Текст книги "The poison daughter"

Автор книги: Sheila Masterson

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 48 страниц)

I grit my teeth. “This is broken.”

“I could have⁠—”

I set the bone, and she grunts, a guttural string of curses pouring from her mouth.

“Asshole.”

Taking her chin in my hand, I make her meet my gaze. “Don’t hide injuries from me.” I am so close to telling her that she can’t, but I don’t want to reveal anything about my magic in a fit of anger, especially when she already has the advantage of seeing auras.

I hold my hand over the broken bone and press the healing into her skin, down through the damaged tissue to the broken bone. Bones are harder to heal, slower, but after a few minutes, the break is mended, and I move on to reducing the inflammation around the injury.

I jump when she leans her forehead against my shoulder.

“I have never had an itch on the inside of my bones. Bleeding woods, that’s uncomfortable,” she murmurs.

The urge to apologize bubbles up, but I shove it down.

I remind myself that I don’t owe her anything. She is a means to an end. The moment I forget that will be my last.

OceanofPDF.com

15HARLOW

The unfortunate thing about madness is that the more I think about it, the more paranoid I feel, and the less certain I am of my own sanity.

My father’s words are fresh in my mind, as is the vision of Able thrashing in his bed. But even between the two of them, I cannot see it in the rest of my siblings. Not in Aidia, who is so fiery and passionate. Not in Kellan, who is pragmatic and stoic. Not in any of the rest of my siblings, who are so rational all the time and consumed by their vapid parties or annoying children.

Then again, so is Able in public. If I had not seen what happened last night with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.

I walk down a dark hallway in Havenwood House, ignoring the quiet click of Gaven’s boots on the wood floors several paces behind me. For once, he’s not judging me for exploring. He must be as desperate as I am to get the lay of the land. The hallway to our left is dimly lit by candles and gray light coming in the windows.

“What’s down there?”

“A library and a solarium,” Gaven says.

I look down the hallway to my right.

“A private ritual room and some sort of temple to Kennymyra and some meeting rooms,” Gaven says without prompting.

I start down the right hallway. There’s a startling lack of guards. No one is watching as far as I can tell, and there’s not an aura in sight but my own. I thought security here would be tight, but it’s lax.

“What do you make of it? The scar in the wall? The bustling city?” I ask.

Gaven speeds up so he’s walking beside me. “I’ve seen some things in my day, but never a horde which could take down the mighty wall of Mountain Haven.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I think that someone helped things along.”

I stop and turn to look at Gaven head-on. “You mean someone on the inside helped the Drained?”

“Their claws meet our walls daily and the city walls are made of the same stone. They have scrambled over or broken the gates, or tricked guards at the gates. But they have never once managed to break through the wall, no matter how frantic and furious their thirst is. I find it hard to believe that they bothered for a much smaller prize than they’d find in the city.”

“There are a lot of people here. Perhaps the Drained are smarter than we thought. Perhaps they’ve learned enough to know that the Haven was not as well-armed. Maybe they thought it was an easier target,” I say.

Gaven shakes his head, glancing down the hall, and I can read it on his face. Between the scar in the wall and what Kellan told us, it’s starting to look more and more like there’s merit to the theory that someone helped the Drained get in. Now I just need to figure out if it was actually my family or if there was someone else with just as much to gain in bringing them down and making my father look bad. Someone like Rochelli or Rafe Mattingly…if they’re not one and the same.

We walk past the meeting room doors and round the corner toward the temple and ritual room, only to find Henry leaning against the wall.

“There she is. My lovely wife-to-be.”

I scowl at him. “You said I could explore.”

“I said I would escort you on a tour.”

I wave a hand at Gaven. “I have an escort.”

Henry holds out an arm. I reluctantly take it and let him usher me down the hall. He turns to look over his shoulder at Gaven. “We don’t need your services.”

“My services aren’t optional. Miss Carrenwell is under my protection,” Gaven says.

“As she is under mine,” Henry says smoothly. “It would not be in my best interest for anything to happen to her now.”

Gaven and I lock eyes, and I know he’s focused on the same word I am. Now. Meaning that my safety is linked to how useful I am to Henry. I knew that was the case already, but it’s nice to hear him admit it.

“You can go, Gaven.” I raise a brow and hope he reads the subtext: go spy elsewhere.

Henry waits for Gaven to round the corner before he begins down the hallway in the opposite direction. “Let’s start outside. You look like you could use some air.”

