozes in a chair next to the bed, and Ryan breathes softly as he sleeps. Alongside my relief at his recovery, a swell of satisfaction blooms in my chest. He is going to be okay. And I helped.

Still, a dark shadow hangs over me.

“What are we going to do about Sebastian?” I ask.

“Don’t worry about that.”

“Not all of your people have returned. He hurt Ryan because of me. And if he has more of your men. . .”

Callum runs a hand over his mouth. “It’s not your fault. We’ll get him back for this, I promise you.”

Something twists in my gut. Now, more than ever, I do not want to go back to Sebastian. And, after spending time with Callum, my initial plan of giving my father information about the Wolf King is getting less appealing.

Yet, if I stay, people will be tortured and die because of me.

I’m not sure if I can stomach it.

“I should go back,” I say.

“No.” Callum’s eyes blaze into mine.

“You’re going to trade me for the Heart of the Moon, anyway. Why not do it now?”

“No.” This time his tone is final. “We’ll find another way.”

***

I’m not sure how much longer we sit there, but it feels late by the time that Callum walks me back to my chambers.

“Thank you for earlier,” he says. “What you did for Ryan. . . I appreciate it.”

“It was nothing,” I say, embarrassed by the emotion blazing in his eyes.

“No. It wasn’t.”

Callum follows me into my room. Someone has been here in my absence, and lit the candles on the desk and the bedside table. They emit a soft glow, and flick shadows over the books and the small bed. They do nothing to fight the cold, though. My breath plumes in front of my face.

It has been a long day, and the adrenaline that was pumping through my body earlier has desisted—leaving me with aching limbs and heavy eyelids.

“Let me help,” says Callum.

“What?”

He stands awkwardly beside the bookshelf. His height and broad shoulders seem too big for the small room. His head almost touches the ceiling.

When he drags his teeth over his bottom lip, an uncharacteristic vulnerability flashes behind his eyes.

“Blake said you were still aching. And the way you were walking up the stairs. . .”

“It’s unsettling that you know these things, you know?”

He offers me a lopsided grin. “Aye. Not much is private around here. Imagine being a young pup, up to no good, and your mother being able to hear your racing pulse as you lie to her about your whereabouts.”

“Were you often up to no good?”

“Oh, always.”

I let loose a soft laugh, and his eyes brighten.

I shift from one foot to the other, suddenly very aware that we are alone in my chambers after nightfall. I swallow.

“It’s not bad, the aching. Blake said if I went to his chambers, he would give me something for the pain.”

Callum’s expression darkens. “Blake was trying to provoke me. I doubt he has anything that could help. The wolf inside us fights off most pain relief. And if he did have something, it’d be in the infirmary, not his bedchambers.” A sheepish look crosses his face. “But I can help you, if you’d like?”

“How?”

He nods at the bed. “Lie down. On your front.”

“I will do no such thing!”

He laughs, softly. “I mean no harm, Princess. Nothing improper, I swear it. I promised you no one would touch you, and that extends to me.”

I eye him suspiciously. “Well, what are you going to do?”

“Just massage some of the tension out of your muscles.”

“That seems like you’d be touching me.”

“Aye, I know. . . but it’s not. . . I mean. . . it’s not like I’d be. . .” He shakes his head. “Ghealach! You’ve got me tongue-tied.”

He looks down at his feet. When he runs his hand over the back of his neck, there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“What I mean to say, Princess, is that I’m offering a massage purely for its medicinal properties. Just as a healer might offer a soldier treatment after battle. If you want it, that is?”

He shifts his weight from one foot to another. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this arrogant, powerful alpha was nervous.

I suppress my smile. Why does that give me so much satisfaction?

I glance at his hands, by his sides, and my amusement disappears as I imagine them on me. They’re so big and strong, I can’t help but wonder what they would feel like. It would be wrong for me to let him touch me like that. I’m not supposed to let anyone touch me.

But it’s not as if anyone would ever know. And if it’s for medicinal purposes. . .

Heart racing, I lie down on my front on the bed. “Okay,” I whisper.

He sucks in a deep breath before approaching. The mattress dips as he sits down beside me, and a wave of his heat washes over me. He smells like the outdoors and the mountains.

Tentatively, he brushes my hair off my neck and I tense.

