The Night Prince (The Wolf King, #2)(11)

I want to move back, to put distance between us, but I force myself to stay where I am.

This close, I see that he looks like he has not had much sleep, either. There are faint shadows beneath his eyes, and his dark hair is messy—as if he’s been dragging frantic fingers through it. A soft curl brushes his forehead.

In my fever dreams, he had seemed ethereal and untouchable—a monster made of death and shadow. The realness, the solidity, of him—corded forearms, broad shoulders, a hard chest straining beneath his white shirt—makes him seem even more dangerous, somehow.

“You defied James, dragged a blade across Sebastian’s throat, and all I get is a pretty smile and a ‘thank you for your concern’?” His voice is low and seductive. “How disappointing.”

“If I ever led you to believe I was trying to impress you, Blake, I apologize for the misdirection.”

A dimple creases his cheek. “Are you angry with me?”

“Can’t you feel it?” I ask.

“Right now, you’re guarding your emotions. As am I.”

Despite my unwillingness to ask for Blake’s help, the question slips out. “How? How does this. . . thing between us work?”

He looks like he’s considering whether or not to answer. “When I saved your life, I shared my lifeforce with you. It was like I gave you the end of a rope to pull you back, and I grabbed onto your lifeforce at the same time. I don’t know how it feels to you, but for me it’s like a thread of light from your lifeforce is still inside me. When you feel something particularly strongly, it wraps around my emotions and pulses, and I feel it too.”

“How do I stop you from feeling me?”

“I can stop it myself by imagining a cage around my emotions, to stop myself from touching your light. You could try that.” He cocks his head to one side. “Is that how it feels for you? Like a thread of light?”

I search inside me for that piece of him, that end of the thread, and shiver. “No. It feels like darkness.”

“Well? Are you angry with me?”

“Why would I be angry?” I try to keep my tone smooth, but I can’t quite conceal the bite behind it. “You saved my life.” And linked our lives together without my consent, all as part of your plan to take the throne and kill Callum.

“We’re friends, then?”

My soul protests, and from the glint in his eye, he knows it. We’re not friends. I’m not sure Blake even knows how to make friends. Jack and Arran seem amiable enough with him, but Blake must have manipulated them in some way. Perhaps they fear him, like the Wolves at castle Madadh-allaidh did.

I force myself to smile. “I made friends with a man in the Southlands, once. My father thought he was plotting against him and I was told to dance with him, sit with him, fill up his cup. He was a devious, cruel man. He hurt one of my ladies-in-waiting, I think, but I made friends with him anyway. I found out he planned to take over a territory, and turn the army against my father. It could have cost my father his throne.”

“What happened to him?”

I recall that night when my father sent me away. I’d heard the shouting in the throne room, even from my bedchambers, as he tried to escape. “He died.”

“It seems that being your friend is dangerous, indeed.” Blake’s eyes reflect the flickering torchlight. “Tell me, do you seek your father’s approval, even now—knowing what he did to your mother?”

Rage billows in my chest like a tempest. Self-loathing crashes through me as well. I’m not sure why I told him that story. Did I wish to scare him? Impress him? I try to compose myself. I don’t want him to know that one of his blows has landed. Yet even if he could not feel my emotions, I know he’d be able to sense this change within me as a wolf.

I step back, and nod curtly. “Callum will be waiting for me outside.”

I walk toward the door.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted the other night.” There’s something suggestive in his tone, although I have no idea what the suggestion is. I know he’s trying to rile me. I know I should keep walking.

Don’t bite. Don’t bite. Don’t—

I turn back around. “What do you mean?”

“When you visited me in my bedchambers.”

I frown. Every muscle in my body tightens. Red hot images flash beneath my eyelids—Blake’s face soft with sleep, his hair mussed, his arm thrown back on the pillow, my blade pressed against his throat. His sheets were crumpled beneath my thighs, and the wolf shone in his eyes when he grabbed my wrist.

I’d thought it was a dream. A nightmare. A conjuring of the fever. It was. . . it was real?

Embarrassment, it seems, is a harder emotion to swallow than rage. It swells inside me until my cheeks are aflame and my pulse is pounding. I wish for the ground to open, to swallow me up, to take me away from the obnoxious snake before me.

Blake’s mouth curves into a slow, satisfied smile.

I raise my chin, even though I know my face must be redder than my hair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I stride toward the door again. I’m trembling. I’m on fire. I’m mortified. “Good day, Blake.”

“Good day, little rabbit.” I feel the cool whisper of his amusement. He goes back to studying the map.