The Night Prince (The Wolf King, #2)(122)

So, that traitorous part of me stills. Obeys. Submits.

I pretend I don’t want to. I even let out a soft whimper against his palm. The corner of his lip twitches, as if he knows my game. I sink back into the sheets, and stop writhing beneath him. When I blink up at him, my body softens and becomes pliant.

His shoulders dip with relief.

“Are you going to scream?” he asks.

I shake my head, and he pulls away his palm.

“Good girl.”

I’m breathing fast. So is he.

“I’m going to tell you the truth, Aurora, and I need you to listen carefully, because I fear we don’t have much time. Are you listening?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Good. I’m not one of Night’s Acolytes. I’m not some fool who dresses in a dark cloak with a symbol inked onto my skin. I’m much worse than that. I’m one of Night’s prisoners, just like the serpent you killed, just like the monsters you have heard of. The prison I’ve pulled you to in my dreams, that was my home for a time. You’ve realized that, haven’t you?”

“The brand on your ankle,” I say.

“Yes. He brands all his prisoners with his mark. The acolytes copy it, as if they could ever know what it means.”

He leans back so he’s kneeling over me, and I can’t settle my unsteady heart or the beast that has awoken in my chest. I’m still gripping his wrist, I realize. For some reason, I don’t release him. His pulse thrums, agitated, beneath my fingertips.

“My soul belongs to the God of Night,” he says. “So do the souls of the others who were trapped in the cell beneath the palace with me. You asked me once whether I’d killed the Maester of Healing. I told you that wasn’t the right question. Do you know now, what the right question is?”

I inhale a shaky breath as I piece together everything I know, everything he has told me. Dread runs, thicker than blood, through my veins. I nod, the movement stifled by the pillow.

“Ask me,” he says.

“How did you escape?” My words are quiet, barely audible as the wind picks up outside and the sea roars against the cliffs. It’s as if the weather is reacting to the turbulence inside me.

A shadow flickers across his face, and that cold, endless ache that I felt from him when he kissed me, floods me. I feel as if I’m drowning.

“I didn’t. In the cell beneath the palace, I died.”

My heart stops. A powerful, unreadable emotion erupts from my soul and mingles with his darkness. “I. . . I don’t understand.”

He smiles, but there is nothing warm in his face. “That was Night’s big trick. He covets desperate souls, and I was so very desperate. I made a bargain with him—I asked him to give me the power to escape from the Maester, and to set the others free. In exchange, I would give him my soul. He honored his promise, I suppose. He gave me my freedom in the form of death. Only, instead of my soul going to rest, he took it for himself.”

Words bubble then die in my throat. I know, with certainty, that what he’s telling me is true. I feel it with every nerve in my body. My skin is as cold as his eyes. I don’t know what to say, how to react to such horror. That traitorous part of me wants to comfort him, just like I did when I found out what had been done to him in the palace. Like then, I realize the horrors he has undergone make him even more of a threat to me.

“I thought I knew torment. I did not. Not until I became Night’s plaything. I would have done anything to gain my freedom. I was dead for months, but it felt like a lifetime that I was trapped. Over time, I realized Night was as desperate to get out as I was. I made him a new promise. If he let me go, I would give him what he desired. The dream you witnessed, the memory, it was the night when Elsie prayed to him because our father was going to kill her. I told him I could use Bruce to our advantage, and get a footing in the Wolf Kingdom. He agreed to let me go.”

“How? Night doesn’t have the key.” Night doesn’t have me.

“Night used Ghealach to do it. The walls of his prison are thinner on the night of the full moon. Not thin enough for him or any of the ancient prisoners to escape, but thin enough for me to slip through. He took me to her cell. I was so sure she’d find a way to stop me from leaving, but as I passed by her, she spoke to me.” His eyes burn into mine. “She said, ‘My heart is your salvation.’”

My fingers dig into his wrist.

“I thought the Heart of the Moon was just a rock. I thought I could use it to barter for my freedom, even if it meant unleashing horrors upon the world. Because the next time I die, I know what eternity will look like for me. I have no love for the Kingdom of Wolves, or the Kingdom of Men. One abandoned me, the other tortured me. What did it matter to me, if they both burned? But I didn’t know, when I made that promise to Night. . . I didn’t know that it would be you.”

“When did you realize?”

“I started to suspect the more I got to know you. I was fairly sure on the night of the full moon when you didn’t shift. When Alex took you, then I was certain.”

I take a deep breath. “And now you know?”

“I cannot let you go.” He says it as if it’s so simple. And some deep, aching part of me wants to believe him. But giving me to Night is the only thing that will save him from eternal torment. Blake has lied to me, time and time again. He pretends, and manipulates, and deceives.