He unfastens the collar, and places it on the bedside table.

“You don’t need to wear that when it’s just us,” he says.

“Fiona said you don’t like it. As a tradition.”

“No. I don’t.”

He puts his hands on my shoulders and all my nerves come alive. His skin is hot, and his fingers are strong as he kneads my muscles. I breathe out slowly, my body softening under his touch.

“Why?” I whisper.

His hands move down, and his palms stretch across my back and make me feel tiny in comparison to him.

“My father was a. . . difficult male.” His fingers are on either side of my waist as he runs his thumbs in gentle circles down my spine. I have to suppress a moan. “He was the alpha of Highfell before me, and he believed that leadership was all about dominance and bending others to your will. If you’re not a wolf, you’re a sheep, he would say. He did not treat his people well. Nor did he treat my mother well.”

His hands move back up to my shoulders.

“He was possessive. Jealous. Angry. When he’d lose his temper, he’d say it was the wolf that made him do it. It wasn’t. It was him.”

He swallows.

“I don’t want to be like him. I wanted to be alpha to look after my people, to protect them. Not to dominate them. But I feel it sometimes—that flicker of anger, or that twinge of jealousy. I wanted to hurt Blake earlier, when he invited you to his chambers.” He laughs darkly. “When does protectiveness become possessiveness? Can you even be an alpha if a part of you doesn’t like to be in charge?”

He runs his thumb over the back of my neck, leaving a trail of heat in his wake. I fight back a whimper.

“The collar, it’s a symbol of dominance. And I don’t like it. When I am with a female, I want it to be because we are equal. I do not want to become my father. I do not want my people to think that is who I am. And I don’t want you to think that’s who I am, Princess.” He trails his hands over my upper arms, and sighs. “So no, I do not like you wearing that thing. It is a reminder of everything I do not want to be.”

“What do you want to be?”

He pauses, and for a moment, all I can hear is his breathing and the soft flicker of the candle by the bed. “A good man.”

I swallow. “I think you’re a good man.”

I probably shouldn’t think that about a wolf who stole me from my bed, but I do. I have met monsters, and Callum is not one of them.

“That means a lot, Princess.” Callum’s voice is rough, and I know he’s being sincere. “It really does.”

Candlelight casts shadows across the wall beside me, and despite the heaviness of the conversation, my body is weightless beneath Callum’s hands. He moves them over my shoulders, kneading and pressing his fingers into my aching muscles.

“Is this okay?” he asks.

“Yes.”

My blood is heating in my veins. Even though the chambers are cold, I’m hot.

He may be relieving tension from my muscles, but it seems to be building up in a different way. I want more. I want him harder, firmer, lower.

My breathing quickens. There’s another ache building between my legs. As his fingers lightly brush my waist, all the heat in my body seems to pool at my core.

Callum stills.

Cold disappointment floods me.

“What’s the matter?” I glance over my shoulder.

Panic surges through my body when my gaze lands on Callum’s face.

I scramble forward, reaching for the silver letter opener on my bedside table, as I push my back against the headboard.

Every muscle in Callum’s body is tense. He shuts his eyes. But not before I see what is behind his eyelids.

His pupils are dilated. His irises are a different shape, and brighter, somehow.

They are not Callum’s eyes. They are not the eyes of a man. They have changed.

They’re the eyes of a wolf.

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Chapter Twenty-Eight

My grip on the silver letter opener is so tight that my knuckles are white.

The door is maybe a ten-foot dash from where I am, but I don’t think I can make it.

Every story I’ve ever heard about Wolves crashes through my mind; stories about torn flesh, massacred villages, blood and gore and murder.

At some point since I was taken, I let myself forget the cold, hard truth.

This male can turn into a wolf.

Callum is breathing heavily, and his hands grip the bedsheets on either side of him.

“It’s okay.” His voice is as rough as gravel. “You’re safe.”

“Your eyes. . .”

“I know.”

My breathing is fast, and my hand trembles as I brandish the ridiculously small weapon in front of me. “Are you going to turn into a wolf?”

His jaw clenches. “No. I can’t. Only on a full moon.”

I glance at the window. The candlelight is reflected in the glass. Beyond it, the mountains hide the shape of the moon.

