Page 35 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

If he calls for the gardai, I’m dead.

I have to keep him calm—keep him from thinking of me as any kind of threat.

Keeping my voice from shaking is a battle. “Which one are you?”

The waver of a smile plays at the corner of his mouth. He quickly tucks it away, like it’s a sweet I might be tempted to snatch. “If I were an adulterer or an assassin, do you really think I’d tell you?”

Gems drip from his fingers, even with no one around to see them. Fat sapphires as blue as his dark eyes and rings of white gold and silver braided into bands on his thumbs and forefingers. Strange, for someone wielding such a heavy sword. He’d need both those fingers free to really grip the hilt well—unless it’s more for show than use.

The Bloody Prince’s sandy hair flutters in the cool air; the sweet smell of roses in bloom chills under something drier, like the bite of snow in the night.

He studies my face, navy eyes still on mine, as if I’m someone he’s seen before. “You know who I am.” There’s no question in the remark as he steps closer, putting the roses—and all their sharp thorns—at my back. “But I don’t know you. Hardly seems fair.”

I flinch. As if he knows the first thing about fair.

His eyes follow the movement. He stands so close that from here, I could kiss him or kill him.

I force myself to meet his midnight stare and shrug. “Life isn’t fair.”

The laugh bursts from him, hard and bitter. “Isn’t that thetruth.” It doesn’t reach his eyes, and tension builds around my shoulders. “Should I, though?”

“Should you what?”

He steps forward another inch. “Know you.”

Old Ones, one snap of his arm and he could run me through with that broadsword. No one would care if I screamed. I doubt anyone would even find my body, if he wanted it hidden. Maybe he would bury me right here.

I don’t risk answering him.

The man’s navy eyes darken… and it’s a strange thing, the way he looks at me, bordering between interest and a haunted wariness. Like he’s trying to decide if I’m the rose or the thorn.

As if someone like me could ever hurt someone like him.

The muscles down the back of my neck and shoulders stiffen, and my heart refuses to slow as it thrums beneath the thin skin of my neck.

His navy eyes flicker there.

Probably wondering what my blood would look like sprayed across these roses.

“I should go,” I say, keeping my voice steady.

If I want to walk away from here, I can’t give him any reason to anger. We all know the stories—he had his best friend and his family killed over an insult. He helped his father raze the mages’ temples during the uprising. A girl he once loved ended up poisoned.

Reputations don’t just come from nowhere.

I nod toward the castle behind us but force my gaze to linger for a moment on his, making it seem as if I don’t really want to leave. Wounding a man’s ego can be just as dangerous as drawing a blade on him.

His hand comes out as I step past him, missing my skin by a hair. The coolness of his touch hovers above my hand, goose bumps prickling where his skin almost meets mine.

“Wait.” He snaps a rose from the bushes tangling around us. “For you.”

My eyes fall to the delicate cream petals just beginning to open. Thorns twine up the stem, each one sharp enough to draw blood.

His navy eyes shift in the shadows as clouds blot out the moonlight above.

The darkness casts vicious shadows down the lines of his cheekbones, hollowing his eyes into an empty, icy stare that instantly chills my blood.

“For luck,” he whispers.