Page 94 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

I should rip into him. I could shout, tell him he’s an absolute asshole for hiding the truth about magic from me, and from everyone else, too. What Cashel said leaves no room for doubt in my mind. If Wolf is the son of the noble family that led the uprising—the uprising that fought the ban on magic, that fought to replace the High King—then heknows.

There’s no way he doesn’t know.

But fuck, I’m exhausted. Emotionally, physically, all of it.

Gray stone presses in all around me, rough and ancient. Ibreathe deep, fighting to keep the pain at bay as we finally reach what looks like the end of the tunnel.

Wolf leans one shoulder into the spot where the back of a smooth wooden frame covers a hole in the stone and presses it lightly.

A sliver of candlelight slices through, falling across my boots.

Guarded green eyes linger over me. “Your room’s across the hall.” He glances out past the frame. “Come on. There’s no one out there. Blankets. Tonics. Tea,” he adds gruffly, and I can see the effort it takes for him to pull that mask back into place. “They’re waiting in your room.”

“You missed your calling.” My words are soft, only because I can’t muster the fight to snap at him. Everything hurts. “Quite the bedside manner.”

Wolf starts to turn, an unreadable expression in the dark shadows of his eyes. “And here I thought I’m the last person you want anywhere near your bedside.”

A wave of dizziness chooses that moment to press in over me, black and pulsing at the edges of my sight. Hot, intense pain prickles across my palms.

I reach out a hand for balance and lean my forehead against the cool tunnel wall as everything tilts and darkness pitches around me.

Breathe.

This can’t be what it’s going to be like. I hate feeling weak. I hate needing time to recover. It only makes me vulnerable, and that’s the one thing I absolutely can’t afford to be here. We don’t even know when the next—I swallow back a wave of nausea—thelasttest of the Assay will be.

I have to be able to fight.

A warm hand brushes the small of my back, steadying and strong—flexing, just enough so I feel the faint stretch of his fingers right where the tips rest at the curve of my hip. The urge to let myself lean into the inexplicable comfort of his warmth is instinct, and a small, quick breath catches in the back of his throat. An unreadable look tears across his face.

“Why did you put yourself between us?” He says the words as if he had to fight his better instincts to let them out.

And I don’t have to ask what he means.

I don’t have any good answers either.

My racing heart slows, just enough for me to look up at him.

Old Ones, he’s tall. In the darkness, there’s only a faint glow, as if someone lit a candle somewhere just around the bend. The flickering light bathes him in shadows. But I see enough—he’s darkly, almost regally beautiful. The kind of beauty no scars can dull, and the kind that only seems more roughly breathtaking with the stubble and tired weight in his eyes.

Stepping out of his grasp should be easy. It should be so damn simple. But I can’t make myself pull away… even if this is all just some trick so I’ll do what he wants. Whattheywant. Is there any line between the two? A point where the Whisperer ends, and he’s just… Wolf?

“You don’t have to pretend, you know,” I say softly, and squeeze my eyes shut just enough for the world to stop spinning as another flare of pain slams into me. I feel his grip tighten at my waist, accidentally drawing me another inch closer as he steadies me. “I know what I am to you.”

I’m a weapon. A pawn. A knife in the dark, just like he is for the Whisperers.

Bait.

When I open my eyes, Wolf’s are fixed on me.

The furrow between his dark brows is gone in the time it takes for his mouth to twist into what’s becoming an infuriatingly familiar grimace—as if something I can’t see pains him, too.

Wolf drops his hand from my back.

“You don’t know a damn thing, Maeve.” My name is ragged and rough in his mouth. “Now go.” He pushes the frame back, glancing out first before he holds it open for me to follow him through, then rapping at my chamber door. “It’s not safe for you out here alone.”

“I’m not al—”

Talon rushes through the frame, weapons clanging as they sweep me up into a bear hug. “I thought you were dead!”