“It’s not a full moon,” he says, a hint of amusement in his tone, as if he knows I’m checking.

“But I saw. . . your eyes.”

“Aye.” He lets out a shaky breath. “That happens sometimes. When I get a bit. . . emotional. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

I exhale. “You’re not going to change?”

“No. You’re perfectly safe.”

I frown. “Are you sure?”

He laughs, though it sounds a little forced. “Aye. I’m sure.”

My toes uncurl from the bedsheets. I move a little closer to him, and he tenses.

The floorboards creak as I slip off the bed. Warily, I approach.

He shifts his body in tandem with my movements, so that he’s facing me—his thighs slightly parting as I step between them. My legs brush against his kilt. His broad chest moves up and down deeply.

He smells like the outdoors, like the Northlands winds have clung to his skin and his clothing—but there’s heat beneath it. Like spice and woodsmoke. And he’s warm. So warm. How can a male radiate such heat?

His face tilts up, and candlelight flickers across his closed eyelids. The movement exposes his throat to me, and I hold the silver blade between us.

I take a shaky breath. “I want to see.”

Slowly, he opens his eyes.

My breath catches in my throat. His irises have expanded and changed shape. They’re still green, but brighter, and within them there are flecks of yellow and gold. His pupils are dilated and they’re as black as the depths of the forest at night.

They’re wolf’s eyes.

They are fascinating.

I have heard many stories about Wolves, but they all depict their brutality and lack of mercy when they raid our villages. I didn’t know their eyes could change when they looked like men, nor look so beautiful.

I touch his cheek. The muscles in his forearms flex as his grip on the mattress tightens.

“It happens when you’re emotional?” I ask. “What emotion are you feeling?”

“The same emotion as you, Princess.”

“I’m not feeling anything.”

He smiles, softly. “You might be able to hide your emotions from Southerners, Princess. You forget that I’m a wolf. I can sense things. Your heartbeat. . . your scent. . .” He swallows, hard. “It changes.”

My fingers inch down the side of his face, touching his rough stubble. “Don’t smell me.”

He laughs and it sounds like a growl. “I can’t help it.”

“I’m not feeling anything.”

“Okay.”

His eyes don’t move from mine. They are wary and alert, but there’s something almost vulnerable dancing around those flecks of gold.

The air feels thick and heady and strange. Static, almost. And tension coils in my lower stomach.

Despite the chill in the room, I am hot.

I have a male in my chambers after nightfall, even though I am betrothed to another. He’s an alpha of an enemy kingdom. He’s plotting against my father.

I know everything about this is wrong, but when his hands shift on the bedsheets, I want him to place them on my hips.

His gaze dips to my mouth, and I forget how to breathe.

I want to brush my lips against his.

I want to know what it’s like to kiss a man. Would Callum be soft and gentle, or hard and claiming? The latter would have scared me a week ago. Now, it heats my blood.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

When he opens them again, he averts his gaze to the floorboards between our feet. My hand drops to my side.

“It’s getting late.” Callum clears his throat. He stands, and I have to step back. “I should go.”

Disappointment carves a hole in my chest. “I thought you were going to stop my arms and legs from aching.”

He gives me a soft smile. “I think you want me to ease a different ache, Princess. And while, under different circumstances, I’d be happy to oblige, under these circumstances, it wouldn’t be right.”

My cheeks flame. “That’s not. . . how dare you suggest. . . I’m the Princess of the Southlands!”

It is strange that even though his eyes look like wolf eyes, I can see the glimmer of amusement in them.

“Nonetheless, I don’t trust myself right now.” He bows his head. “Good night, Princess.”

“Yes, good, you should go,” I say, raising my chin, pretending it was I who dismissed him. “It is late. Good night, Callum.”

He releases a shuddery breath as he exits my chambers.

Part of me wants to chase after Callum, and another wants to keep the door closed and never let him back inside again.

After dropping the letter opener on my bedside table, I sit on my bed and put my head in my hands.

I don’t know what is wrong with me.

I feel like I am playing with fire—and there’s a small dark part of me that wants to get burned.

Later, when I’m in my nightgown and settling down to sleep, I tell myself it was all just a lapse in judgement. I’ve had a long day, and the adrenaline made me want things I have never wanted before. That’s all.