He ushers me around another corner, and it strikes me how labyrinthine this manor is. I retrace my steps in my mind as a servant appears from a doorway at the end of the hall, holding my cloak.

Henry helps me into it. The wolf design on the shoulder that had been shredded by the claws of a Drained has been neatly stitched into elaborate golden embroidery. I trace my fingers over the thread, and it’s only as I draw it out that I recognize it as the sigil of Harvain.

“I can’t wear this outside,” I say in a hushed whisper. “Why is this emblazoned with the sigil of the Divine of Fortune? If I wear this, people will assume my gift is from Harvain.”

“And what if they do?” he taunts.

I cross my arms. “It should be my choice to tell them. Not yours.”

“And if I decide it’s not?”

My blood boils as I glare at him. “Then you’ll be asked to reconsider.”

He holds my gaze in challenge for a long moment. “It’s fun to rile you up.” He points to his coat collar, where the same golden sigil is embroidered. “We all wear the sigil of Harvain for luck. You’ll notice it on all of the Haven guards, and since you’re to be my wife, you’ll wear one like I do.”

I glare at him, incredulous. “Will you also be selecting my clothing for the day? Setting out undergarments that you prefer?”

His mouth tips into a wolfish smile. “I’d love to.” When I don’t smile, he shakes his head and sighs. “It’s just another way to signal to everyone who you are and it’s considered a sign of acceptance. Also, our people consider surviving a Drained attack in the open to be a sign that you’re blessed by Harvain, so you’ve earned it.”

I look at the other sigils beside the one for Harvain. “What do those mean?”

“This one with the rose and the thorns is for Kennymyra—you’ll find many others wear that one as well. But only those who have passed the Mountain Haven guard exam have this flame for Vardek as a sign of strength. Healers have this golden leaf and needle to represent Elvodeen, and many of our storytellers and glamourists wear golden stars and a dagger for Stellaria. The least common sigil is Polm’s, but it features a golden hook and an eye.” He turns and points to the last embroidery on his coat. “And, finally, this golden moon is for Asher.”

Henry registers my shock before I can hide it.

“You’ll find it’s not nearly as taboo to honor the Divine of Endings here. He is one of our patrons, and it’s by his grace that we have risen from the ashes of this ruined fort,” he says.

“It’s not that. It’s just—” I hesitate. I don’t trust him, but this is an opportunity to rattle him and see if he is truly connected to the rebels. “It’s just that the rebels in Lunameade have chosen Asher as their patron.”

He frowns. “Interesting.”

I wait for him to say more, but he just straightens his collar and nods at my shoulder.

“How are your injuries?”

“Good as new.” I don’t know why he pretends to care.

He crosses his arms. “If you say so. Where should we start? In town? At the armory? The garden? The art gallery?”

I glance over my shoulder, down the hallway. “You have an art gallery?”

Henry balks. “Of course we do. All cultures need art. Creativity is vital.”

He hardly strikes me as a soulful artist, but his face betrays no humor. He runs a hand through his hair and it falls right into place. Henry is truly obnoxious in his perfection.

He holds out his elbow for me to take. “So, where to?”

“The armory.”

He lets out something between a laugh and a sigh. “Why am I not surprised? Hope you’re not gearing up for a murder spree here in my home.”

I thread my arm through his, and he leads me toward a door at the end of the hall.

“Why all the murder?” he asks as he presses the door open.

“We all need a hobby.”

He sighs. “You’re really not going to tell me?”

“I’m really not. Feel free to take that as a sign to stop asking.”

We step into the bright gray morning. I squint as my eyes adjust. He leads me through the mansion courtyard. It’s so unlike the tidy yards and patio at home. While Carrenwell House is all sharp, clean stone and tidy planters full of flowers, Havenwood House is all mossy stone and wild ivy twisting up the walls. Deep, bloody-looking flowers bloom in clumps through the cracks in the walls and up through gaps in the cobblestones, and the iron gate is tangled with some sort of spiky, deep purple flowering vine that is still in bloom despite the turn of the season and the frigid mountain air.

Somehow, it doesn’t look messy. It looks beautiful in a harsh sort of way, as if everything about this place is a monument to things that thrive in a brutal environment. I suppose I’ll blend in just fine.

We pass through the gate and turn right, taking a wide stone path down. Havenwood House perches on the sixth and highest level of the fort, with five other levels unfurling below it. I watch the distant bluster of town as we walk. Several men in guard uniforms pass us as we follow the winding path. Most of them have their sigils prominently placed across their chest, but there are a few who take Henry’s more subtle approach.

