Текст книги "The wolf king"

Автор книги: Lauren Palphreyman

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Chapter Twenty-Four

“Ground rules?” I narrow my eyes.

Callum sighs, then nods at the bed. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

“I’d prefer to stand.”

He huffs out a laugh. “This is the first rule—if I ask you to do something, I need you to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m an alpha. And it’s expected.”

“So alphas are so fragile they cannot bear to be challenged on anything?” I cock my head to the side. “I think you are a lot more similar to Southlands lords than you realize.”

A soft grunt of displeasure scrapes against his throat as he folds his big arms. I have to stop myself from staring at the way his biceps strain against his sleeves. I have to suppress my smile, too. Why is it so satisfying to get a rise out of him?

“No,” he mumbles. “It’s not like that.”

The corner of my lip twitches. “What is it like?”

He sighs. “Okay, I suppose it is a wee bit like that. I’ll look weak if you challenge me. And if I look weak, that puts you in danger. Aye?”

I roll my eyes. “Fine. But if you ask me to do anything degrading, I swear on the Sun Goddess, I will make you look so weak—”

“I won’t, Rory. I promise I will not ask you to do anything that will cause you harm, nor compromise your morals or integrity. And in return, while you will be mine, I will be yours, too. I will be your alpha. And I promise to take care of you. For as long as you’re here, with me.”

I am held captive by his gaze. Something stirs inside me, warm, and it spreads through my body and seems to thaw my soul. “Oh,” I say, softly.

I should find everything he is saying abhorrent.

But for the first time since my mother died, someone is offering to take care of me. I’ve been alone for so long that a part of me has forgotten how that feels.

I turn away from him and go and sit on the bed so he can’t see the effect he’s having on me.

“There’s another thing,” he says.

He follows me, then crouches down. The floorboards creak beneath his weight. He runs his thumb along the ribbon around my neck, and I forget how to breathe.

“People know I do not like this as a tradition,” he says. “When they see you wearing it, they’re going to think one of two things. One is the truth. They’re going to think I’m hiding something from them and protecting you because you’re important. We cannot let them think that.”

“Because someone might challenge you?” I ask.

“Aye. And I’d win, make no mistake about that.”

I fight my smile. It would seem like arrogance if anyone else said it, but with him, I actually believe it.

“But it would cause a messy political situation, and James, the king, wouldn’t be too pleased with me.”

“What is the other option?”

“If you’re wearing that, people are going to think we have been. . . intimate. . . with one another. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The memory of what Magnus did to that woman in the kennels floods my mind. He had her on her knees, moaning, as he thrust into her from behind. Sebastian said that that is how all Wolves take their women.

People will think I have done that with Callum.

My gaze drops to his broad chest, and his shirt collar, unbuttoned to expose his thick neck. His hands are on the bed by my thighs, and I think of them grabbing my hips. I Imagine him flipping me over and taking his pleasure from me.

A spark of heat flickers inside me.

“If you wear that, people are going to think you’re my mate,” he says. “It is the only other explanation for why I would have given you this. And we must encourage this explanation.”

“Your mate?”

“It’s a wolf thing. Rare, but powerful. Stronger, even, than love. Two souls chosen by the Moon Goddess to be together, their fates entwined. So. . .” He gives me a sheepish grin. “I may have to touch you from time to time—”

“You do that anyway.”

“And you may have to act as if you actually like me, Princess.”

“I do like you.”

His smile widens. “Well, that’s good then, isn’t it? Because I like you too. Now, can you agree to all this?”

I must act as if he is my. . . lover? The thought makes my heart race a little faster.

Slowly, I nod. “I suppose. If I must.”

“Good. Now, come. There’s something I want to show you.”

***

The dark waters of the loch ripple. On the far side, there’s nothing but green craggy mountains. To our left, there’s a large forest.

The wind is gentle today. It whispers through my hair and carries the scent of peat and heather. Swords clang in the castle courtyard behind us, but we’re beyond the outer walls, and our spot is deserted. A few people looked in our direction when we passed by, but the dark cloak I found in the wardrobe hides the collar well enough.

I said that I’d wear it, I didn’t say I’d display it.

Callum and I sit on the damp grass. He pulls out a hunk of bread he stole from the kitchens and breaks it in two, passing me half.

I take a bite, then stretch out my legs, wincing at the ache that pervades.

“You’re still in pain from riding?” he asks, arching an eyebrow. “Ghealach, it’s been. . . what. . . four days?”