I didn’t really want to kiss him. I didn’t really want him to touch me. That would be wrong. I am an unmarried woman, and that would go against everything I have been taught to believe. It would take me even further away from my duty to my kingdom.

But it occurs to me, in the dark of night, that if Callum did touch me, Sebastian would not want me anymore.

I close my eyes, pushing down the dark thoughts this revelation has created.

When I finally fall asleep, I dream of Callum’s mouth on my skin, his rough hands on my body, his strong arms holding me close to him.

And then I dream of unfamiliar wolf eyes, watching me, from deep within the forest.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine

“You look frustrated this morning, Callum,” says Blake at breakfast the next day.

He saunters over to the alpha table and seats himself beside the acting Wolf King.

“Aye, that he does,” says Robert, not bothering to lower his voice. “Something to do with the Southern lass, do you reckon? I wouldn’t be going around looking like I had a stick up my arse if she was wearing my collar.”

He goes on to describe the horrible things he would do to me to relieve his frustration, much to my disgust, while two other Wolves roar with laughter.

Beside me, Callum’s jaw sets.

“What do you reckon, Blake?” asks Robert, realizing that Blake doesn’t seem to be listening.

The dark-haired wolf is sitting with one arm slung over his chair, seemingly staring at the tapestries that depict different stages of the moon hanging from the walls.

Lazily, he turns his head. “About what?”

“The lass!”

I feel Blake’s eyes on me, just for a moment, even though I’m staring down at my porridge. My fist tightens around my spoon.

“She’s adequate, I suppose,” he replies.

I look up just as he grabs an apple and saunters out of the Great Hall.

Robert laughs as he continues his disgusting monologue about me. Rage builds inside my chest.

I wonder if he’d be so amused if I slipped some wolfsbane in his tea.

Callum puts a hand on my leg, and I start.

“I’ll kill him for you, if you like,” he says.

His voice is quiet, but the air feels charged for a moment. A furrow appears in Robert’s brow, so I know he heard him, and Callum smiles at him. Threateningly.

Robert turns away and re-joins the conversation the other men are now having about Blake.

“Does Blake even like the lasses?”

“I think so. I’ve heard some screams coming from his room late at night.”

“Aye, but they’re not the good kind.”

“I’ve heard he has some dark tastes. . . Never wanted to ask.”

I turn back to Callum. “Would you really kill him for me?” I ask.

“Aye. I hope you don’t ask. Because it could cause me some serious problems when the king returns.”

I smile as I go back to my porridge.

I’m less amused when Robert looms over our table twenty minutes later.

“I said you could keep her if she earned her keep,” he says. He walks off before Callum can respond.

“I could get a job in the infirmary,” I say. I don’t want to do anything to appease that horrible wolf, but I must admit, I’m curious. I wonder what I could learn about healing and Wolves if I had the opportunity to do so. “I don’t mind. I have nothing else to do while we wait for your king to return, so I may as well make myself useful.”

Callum’s eyebrows raise, then he shakes his head. “No. I appreciate what you did for Ryan, but I don’t want you alone with Blake.” He gives me an assessing look. “If you truly want a way to pass the time, I may have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“Our cook, Mrs. McDonald, is always complaining that she needs help peeling potatoes in the kitchens.”

***

The past week, a restless energy has been growing within the castle. The Wolves are angry about the attack against Ryan, but there’s more to it than that. It feels like the days before a big storm where the air is close and humid.

It feels like something big is about to happen.

I see less of Callum during the week than I did in my first few days here. It is partially because I’m spending my time in the kitchens.

When I first arrived here, someone made a comment about the cook, Mrs. McDonald, being like a dragon, and they were not wrong. She is truly a formidable woman—with greying hair and a sharp tongue. She is constantly shouting at me.

Her hatred doesn’t come from the fact that I am human; rather that I am incompetent in the kitchen. I have no idea how to make a stew, I burn the bread, and I’m constantly knocking things over.

I have never had to do these things before. People always served me my meals, so it’s no wonder I’m useless. I have a feeling that even if Mrs. McDonald knew I was a princess, she would not sympathize.

I don’t like being constantly scolded—for the first few days it was difficult to bite my tongue. But there’s actually something refreshing about someone being unguarded around me—not fearing that I’ll have them executed if they speak to me in a way I do not like.

