Page 8 of The Wolf Queen’s Curse

“You know I didn’t mean what I said to him. About you.”

I smile. “You don’t need to clarify that every time you need to treat me as a prize.”

“I know. It’s just…”

He goes quiet, and we ride like that for at least a mile before he says, “I’ve spent the last week vowing that nothing will happen to you. That was foolishness. A want and certainly an intention, but not a promise I could make, and you suffered for it. So I’ll make a new one. I will do everything in my power to protect you and keep you safe. But as I promised last night, you are always free to return home, no matter how much I might want to stop you.”

“Thank you.” I meet his gaze. “That’s all I need—to know that I’m with you by choice. My choice, but also yours. Please don’t feel you have to make me promises, Bishop. Especially not promises of safety.”

“Because I can’t keep them.”

“They’re not yours to keep,” I say. “If lightning struck me down right now, you couldn’t stop it. I trust you to keep me safe to the best of your ability, and do you know where I feel safe?”

I move my horse closer to him, so our legs brush. “Right here. With you. You might think you haven’t been able to keep your promises, but I’ve known from the start that my well-being wasn’t something you could promise. I understood it was an intention, not a vow. You did everything you could to keep me safe, and I offer the same back to you. I’ll stay at your side, and I’ll watch your back, and if at some point you decide your Pack is safer without me around, I won’t argue to stay.”

“We’re safer with you here,” he says. “That much of what Lynch said makes sense. Beryl could have pursued us. She didn’t because it endangers you.”

“Someone helped her realize that.”

“Most likely. But the point remains that you are our shield. As her sole viable heir, you’re too precious to risk losing on a vendetta. So there will be no more talk of you going back to her to protect us. You protect us by staying.”

I’m not sure of that, but he says it with such vehemence that I know he needs to believe it. He needs to know that I’m staying here, letting him focus on the Pack.

So I nod, and we leave it at that.

As we approach the camp, a figure strides to meet us. It’s Julius, Bishop’s cousin and closest confidant. Julius shares Bishop’s height and lean build, but his hair is chestnut brown and his eyes the gray of stormy skies, though no one would ever describe Julius’s personality as stormy. He’s the “nice” cousin, the easygoing one. Others consider him the better-looking cousin, though that just means he’s very conventionally handsome compared to Bishop’s more severe good looks.

“Tell me that’s breakfast,” Julius calls as we approach. “You’ve been gone for hours.” He pauses and peers at us. “Is that Cinder?”

“It is.”

“Found you, did she? I don’t suppose she brought my horse?”

“It’s a long story,” Bishop says. “But we have meat and bread.” He sniffs the air as he stops his horse. “Excellent. You have fires going already. Let’s get this meat cooking.”

“Oh, I’m not sure I need it cooked.” Julius makes a face and tips his head my way. “You didn’t hear that.”

“I did,” I say. “And I’m shocked. Shocked. Eating raw meat. Someone might think you’re a werewolf.”

Bishop helps me down as two others untie the bags of meat and Felix appears.

“I’ll take the horses,” Felix says.

“Others can,” Bishop says softly.

Felix’s eyes are red from crying. He’s the youngest, at eighteen. While he’d been born in the Pack, his father—Claude, the Pack’s financial controller—left with his son when Felix was only a baby. Bishop had convinced Claude to rejoin the Pack. And last night, my grandmother murdered him.

“The horses are my responsibility,” Felix says. “No one knows them like I do.”

“True,” Bishop says. “This time is fine. However, I need you to start training one of the others. Your skills are needed for the finances, which are going to be an even greater concern now. I can get us money, but we can’t touch the Pack’s for fear of leading Beryl to it.”

“That would be another way for her to destroy the Pack. One a cabal is more likely to consider.”

Bishop pats the young man on the back. “Which is why we have you—to think of these things. If you can, please check Cinder’s back. She was wearing an ill-fitting saddle, and I fear it chafed.”

As they talk, I head toward the bonfire with my sack of bread, and soon I’m followed like the Pied Piper. I swear some of the wolves are drooling, and I have to resist the urge to tease, lest I end up with bite marks.

Ann and Tabitha are putting meat on the fire, helped by Augustus, a wolf about my age.