“We can’t all be big muscly Wolves like you.”

He laughs. “Aye. That may be true. Four days. . . Do all humans take this long to heal? Because if so. . . perhaps we won’t need the Heart of the Moon to beat you after all. . .”

There’s a teasing glint in his eye and I raise my chin. “You know, I may not be a big bloodthirsty warrior, but I’m sure there are things I can do better than you.”

“Oh aye? Like what?”

I shrug. “I have some skills in healing and apothecary.” I’d had to. I tended to my mother a lot as a child then developed an interest in it after she died. I always wondered if I could have saved her, if I’d just known the right combination of herbs. “And I do a lot of needlework, too, back home.”

He tears off a chunk of bread with his teeth and chews. “You like to sew?”

“I wasn’t allowed to do much else. I was ill for a lot of my childhood. And my father would never let me go out and do the fun things the other children were allowed to do.” I shrug. “It wasn’t appropriate for my station. So I found my own ways to pass the time.”

“What kinds of things do you like to sew?”

“Dresses, mostly. I love fashion.” I swallow. “And my mother taught me how to embroider. I liked to create the scenes she would tell me in her stories as a child. I would pretend I was living in them.” I shake my head. “It’s silly, really.”

“No,” he says. “It doesn’t sound silly at all. What else do you like to do?”

“Well. . . I like to read, I suppose.”

“Another thing you’re probably better at than me.” Callum rests his arms on his raised knees as he looks out onto the water.

“You can’t read?”

“I can. Not well. My mother taught me when I was a wee lad, but my father never thought it was important. He—”

Callum stiffens, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. We both look over our shoulders.

Blake leans against the outer wall of the castle around three hundred feet behind us. He’s speaking to a girl who is carrying a dead pheasant, but his eyes are on me. His gaze drops to my neck, and the corner of his lip quirks.

“Blake,” growls Callum. “What does he want?”

When the girl leaves, Blake walks toward us with his hands in the pockets of his breeches.

Halfway across the grassy expanse, he halts.

Callum sniffs the air, then jumps to his feet.

The two of them turn their heads toward the hill on the other side of the castle.

“What is it?” I ask, alarmed, as I get up.

“Horses. Fergus. Magnus. And. . . and Ryan.” Callum’s body is rigid, his breathing hard. “They’re coming. I can smell them. And blood. I smell blood. Lots of blood.” He swallows, and his face whitens. “Ryan’s blood.”

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Chapter Twenty-Five

Something seems to pass between the two males.

Blake inclines his head. He walks back toward the castle, the breeze ruffling his dark hair.

In the distance, I hear shouting and the thunder of hooves.

“If Magnus tells anyone who she is, I’ll kill you.” Callum is breathing hard, his teeth gritted and his jawline tense.

Even a hundred feet away, Blake hears him, looks over his shoulder, and arches an eyebrow. He says something I can’t hear, and a low growl vibrates in Callum’s chest.

“Don’t you think I know that?” he says. “Just get on with it and be quick.”

Blake’s lips curve, but he walks a little faster and disappears around the castle walls.

Callum is breathing fast. “Stay close to me.”

We hurry across the grass, Callum taking care to keep stride with me. When a cry of pain rattles through the air, he breaks into a run. I chase after him.

I stumble into chaos when I reach the courtyard, and I lose sight of him.

The air is loud with raised voices, and Wolves are gathering. It feels like the hours before a storm—when the air is thick and static—and something is about to break.

A voice to my left shouts something derogatory about my father, another promises to take something from Sebastian and kill it slowly. Another yells that all Southerners will die.

The skin on my arms turns to gooseflesh. The crowd has swallowed me, my shoulders are knocked by big muscular arms, and I catch flashes of weapons and clan colors and eyes filled with hate. I need to find Callum. If these Wolves realize I’m the king’s daughter, I’ll be torn apart.

I don’t think a collar will save me now.

I’m not sure even Callum can. A part of me wonders if he will even notice if they descend upon me. Someone from his clan has been injured. He is distracted. He has more important things to be worrying about than me.

I push toward the center of the crowd and the metallic scent of blood hits me in a wave. My stomach turns. Crimson paints the cobbled stones ahead.

Callum stands deathly still in the eye of the storm.