“What does it take to become a guard?” I ask.

“Why? Thinking about trying to pass the test?”

I blow out an exasperated breath. “Give me a break, Henry. Not every question is a weapon. I’m in a strange place with a culture I don’t understand. I’m trying to acclimate to my new life.”

He grimaces. “Sorry. You’re right. To pass the test, you have to survive a week alone out past the wall.”

“A week!” I stop, pulling my arm free from him. “In the Drained Wood?”

He nods as we round a corner in the outer wall of Havenwood House and start down a labyrinth of narrow, twisting and turning paths between tall buildings.

I can’t tell if he’s trying to confuse me, to get me to stop asking questions, or because this is the actual way to the armory.

“So all of those men—” I glance back down the path at the distant figures of the guards who were patrolling. “They’ve all survived a week out⁠—”

An orange aura swells up in my peripheral vision. I spin, throwing a hand up just in time to catch a man’s wrist and stop his dagger from plunging into my chest. A lightning bolt of pain shoots through my freshly healed but still tender shoulder. The man’s eyes go wide as I bring my other hand up and sweep his blade out to the side.

His magic slams into me—manipulation magic from the Divine of Malice. I don’t wait to find out how he’s trying to influence me. I spin under his arm and wrench his hand back. Blazing hot pain shoots through my left wrist, and though I watched Henry heal me, the ache of the injury remains.

But pain is just a focal point. I can push through it.

The man squeezes his hand tighter around the blade, and I put more pressure on the joint. Fear spreads through my blood like a fever. He’s not going to release the blade. I’m going to die. I’m too weak to hold him off.

The manipulation is so strong, I taste bile in my throat.

My hands shake, my whole body trembling under the weight of his magic. I hold fast, pressing so hard the bone creaks under my grip.

The man is yanked away so suddenly that I almost fall over. Henry pins him against the wall by his throat.

“Really, Seth?” Henry’s voice is a low growl. “Attacking my wife?”

“She’s not your wife yet,” Seth chokes out. “She’s one of them.”

“She’s one of us now. And she’s harmless.”

I bristle. I’ll show him harmless when I smother him in his sleep.

“Then why is she trained?” Seth asks.

“Because when you’re at the top, everyone wants to take a swing to prove they can,” I say.

Both men’s heads snap to look at me as if they forgot I was here.

“You were in Lunameade less than a day and someone tried to kill you. It’s only fair that I should get the full experience,” I say.

Henry grins at me and slices Seth’s throat without looking. I can only imagine that the shock on my face matches Seth’s.

I blink rapidly, trying to figure out if I imagined it, but Seth slumps against the wall, blood pouring from the wound in his neck. Henry sniffs and his nose wrinkles as he lets Seth fall to the ground, ignoring the gurgling death rattle of his breathing.

My knees tremble so badly I can barely stand, but if there is one thing I am accustomed to, it’s fear. I’ve felt its icy grip on me every day since my magic showed up at six years old and I learned what it truly meant to be afraid.

Henry frowns at the blood on his hand, bends down, and uses the edge of Seth’s coat to wipe it off. He walks toward me, and I take a step back.

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “It’s just fear magic.”

“Yes, that’s quite clear.”

“It didn’t bother you.” It’s an accusation.

“Didn’t it?” I gesture to my body with trembling hands. “For someone who judged me for killing so casually, you certainly didn’t hesitate. Why?”

“Because he attacked you.”

“Shouldn’t he have a trial or something?” I ask.

“Is that how you do things in the city?”

“It’s supposed to be, but—” I hesitate.

Henry arches a brow. “But?”

“But when justice is dealt out by the powerful, is it ever really justice?”

Henry whistles low. “That was honest. Shocked we’ve found something we agree on.”

My hands finally cease trembling as the magic leaves my body. “Then why slit his throat?”

Henry presses me back. The rough stone wall catches my cloak as his intense gaze meets mine.

“This is what survival looks like, Harlow. You have to be brutal and decisive. It’s ugly. It’s that scar in the wall of the fortress. It’s necessary violence of culling the weak and disloyal.”

Everything I learn about Henry contradicts what I thought I knew. I’d expected him to have a reverence toward his people, but now I’m not so sure. If it’s all about the strong surviving, is Mountain Haven any different from Lunameade?

“Shall we continue, or do you need a rest? Your wrist must be sore.”

I scowl at him, pushing him back so I can duck around him. “My wrist is fine. Continue showing off.”