It makes me feel. . . normal.

The other plus side of being so useless is that after a few days the kitchen maid Kayleigh, who snarled at me for making her drop her potatoes on that first day here, starts to take pity on me—even if she is still cold. She begrudgingly shows me how to dice an onion, and grumpily walks me around the kitchen gardens one day to show me the different herbs.

On the fifth day, when she cuts herself, I offer to take her to the infirmary and she blanches—clearly terrified of the dark-haired wolf who occupies it. I help her clean it so it doesn’t become infected.

After that, she is a lot more pleasant, and even starts to gossip with me.

“What’s Callum like in the sack, then?” she asks one day.

“In the sack?”

“You know, in bed.”

I flush, remembering people are supposed to think I have been intimate with him. “Kayleigh! Can we change the subject, please?”

She giggles. “You Southerners are so shy. I bet he’s good. I’d be shouting about it from the rooftops if I had a male like that in my bed.”

Callum hasn’t been anywhere near my bed again since he massaged me, though.

He tells me he is busy. He’s trying to stop the Wolves from attacking Sebastian in retaliation for what he did to Ryan. Their best move, he says, is to wait until the return of the Wolf King—when he can put his plan into play and get hold of the Heart of the Moon.

But there is more to it than that.

Even though he has spent time with me every day—eating dinner with me in the Great Hall, and teasing me about Mrs. McDonald—he is more guarded around me. He’s certainly been less physical and seems to avoid touching me.

I should be glad about that. Yet I’m worried I have offended him in some way. Or perhaps he has just lost interest in me.

I ask Fiona about him one day, when she shows me the stables on my lunch break.

“Don’t take it personally,” she says. “As the full moon gets closer, the wolf gets stronger. It brings certain. . . animalistic traits to the surface.”

“Like what?”

“Like the need to hunt, to kill. . . to fuck.”

My eyes widen and I splutter, “Goodness!”

She laughs and gives me a half-shrug. “All I’m saying is, he’s trying to suppress the wolf around you, that’s all.”

There is an irony, I suppose, that for so many years, I tried to suppress my emotions and now Callum is doing the same. I think of that recurring dream I had, where I was a statue in the palace grounds. I haven’t had that dream since I came here.

In fact, I no longer feel like stone at all.

I feel as if I’m finally waking up.

As the days pass, a restlessness grows inside me. It’s wild and dark and aching. It is as if my soul is responding to the crackle of energy that pulses through the castle as the full moon approaches.

And I feel alive.

The day of the full moon, I’m dismissed from the kitchens early. Apparently, the Wolves fast during the day, and hunt during the night, so there is no work to be done.

It is raining, so I spend my day reading.

I find myself thinking about my mother’s symptoms and searching for answers within the countless medical tomes within these chambers. I wasn’t allowed access to such books at the palace—they were reserved only for the healers and the educated men—and I wonder if I may finally find my answers here.

I’m distracted, though. My skin itches, and every time I see the word “wolf” on the page, I think of Callum’s eyes. Every time I shift position on the bed, I think about how he massaged me. Every time I catch the smell of woodsmoke drifting from one of the rooms below, I’m reminded of his scent.

Twilight arrives, and my room is painted in grey shadow. I’m reading about how a wolf bite can activate the wolf gene in a half-wolf, when someone knocks on the door. I drop the book.

I expect Callum to walk into my room, but instead, Fiona enters balancing a tray laden with bread and cheese, and a fresh jug of water.

Disappointment swells within me.

Is Callum not going to visit me tonight? I thought he would.

Fiona arches an eyebrow as she sets down the tray, as if she knows what I’m thinking.

“He sent me to tell you to stay in your room,” she says. “He says you’re not to come out for any reason.”

She’s even scruffier than usual. Her shirt is untucked and her dark hair is loose down her shoulders. I catch the scent of alcohol on her breath, and her cheeks are rosy.

“Where is he?”

“There’s a ritual on the night of a full moon, out in the forest. We’re all expected to be there to welcome the Moon Goddess. The alphas especially.” She leans back against the writing desk. “Callum’s there already.”

I try not to feel hurt. I try not to feel anything. It shouldn’t bother me that he is having a good time without me. Why should he give me a second thought? I’m just the bargaining chip that he will use to get his Heart of the Moon.