He says something to Fergus and Becky, the young kitchen maid rescued from Sebastian’s castle. He grabs the pale body slung over one of one of two horses, and holds it over his shoulder. Becky lets out a cry that’s audible, even over all the noise. Her face is streaked with tears and blood.

My heart stills. Ryan.

He is barely breathing. His eyes are closed, and there’s a purple mark across his cheek where he’s been struck. His shirt is drenched with blood and his copper hair is slick with sweat.

I hurry closer, causing a male in a blue kilt closest to the horses to curse at me.

“Watch where you’re going, lass. You—” His nostrils flare, then his features harden. “Human. Hey!” He looks around him. “There’s a southern bitch –”

Callum turns around, and time seems to stop.

A low growl reverberates from his chest, vibrating at such a frequency it rumbles around the courtyard. He has growled a few times in my presence, but this time, it is pure animal.

It reminds me of what he is. A wolf. A killer.

An alpha.

A hush falls over the courtyard.

Eyes flick toward the source of Callum’s displeasure, and the wolf in the blue kilt steps back. The mob looks at me.

The hairs on the back of my neck raise as a whisper passes from mouth to mouth. Human.

I want to run, to hide, but I can’t. I’m surrounded.

A gust of wind sweeps my hair out of my face, exposing my neck.

And the collar.

Another current of emotion passes through the crowd. Someone growls. A female spits on the floor.

“She’s mine,” says Callum.

My mouth dries at the power he commands.

His gaze seeks mine, and I raise my chin. He nods, and I nod in return.

Then time speeds up again. With Ryan over his shoulder, Callum strides toward the castle doors.

“Fergus, go get the healer.” Callum says the word healer as though it tastes bad. “Isla, look after the lass—”

“I’m going with you,” growls Becky.

Isla darts forward, but Callum meets Becky’s determined gaze, sighs, then inclines his head.

“Rory,” says Callum. “This way.”

Isla’s eyes turn to ice when they drop to the collar around my neck. Her lips pinch together.

Callum doesn’t need to tell me twice. Even if I wasn’t surrounded by Wolves who wanted to kill me, I would follow.

Not because of Callum’s stupid collar. Because of the body in his arms—dripping with blood.

I am connected to that boy.

I spared his life, in the dog-fighting ring. I tended to his wounded arm in the kennels. He put me on this path that led to the Kingdom of Wolves. And it was surely my people, looking for me, that did this to him.

He cannot meet his end this way.

“Slut,” Isla mutters as I pass.

I bite back a retort, not wanting to add fuel to an already inflammatory situation.

I feel the eyes of the surrounding Wolves burning into my back as I hurry through the castle entrance. The big oak doors swing shut behind me.

***

I follow the group through the castle.

We pass the kitchens, then head down a stairway to a dark room beneath the castle. We must be in the infirmary. There are shelves filled with small jars and pots along the walls, and a workstation littered with books and herbs and glinting metal tools against one wall.

There are a couple of cots, and Callum gently places Ryan onto one of them. He kneels down beside him and presses against the wound in his side. Blood spills between his fingers.

Ryan’s breathing is raspy, each shuddering breath sounding like it could be his last. Callum looks like he’s in pain.

There’s a strange scent in the air, and the walls close in on me as I recognize it. It smells like death. The pain and the grief and the inevitability of what will come hangs like a shroud over us, and reminds me too much of those hours I spent with my mother before the end.

My heart pounds against my ribs. I don’t know what to do.

Becky, grasping onto Ryan’s hand on the other side of the bed, starts to cry. It’s as if she has realized what is going to happen too.

“Ghealach!” curses Callum. “Why isn’t he healing? He shouldn’t be bleeding this much. Where the fuck is—?”

The door opens, and Blake enters. Despite the obvious animosity Callum holds for the male, some of the tension seems to leave his shoulders.

It’s strange—the power seems to shift in the room, too. Even though Callum is the more muscular of the two males, he seems smaller, somehow, as Blake stalks forward.

“What took you so long?” says Callum.

“Magnus took a little persuading.” Blake kneels beside Callum, and Becky growls as he lifts up one of Ryan’s closed eyelids. “Make that noise at me again and I’ll rip out your tongue.”

Becky looks as if she’s about to launch herself over the cot at him, but Callum raises a blood-slicked hand.

“It’s alright, Becky,” he says. “Blake’s our healer here at Castle Madadh-allaidh.”

I distinctly recall Callum referring to the castle’s healer in a derogatory manner on the way here. Now I know why.