I should be ruffled—or at least wary that I’m not—but I’m more confused than anything else. I loop my arm through his, and he leads me down the trail toward the armory.

“I also killed him because he saw you defend yourself. I’d rather no one know that you can defend yourself for now, or how your magic works,” Henry whispers.

“Would you have preferred I let him murder me?”

Henry scoffs. “I would have stopped him.”

I gesture to my shoulder and wrist. “Forgive me for not holding my breath for that.”

“I need you to trust me.”

I laugh. “You can’t possibly expect that. Especially now.” I glance meaningfully at Seth’s body.

His arm tenses. “That won’t happen again.”

The sound of clashing steel fills the air as we round the tall, ivy-covered garden walls and a large building comes into view.

Several fighting rings bracket the entrance of the building. Several men spar, some with swords, others with wrapped knuckles. Their fighting style isn’t showy. It’s brutal, efficient, much like the way Henry fought in the Drained Wood. Still, there’s an elegance to their violence, even if it’s not the same form taught in Lunameade.

“Don’t look so interested or they’ll read into it. You’re supposed to be a vapid city girl,” Henry whispers.

“No reason I can’t be interested in watching some handsome men spar.”

His arm flexes. Henry is an enigma. One moment, he’s taunting me. The next, he’s slitting a man’s throat for touching me. I know he doesn’t like me, but he certainly seems to think he needs me—for now at least.

I note the lack of guards stationed at the armory doors. At least I’ll be able to get access to more weapons if I need to.

“Shouldn’t you have someone stationed there for security?”

Henry pulls the door open and waves me inside. “We don’t have enough guards for that. We have other means of protection.”

I freeze inside the doors, the glow of magical booby traps cluttering the entryway. The one to my left is made of glowing orange light that shoots up and down in jagged bursts of lightning. The one on the right is a swirling red vortex. In the distance, I can see more of them, in almost every kind of magic. There must be at least a dozen in the corridor alone.

Henry’s hand on my lower back startles me. “What do they look like?”

“A deadly rainbow. How do we get in?”

He walks to an ornate stone plaque on the wall. “Come here.”

He presses his fingers to the sharp white stone, then draws away, letting a drop of his blood dribble on the stone below it. Then, he pulls a flask and a handkerchief from his pocket and pours some alcohol into the fabric. He wipes the stone point.

“This marker is enchanted. Once we are married, you’ll be able to press your finger here alone and get in. But for now, you’ll need my blood too.”

He grabs my wrist and presses my finger to the point. I hiss as it pricks my finger and he squeezes a drop onto the stone.

“Strength above all,” he whispers.

Our blood sizzles as the stone lights up. I turn and watch the magical traps disappear one by one and a heavy door at the end of the long corridor grinds open.

Henry snatches my wrist as my blood begins to drip onto the floor. I gasp as he takes my finger in his mouth and sucks gently. The heat and pressure soothe the sting. I should be disgusted, but the intensity in his gaze warms my blood. His pupils dilate as he pulls my finger free, the wound healed by his magic.

“Neat trick.” I mean for it to be a taunt, but I sound too breathless to pull it off.

He smirks and feeds my hand through his arm. We continue down the hall and through the stone doorway. It opens to a large storeroom with an arched wooden ceiling. Racks and racks of broadswords, short swords, crossbows, and longbows cover the walls down the entire length of the building. Mountain Haven might have been caught unprepared once, but they clearly won’t let that happen again.

It’s impossible to tell what Henry’s game is. I thought he’d be cautious about showing me where I can avail myself of more weapons, but he didn’t even hesitate to bring me here and show me how to get in. He must be trying to lull me into a false sense of security so I’ll let my guard down.

The few men in the room nod at Henry, then go back to their work sharpening blades and stocking arrows in quivers. On the far side of the room, a man dumps water from a small jar down the length of a blade. The runoff drips into a bucket below him. He holds the blade in place until it’s finished dripping, then hangs it on a hook on the wall. Finally, he puts a funnel in the jar, dumps the water inside, and restarts the sequence with a new blade.

“It’s well water,” Henry says. “As you probably noticed in the forest, it burns the Drained down to nothing.”

The wells hold sacred water, so it makes sense that it would burn the abomination of the Drained, but I’m shocked that we have never used it as a defense for the city. We’ve only ever thought of its healing properties. It never would have occurred to me to wield it like a weapon, but now I’m eager to get back and share. This could be the solution to protecting the city walls.

