Page 105 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

My fingers come away stained red.

Wolf’s eyes darken. “Youarehurt.”

“I said I’m fine,” I whisper again, and press a hand to the bright, slashing pain down my side.

His jaw clenches, eyes flickering over my face before he leads me through a servants’ door set into the back of the castle and down a tangle of halls where the floors are as much faded stone as dirt. No one bothered to put marble here. At the end of one, he taps along the wood panels of the wall until a hollow sound answers back.

Wolf digs both hands into the edges of the paneling so a whole section of it cracks just enough to reveal a hole wide enough for one person where the panel meets the floor.

Memories of the maps he brought me weeks ago flare in my mind. The way the lines seemed to be sketched over older, faded ones—as if the castle were built on top of itself, the halls and corridors redrawn time and time again.

What stood here before Castle Mount?

Wolf’s knowing green eyes fix on mine. A question heats the space between us—

Are you afraid of me?

I can practically hear him ask it.

The pain in my side doesn’t touch the stubbornness my mother always loved in me.

I ignore the hand he offers and climb through without bothering to wait for him.

Shadows fall over rough-hewn edges of yet another hidden tunnel. A faintdrip, drip, dripechoes in the distance, and the smell of damp stone surrounds me. Wolf climbs through a momentafter, nudging me aside so my back presses against the stone of the narrow space to make room for him.

I wait until he clicks the paneling shut, hiding us from anyone who might walk by outside, and lower my voice. “I saw the vial.”

He tenses but hides it quickly. “I told you, it’s for the nerve damage… and it should be enough until you’re able to kill the king.” Wolf’s head tilts in the darkness. “I’ve noticed he’s still breathing.”

For fuck’s sake. “Been a little busy. Trying not to die, and all that.”

“How’s that working out?”

I snort, our eyes catching in the dark.

The wry sound pulls at the hot sear down my side. I wince and turn away from him, so he can’t see the pain twisting across my face.

I feel, rather than see, him shift around me along the rough edge of the wall—and the warmth of a near touch hovering at the small of my back before it vanishes.

“Sorry.” There’s a thread of real regret softening the roughness of his voice.

Wolf twists past me and leads the way deeper into the tunnel stretching out ahead of us. A faint light glows from somewhere deep inside the tunnel, and there’s just enough of a haunting glow to make out the way his tense gaze keeps shifting back to watch me.

I draw in a breath. “I wasn’t talking about the vial of antidote.”

Even in the shadows, I see the muscles across his shoulders and neck go taut. How both hands brush the hilts of the dozenblades sheathed up and down his ribs, and the short sword down his side that’s compact enough to draw in tunnels just like this.

The path begins to climb, the incline subtle but enough to make the breath come quicker from my lungs. “I saw the vial ofmagic.”

Wolf shoots a glance back at me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It looks exactly like the one you gave me for my sister.” I fight the strain on my aching limbs as the incline gets steeper. “How do you have more of it? I’m not a fool, you know.”

Tell me about the Seven Wells,I want to urge him.

Tell me thetruth.

He arches a brow. “Yet twice in two weeks, I find you nearly dead.”