Page 48 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

Wolf tilts his head, studying me. There’s a flare of something dark and secretive in his assessing gaze, but he doesn’t answer.

I step forward, across the mere feet between us on either side of the little alcove, and let my forehead rest against the cool wall of stone on his other side. “You could be a poet.” I glance sideways at him. “Truly. What a talent you’ve got with words.”

Sarcasm drenches every one of mine.

The tight slash of Wolf’s mouth quirks up, just slightly. He leans his head back on the stone wall, and the subtle shift is enough to make his face feel entirely too close to mine now that I’ve crossed the alcove to lean against the stone at his side. He trails a blade I hadn’t seen him unsheathe against the stone. The tip hisses a haunting scratch. “I could have been a lot of things, if the uprising hadn’t happened.”

I let my eyes find his in the shadows. “Yet here we are.”

“Here we are.”

From somewhere in the distance, a bell tolls six times. They ring for the hour, and to signal for everyone attending tonight there are—two hours left to prepare for the first night of the Assay.

Wolf’s eyes flicker over my face again. “You ready?”

My stomach clenches.

“Would the High King execute me if I show up in leathersand my tunic?” At least I could fight freely in the clothes I’m used to when the noble girls come after me.

“Oh, you’ll look the part. Don’t worry.” Wolf’s mouth curves at one corner. “I’m not just here because I have adeath wish. And neither are you.”

“Well aware. You made it clear everyone else is too valuable to risk.”

“That too.” Wolf’s eyes linger on mine the same way Prince Cashel’s did in the garden, a strange recognition mixed with a cunning that makes me lift my chin at him. “But we could’ve planted you as a servant, or forced anyone else in our debt into the Assay. Believe me, you’re far from the only one.” He smirks. “You’re here”—he leans in another inch—“because you’reexactlyhis type.”

My mouth goes dry. “Whose type?”

There’s a single moment where a flicker of something like sorrow seems to dance across his green eyes. Wolf’s hand flexes before he clenches it tight at his side and whispers, “Cash’s. Your eyes…” He bites at his lip. “They’re almost exactly the same color as the eyes of the only person he ever really loved.”

The air between us is more charged than ever, and my every muscle turns to stone. “How the fuck would you know that?”

There’s a hard, assessing look in Wolf’s eyes, like he’s weighing whether or not to give me another meager scrap of insight. “Maybe I knew him, once.” He runs a finger along the scar at his temple—the scar from my knife. “Or maybe… I’m the liar.”

A fresh flush of anger heats my cheeks. “So, you’re dangling me asbait? For a prince just as brutal as the king you all want dead?”

Wolf pulls the hood of the black cloak up over his head and grabs the edge of the tapestry without hesitating. The brief look he shoots back at me over his shoulder is tense and tinged with a hue I might mistake for regret if I didn’t know better.

“I prefer the word…distraction,” he says through gritted teeth. “If he’s looking at you, he won’t be looking for me.”

“Why would he be looking for—”

Wolf lets the tapestry fall behind him.

I yank it back—I am not done with him—but somehow, he’s already gone.

Vanished.

There’s nothing but the stalking eyes of the portraits lining the hall and a faint echo I swear comes from deep within the walls.

Night casts its first shadows across the floor of my room.

My pulse is a drum as the serving girl Aoife sent over an hour ago, after she came back from the baths, works my hair into elaborate, tiny braids. Dozens of them, some framing the sides of my face, others adding a wild edge from where they peek out from under the long length.

Half of my hair is pulled back where it’s loose on one side, and the angle, combined with a faint brush of golden dust, sharpens my cheekbones.

A generous swipe of kohl around my lash lines turns my gray eyes to steel, hard and deadly, as the girl passes me a mirror.

I ignore the worn crimson dress trimmed in black and left lying on my bed that Aoife sent over with the serving girl. Few of the peasants make it past this first ceremony, the note she sentwith the dress warned, so the royals have never bothered to clothe the peasant girls they bring here to die.Better crimson than a servant’s dress,she had added, as if she knew the color would turn my stomach.