The Night Prince (The Wolf King, #2)(105)

My eyes adjust. Beyond James’s great bulk, Ryan sits with his back to the wall and his hands in his coppery hair. He looks up. “Hello, Princess.” He tips his sharp chin toward James. “I found him.”

“That you did, lad,” says James. “And if we ever get out of here—which seems fairly unlikely given the circumstances—perhaps the next time my wee traitor of a brother sends you on a mad quest, you’ll remember what happens when you follow his orders instead of mine.”

I push down my rising anger at his insult to Callum. A growl, female and irritated, echoes off the damp walls before I can respond.

“Can everyone shut the fuck up for five fucking minutes?”

“Ah, allow me to introduce you to my delightful mate, Claire.” James nods at the cell beside mine.

The woman who snarls at James through the bars on my other side is far from the pristine, well-put-together alpha I met at Lowfell. Her dark hair is wild and tangled around her face, her shirt is torn and baggy, and there is dirt on her cheeks.

She bares her teeth. “Call me that again and I’ll rip your balls off and feed them to you.”

“Don’t mind her,” says James. “She gets irritable when she hasn’t eaten and starts acting like a—”

“Call me a bitch, I fucking dare you.” Claire’s eye flash in the darkness. James grins, and raises his big hands in faux surrender. Claire slumps against the wall. “That’s what I thought. Arsehole.”

“We’ve already met,” I say.

“Of course.” James rests his head back against the wall. “While you were planning your wee rebellion. How is that going for you, Princess? You’re here, and my brother isn’t, so I take it things didn’t work out between the two of you. Shame.”

I clench my teeth as my blood roars. “Your big plan was to rescue Claire, yet here you are, trapped in a cage alongside her. I take it your plans haven’t gone particularly well, either.”

Claire laughs.

To my surprise, James laughs, too. “No, they haven’t.”

I narrow my eyes. “You lack honor. You told me you’d let me stay in your kingdom if I killed Sebastian. I did as you asked, and you broke your promise.”

“I’m not sorry for it. I’d do it again.”

A snarl scrapes my throat, and the corner of James’s smug mouth twitches. “Callum should have killed you,” I say.

“He should have. My brother has always been too soft to do what needs to be done.”

“Mercy is not weakness,” I snap, aware that I’m somewhat contradicting myself.

“Then you must think highly of me for sparing my brother’s life.”

My spine is a rod. “Callum is stronger than you. He won the challenge and showed you mercy. Just as he would have won the challenge between the two of you years ago, if he had not let you win.”

A muscle flexes in his jaw now, as if I’ve gotten beneath his skin, too. “No. I’m the dominant wolf. That’s always been the case. But I love my brother. I didn’t want to kill him for the sake of a southerner. Now, you have torn my kingdom apart.”

My fingers curl into fists. “You did that. Not me. I never did anything to provoke such ill feeling from you. I was never your enemy. That morning we met, I offered to help you and your kingdom. If you had kept your word, if you hadn’t sold me out to Sebastian, if you hadn’t attacked me, none of this would have happened!”

James growls. “You are wrong, Princess. You are my enemy. Your blood is my enemy’s blood. Your people are my enemy people. Since the time of the Elderwolf, you have ravaged our lands and taken from us. You have brought us war, and you tried to rule us, when all we ever wanted was peace. The moment I first laid eyes on you and smelt my brother all over you, I knew you were trouble. What did you expect me to do? Let you live? I knew it was only a matter of time before you left Callum and took our secrets to your people. You would have doomed us all.”

“You doomed yourself, you pig-headed fool! I did not intend on spilling your secrets to my father. I did not intend on leaving Callum.”

“Yet here you are, and where is he?” His raised voice echoes around the dungeons before he shakes his head. “It’s not your father I worry about. I scented Blake on you, too, that morning, and I knew exactly what it meant. Two southerners—one a half-wolf from the Borderlands who became alpha of one of the most feared clans in the Northlands, schemed his way onto my father’s council, and blatantly had designs on my throne, and the other the daughter of our enemy king. That, I thought, is not an alliance I want to contend with.”

“I have no alliance with Blake.”

“Of course you don’t. . .” He runs a hand over his jaw. “I showed my brother mercy. I did not kill him, even though I could have. But I made sure he saw what I did. I made sure he’d read the book I found in Blake’s chambers. Because I needed both of you out of Madadh-allaidh before you created any lasting damage, so that my brother could fight the war that your people started.”

“I’m glad you got what you wanted,” I spit.

“You think this is what I wanted?” He shakes his head. “I want to be drunk and warm with a lass in my bed. Thanks to you, I’m here. You were a threat to me then, Princess. You’re a threat to me—”