“I didn’t know until I saw you use it,” I whisper.

There’s judgment in Henry’s gaze.

“The well is only part of sacred ceremonies in Lunameade.”

He waves a hand to the wall. “We keep all the blades forged here dipped in well water so they’re ready for any attack.”

“How do you have access to well water?”

“You’re quite curious about that.” He continues to stroll down the central walkway.

I jog to catch up to him. “Can’t imagine why?”

“And I thought I wouldn’t answer.” He grins at me. “Unless, of course, you want to trade secrets. I’ll tell you where I get the water if you tell me why you murder men.”

I sigh. It’s not as if I thought it would be easy, but it would at least be nice if he didn’t get such pleasure out of goading me.

They must have someone sourcing them in Lunameade. I should tell Kellan about it—maybe them taking from the well without permission is corrupting the water that flows through the well. But before I tell him, I need to understand what they’re using it for. Kellan can be a bit quick to assume he knows what’s best, and if the well water can truly give an edge against the Drained, that’s worth knowing. Even more interesting is the fact that he offered to trade for this knowledge, which means Henry knows how they source it.

He shepherds me back toward the entrance. “How about I take you to see some art? We’re more than just brutes here. I promise.”

Henry whispers the magic words to a plaque beside the stone door, and it slides open. We exit the building. Instead of turning back the way we came, Henry leads me in the opposite direction.

The farther we go down the trail, the wilder and lovelier the scenery becomes. The trail narrows so that I have to huddle against Henry’s side to keep from getting tangled in the ragged vines and roots of overgrown forest. I squint into the wilderness. It’s too wild to be a garden. It looks like the forest has taken over this part of the fort.

“It’s the scenic route,” Henry says, noticing my assessment. “It might not look like much, but this is where the biggest part of the battle for the fort took place.”

I note the reverence in his voice and remember what he said about his sister dying. I wonder if this is where it happened.

“Why here?” I ask. The broken wall must be miles from where we’re walking now. I would have thought the violence would have been at the breach.

Henry hesitates as the trail opens up. The view takes my breath away. There are ruins of what must have been a lost outbuilding. Tingling cold washes over me like I’ve stepped through a specter of what once was.

Moss gathers in the claw marks scored into the crumbling stone and ivy strangles the iron gate that hangs from one hinge.

“Escape routes,” Henry says. “We have them here just like you do in the city. In case the Drained get in?”

I nod. In the city, we have similar strategic plans by gate and area that allow us to efficiently defend less territory in case we’re overcome.

“The last stand is at the manor here. The people were shepherded up here to higher ground during the attack. And this is where most of them fell.”

This is where his sister died.

“I’m sorry.”

His gaze snaps to me, like he thinks I’m teasing, but I mean it. Even if he thinks that my family had something to do with this, even if my family did have something to do with this, I can’t imagine losing a sister. Especially since it was just the two of them.

“Thank you,” he says finally. He scrubs a hand over his face. “Anyway, the reason I brought you here is not to relive our sad history. It’s to tell you that in your wandering, you shouldn’t stray beyond this point into the fort forest.”

I stare beyond the crumbling walls into the forest. “Why? What’s over there?”

“Hunt grounds.”

I glance back at him. “For game?”

A wicked smile steals over his face. “No, lovely. Different kind of hunting. For Kennymyra feasts—like tonight.”

My cheeks heat, thinking of the stories of wild sex rituals to honor the Divine of Pleasure that Aidia and I used to overhear when we snuck out to bars.

I rub my arms like I’m cold, hoping to distract from my embarrassment.

He clears his throat. “Let’s get you inside.”

We follow twists and turns through the trails until finally Havenwood House comes back into view.

Henry takes us in through a different door that dumps us into a long, quiet hallway. We turn at the end of the hall and my eyes adjust to the dim room. Shadows dance over three veiled statues in the half-light. The white marble is stark against the black walls, giving them a spectral glow. The beautiful intricacy of the carvings is apparent, even through the veils.

“Beautiful,” I whisper.

“The trio of Kennymyras and Stellarias. My great-great-grandfather made them. They are his life’s work.”

A subtle breeze shifts the red veil on the closest Kennymyra statue. I step forward, expecting Henry to stop me. When he doesn’t, I move so close that the toes of my boots nearly brush the base of the statue. She’s life-size, a bit taller than me, and her face is carved with hooded eyes and a subtle smile.

“Why the veils?” I ask.

“It’s a feast tonight.”