It’s just, I’d started to think. . . I’m not sure what I thought. It was a silly fantasy, I suppose, that the powerful alpha of the Highfell Clan could fall for the spoiled Southlands princess.

I’m betrothed to another, anyway. Callum has always intended to give me back to him. And I have always intended to give my father information about the Wolves, so I might escape my fate with Sebastian.

How could anything ever happen between us?

I try not to think about the crude things Fiona said, about what the full moon makes Wolves want to do. If Callum wants to enjoy himself, then that is his right, and there are certainly plenty of females who would happily enjoy him.

Something dark and ugly twists in my chest. “What do you do at the ritual?”

“We drink, and dance, and cut loose.” Her eyes are bright. “Then the moon rises, and we shift.”

She pushes off from the desk, and heads to the door.

“No one will bother you tonight. We’ll all be hunting in the forest. Stay in the castle.” She nods at the letter opener on my bedside table. “Keep that close, too.”

She leaves me to join Callum and the others.

As the room darkens, so do my thoughts.

The old me—the one who existed before I was taken—would have accepted that someone as important as Callum would not visit me before an important event. When I was left at home while my brother went hunting, or when I was sent to bed by my father at feasts so the men could talk, I accepted this without question.

But something is changing within me—shifting and transforming.

I deserved a visit from him. Didn’t I?

The shadows grow, and in the distance, I can hear men shouting. I wonder if Callum’s is among them. I try not to think about what he might be doing, and who he might be doing it with.

I’m sure Isla will be all over him tonight.

Before long, a ghostly glow fills my chambers, and curiosity pulls me to the window.

The full moon is high in the sky. I have never seen it so bright before. It paints the evergreens an ashy silver.

As I’m staring, time seems to stand still. Silence sweeps over the land. The wind drops, and the loch is deathly quiet. A howl breaks the night, followed by hundreds more. My arms turn into gooseflesh and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

The Wolves have shifted.

I’m peering through the glass, wondering if I’ll see any of them, when I hear a roar of pain. It’s distinctly human, and sounds like it’s coming from within the castle.

I breathe in sharply.

Has Ryan woken up?

Wolfsbane attacks the wolf. I’ve been reading about it all week. I wonder if he is unable to shift.

I move my weight from one foot to the other. I want to go to him, but I was told to stay in my room.

He screams again, and I cannot bear it. He is hurt because of me, because Sebastian wants me back and sent him with a message. My mother’s voice comes to me, just as it did on the night when I went to the kennels to tend to his injuries.

Have courage, little one.

I have to do something.

I pull on my cloak and boots, pocket the silver letter opener, and hurry out of the door.

The castle is eerily quiet, and I can barely see where I’m going as I feel my way down the spiral staircase.

I reach one of the landings. The male cries out again, and I follow the sound down a sconce-lined corridor. There’s a loud clatter ahead, followed by a low grunt. It’s coming from one of the rooms.

Heart in my throat, I push open the door.

The room is dark, but I can see I’m in someone’s bedchambers.

A regal four-poster bed with black silk bedding dominates the space. An oil lamp has shattered on the floor and shards of glass glint on the sheepskin rug.

“Ry—”

The young wolf’s name dies in my mouth.

There’s a male in the room, but it isn’t Ryan.

He’s facing away from me, so all I can see is a muscular back—a silver web of angry scars crisscrossing his skin. He’s leaning against a desk and he’s breathing hard.

He’s wearing nothing but a pair of breeches.

“Blake?” I whisper.

I don’t understand. He should be a wolf.

“What are you doing here, little rabbit?” His voice sounds strange—as dark and smooth as the night sky outside the window.

Slowly, he turns around.

He’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and a couple of dark strands of hair stick to his forehead. There are scars on his torso, too, but my gaze is held by the strange look on his face.

I step back, my hand reaching for the knife in my pocket. “Blake. . . I. . . I thought you were. . . Why aren’t you. . .? What are you doing?”

His nostrils flare.

He breathes in then sighs, his head tilting back. The tension in his muscles dissipates. “Fuck it.”

When he meets my gaze again, the wolf is in his eyes.

A cold smile spreads across his face.

“Run,” he says.

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