Blake is not what I expected of a healer. He is nothing like the fusty old men who worked for the High Priest and did little to ease my mother’s suffering.

I watch as he unbuttons the cuffs of his sleeves, then rolls them up—revealing corded forearms, and a nasty scar just beneath his elbow.

“What’s wrong with him?” I ask, thinking back to that horrible book of experiments I found in my chambers. “I thought Wolves healed quickly.”

Candles flicker in the infirmary, and the light dances across Blake’s chiseled features. “Come on, you know the answer to that, little rabbit.”

“Why should I?”

Blake clucks his tongue. “So, you’ve wandered into a den of Wolves with no idea what weakens us? That’s not very smart, is it?”

“Now’s not the time, Blake,” growls Callum.

“I expect stupidity from him,” Blake continues. “You. . . no. Small and fragile things cannot afford to be stupid. They’re too easy to break.”

If Callum didn’t have both his hands pressing into Ryan’s side, I think he would have broken Blake. He certainly looks like he wants to—his jawline is hard.

Yet, oddly, beneath the thinly veiled threat, it feels almost as if Blake is trying to give me a piece of advice.

His eyes are glinting as if he’s challenging me to find the answer.

I think back to that book again. There was an experiment that declared a substance that affected a wolf’s ability to heal, and, in large doses, was deadly.

Dread fills me.

“Wolfsbane,” I say.

“Good girl,” says Blake.

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Chapter Twenty-Six

Wolfsbane.

The air is sucked out of the infirmary. Callum tenses, and a cry tears from Becky’s lips.

In the book I read, it didn’t seem like there was a cure.

“Can you fix him?” The plea in Callum’s voice breaks something inside me.

“Perhaps.” Blake walks over to his workstation, and selects a pipette.

He takes a sample of Ryan’s blood and holds it up to the torch flickering on the wall.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Identifying the strain.”

Callum’s gaze seeks mine. I can see he is lost, floating away, and looking for something to hold onto. Even though we barely know each other, he wants it to be me.

I know that feeling. I felt like I was drowning when my mother was dying. I wanted to grab onto someone, anyone—my father, my brother, the ladies-in-waiting—so that my head would remain above the water. Only, they always remained out of reach.

I will not remain out of Callum’s reach.

My gaze flits back to Blake. “Can he be cured?”

“There’s only one person in the Northlands who knows the antidote,” says Blake.

“You?”

His lips curve into a smile. He goes back to the workstation and starts mixing something in a beaker.

“Keep pressure on the wound,” he tells Callum.

When Blake returns, he tips back Ryan’s head and pours the liquid into his mouth. Ryan chokes.

I step closer, peering over Becky’s head. “That’s the antidote?”

“Yes.”

“What is it made of?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” His tone is light, but I have the distinct feeling that this is not an empty threat. “Keep hold of him.”

“I am holding him,” growls Callum. “Fix him.”

“How does it work?” I ask.

Ryan’s eyes jolt open. His back arches off the cot, and his shoulders bend in an unnatural way. He screams.

Blake clamps his hand over Ryan’s mouth, forcing him to swallow the liquid that he’s trying to spit out.

“Is that necessary?” snaps Callum.

“Get off him!” shrieks Becky. “You’re hurting him. Stop it!”

I watch the gash in Ryan’s side, fascinated. The blood loss is slowing. Blake is hurting him, yes. But he’s fixing him, too.

Becky doesn’t see it, though. She throws herself at Blake. With his free hand, he grabs her arm.

“Take her outside,” he says.

Callum looks at me, and I see the question in him, the plea.

“Come on, Becky.” I gently touch her shoulder. “Let’s—”

“No. The rabbit stays.” Blake glances at Callum. “You take her.”

Callum’s posture straightens. “If you think for a moment that I’m leaving her alone with you—”

“Do you want me to fix him?”

Callum swallows. “Aye, but—”

He winces when Ryan lets out a bloodcurdling scream.

“Then take the girl outside, and leave your pet,” says Blake. “She is of more use to me than you.”

I bristle at being called a pet, but he’s right. I can help.

Callum is too emotional. Whatever fight Ryan has ahead of him, it is clearly going to be painful—and Callum looks as if he wants to take the pain away.

The easiest way for him to do that would be to get rid of Blake. Yet Blake seems to actually know what he is doing. He is fixing him, in a way that no one was ever able to do for my mother.

“It’s okay, Callum,” I say, gently. “You should take Becky outside.”