“Can I go?” The question is born out of the childhood fascination of a sheltered girl, not the wise strategy of a grown woman who is here to spy and get critical information.

Between an inhale and exhale, Henry is right behind me. I didn’t even hear him move, but now his firm chest is pressed to my back and his breath ghosts over the shell of my ear.

“I’m not sure that would be appropriate for a woman of your delicate sensibilities.”

“I might get some ideas for our wedding night,” I counter.

I don’t know how I expected him to react, but it’s not by nipping at my neck. I jump, swatting him away as he grins.

The man slit someone’s throat earlier for touching me and now he nipped at mine for asking if I could go to a feast during which I assume there will be a lot of public sex.

I have made it my mission to know a man on sight—to understand what motivates him so I can use it—but Henry is so mercurial. The more he shifts and changes before my eyes, the less certain I am that I’ll be able to understand him enough to get what I need from him.

“I know you’re curious. You’ve been let out of your cage and now you want to see everything. But you are not, under any circumstances, to leave your room after dinner this evening,” Henry says firmly.

I arch a brow. “Will you slit my throat if I do?”

He chuckles darkly. “No. I’ll do worse.”

The words have menace, but his lustful smile promises something else entirely.

“There’s worse?”

“Perhaps I’ll drag you down into the dark with me. Abscond with you into some wild corner of the forest and have my way with you.”

The threat heats my blood, but I cross my arms. “Let’s get one thing straight. This will not be the kind of marriage where you tell me to stay. I will not be brought to heel, no matter what kind of monster you fancy yourself. If you make yourself something to fear, I promise I’ll make myself worse.”

His eyes light up at the challenge. “Is that what this is? A competition to be the bigger monster? Don’t threaten me with a good time. I have done things the likes of which you can’t imagine.”

“Then let’s hope you’re not foolish enough to find out that you’re wrong,” I say. “You were so judgmental about me killing in the city, but you slit the throat of a man you knew by name for trying to hurt me—a wife you don’t even want.”

“You have no idea what I want. If the difference between us is unclear, let me break it down for you. You kill drunk men as a hobby. I kill violent ones out of necessity. Every day, I make choices for the best of my people⁠—”

“So do I,” I say through gritted teeth.

His brows shoot up, and I realize the mistake. I’ve tipped my hand. Now he knows my murder spree is for more than just amusement. It was safer to let him believe that. Safer to keep him far from the things that he could use to hurt me.

He cocks his head to the side, assessing me with new interest. My mind races, searching for anything I can use to deflect from this topic.

A red splotch on the white stone floor catches my eye. “Is that blood?”

Henry’s head whips around, gaze narrowing on the spot instantly. He reaches a hand back to tuck me behind him.

I take a step back, toward the veiled statues, but my foot slips on something. I flail for purchase, but Henry is too far away and I land on my backside. I glance down at the floor. A bloody streak mars the wood where my boot dragged through the mess.

A low growl to my right makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I turn my head slowly, and there, in the darkness, two cold blue eyes stare back at me. I hold still as the beast steps out into the light. A white wolf prowls from the shadows behind the statues. As it emerges into the candlelight, I can see it’s not pure white; there’s ashy gray mixed into its coat. It lets out a low, rumbling growl, lips peeling back over a row of sharp teeth.

“Henry,” I whisper.

The wolf sniffs the blood on my boot and nudges my right foot with its snout. I try not to flinch or make any sudden movements, but my hands tremble.

“What did you drag in here, Ky? You know better than to bring your prizes in the gallery,” Henry says. His voice is soft, torn between scolding and teasing.

The wolf chuffs and jumps excitedly, turning to glance at the dark before returning its attention to me.

“This thing is your pet?” I ask.

Henry frowns. “He’s not my pet.”

“But you named him.”

“Yes. Kyrin. It means ‘little mystery.’”

“And do you feed him?” I ask.

Henry rolls his eyes and gestures to the blood trail. “Sometimes. Often he feeds himself, as you can see. He just lives here and hunts with me.”

“But he’s not a pet. What is he, then? Your colleague?”

Henry blows out an irritated sigh.

I tense as the wolf prowls closer, bloody snout nudging my skirt. Its paws are huge. It must be nearly as big as me, with a lean, muscular body.

“He won’t hurt you,” Henry says.

“You just told me he’s not a pet, which means he is a wild beast and—” My mouth goes dry as the beast steps closer. The wolf’s coppery breath ghosts over my face. He stares at me like he can see into my soul.