I know Callum will not be happy to leave me, or Ryan, so I search for a way to make him feel like he is in control of the situation.

“Someone needs to find out what happened,” I say. “Others could be in danger. You should go with Becky and speak to Fergus.”

Callum takes a deep, shuddering breath. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Blake puts his hand on Ryan’s wound when Callum gets up.

Callum’s eyes narrow on him. “If you touch her—”

“Yes, yes, you’ll kill me in an undoubtedly unimaginative way. Don’t worry. I don’t harm things that are useful to me.”

Callum’s warmth floods me as he touches my shoulder and squeezes lightly.

“I’ll be fine,” I say.

He takes Becky’s arm and leads her, sobbing, away. “If you need me, I’ll hear you.”

“I know.”

They head out of the room, and he closes the door behind them.

“Others could be in danger?” Blake rolls his eyes. “You’re a manipulative little thing, aren’t you?”

I glare at Blake. I do not like being called that. I wasn’t being manipulative. I was trying to help. “I got him to leave, didn’t I?”

Blake smirks. “Get a needle and thread from my case on the workstation. And the pot of white ointment.”

I hurry over. The pot sits amid an array of glass jars, pestles, and dried herbs. I grab it, then flip open his case. There’s are cold metal scalpels in there, alongside the items he’s asking for.

When I have them, I kneel by his side.

“Put the ointment on the wound.”

“What is it?” I twist off the lid. It smells sharp, like alcohol.

When I smear it onto the gash in Ryan’s side, he shrieks. Blake grabs his shoulders and pins him down.

“It’s to kill the bacteria. Wolves heal fast, but wounds can still get infected. Now, sew it up.”

“Sew it up?”

“Yes. Imagine you’re sewing a dress.”

I look at him. Was he listening in on mine and Callum’s conversation?

He nods at the wound. “Go on.”

I grab the needle and thread. Hand shaking slightly, I hover above the wound. I am by no means queasy when it comes to blood and wounds, but this is something I haven’t done before.

Blake leans over me, and I catch the scent of dark forests as he pinches the flesh on both sides of the wound together. He takes the needle from me.

“Like this.” He punctures the skin with the needle, and Ryan shrieks again as he pulls the thread through. “Then, create a knot. Like this.”

He hands the needle back to me.

I mimic Blake’s movements as I pull the needle through his flesh.

“Wolfsbane is an intriguing poison,” says Blake. “It attacks the wolf inside us. Stops us from healing, lowers our temperature, drains our strength.”

With each pull of the needle, the wound gets smaller, and I feel more satisfied. My hand is no longer shaking by the time that I’m done.

“How does the antidote work?”

“It forces the wolf to fight back.” He points at the thread. “Now pull here, tighten it. . . There. Good. Now, cut the thread.”

He passes me some scissors, and I do so.

“How did you discover the antidote?” I ask.

He walks over to his workstation, and wipes his hand on a rag. “You don’t want to know.”

I focus on Ryan. He’s already less pale, and his breathing is steadier. “Will he be okay?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“The strength of the wolf.”

When Ryan faced Callum in the fighting ring, he was courageous. He faced his fate with strength and dignity. “He’s strong.”

“Not particularly.” Blake drops the now bloody rag, and smirks when I glare at him. “It was a weak strain of wolfsbane. He’ll recover.”

I breathe out slowly. It’s like a weight is lifted from my chest.

I don’t fight the smile that spreads across my face.

Blake looks at me curiously. Then his gaze flits lazily to the door.

“You seem to be in some pain yourself, little rabbit,” he says. “Muscular pain, from your journey here, I presume. If you come to my chambers tonight, I have just the thing to help.”

Callum strides back into the room.

“He’s in recovery,” says Blake, before Callum can speak. “You can take him to his chambers, if you—”

Blake’s gaze narrows on Ryan, and he snatches something from the boy’s pocket.

“What’s that?” Callum holds out his hand.

Blake turns over a bloody envelope. Instead of giving it to Callum, he passes it to me.

I frown.

Aurora is written in elegant calligraphy across the front.

Heart beating fast, I turn it over. The wax seal has a star in its center; the sigil of the Borderlands.

My skin turns cold as I rip it open and read.

A present for you, my love.

Think of the boy as a betrothal gift. I know you were fond of him from our time at the dog fight.

I’ll be seeing you soon.

Yours,

Sebastian

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