The Night Prince (The Wolf King, #2)(56)

“What the fuck?” he growls.

Blake’s hair is a mess, and though he manages his usual bored expression, his cheeks are flushed. His eyes lock onto mine.

“Don’t look at her.” Callum grips his chin. “Look at me.”

“Your cock is touching my leg.”

Callum makes a frustrated noise in his throat. He releases Blake, but doesn’t step back. “What the fuck were you doing last night? You were guarding her. Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“You don’t want to know what I think.”

Blake exhales. “She has a part of my life force inside her. Of course I was going to guard her.”

“Oh, that was why, was it?”

I tune out their bickering. I sit back against the side of the bed. The fur that hangs from the mattress is soft against my back. I tilt back my head, and feel the Northlands sun on my skin. Outside, the wind rustles the trees and stirs the loch. The tips of the mountains are shrouded with mist.

Some of the anxiety that has been knotting inside me for weeks unravels. I still have too many questions about last night, about what’s happening to me.

But a slow smile spreads across my face.

I didn’t shift.

“Please. I have no interest in your pet,” says Blake. “You shouldn’t have brought her here on the night of the full moon. What did you expect?”

“For you to exercise a little self-restraint—”

“Next time, I will strive to be the picture of composure that you were last night, Callum—”

As they continue to argue, I cast my gaze around Blake’s chambers. I’d not taken it in properly, last night. It’s smaller than ours and simply furnished, despite him being the alpha of this castle, and having the pick of any room he wants.

The bed I lean against is barely big enough to fit two people, and is pushed against the wall. The mess is the outcome of the fight between Blake and Callum last night. The clutter, though. . . that must have been here already. There are books scattered across the floor, among the remnants of the broken desk, but they’re also piled against the stone walls and stacked in the corners.

While he’s distracted by Callum, I pick one up, curious about Blake’s reading choices. It’s full of sketches of monsters—winged beasts, half dead humanoid figures, a water creature with entrails curling out of its body like tentacles. My eyes lock with those of a serpentine creature, that—from the smudges around its scaled body—seems to wear shadows like a second skin.

There’s a mark on its tail. It’s the same symbol that is inked on Elsie’s wrist. When I turn the page, the mark has been drawn in greater detail on the end of a hot iron. These are Night’s prisoners, now bound to his prison in the sky. I wonder if Blake is taking the rumors about Night’s acolytes, and the Night Prince seriously. I put the book down.

Numerous bottles of liquor stand on his mantelpiece, and one rolls across the floor, near Callum’s feet as he continues to berate Blake.

The scent of lavender hits me, as well as another floral smell I don’t recognize. Dried purple and white flowers scatter the floor—among bits of parchment. The lavender provokes an ache, deep within me, and I pick up one of the sprigs and twist it between my fingers. My mother used to stitch it into pouches, and place them beneath my pillow before bed. She said they would help me sleep, and keep the nightmares away. I wonder if Blake uses it for a similar purpose.

I drop it, and it lands on a sketch of a labyrinth with a hexagonal center.

“Can you two put some clothes on, please?” I say.

Blake and Callum both shut their mouths. Callum looks over his shoulder sharply. His expression softens. He releases Blake, crosses the room, and crouches down before me.

Still unclothed.

I should be used to it by now, but heat stains my cheeks.

“Are you alright?” He cups my face in his big hand.

I keep my eyes resolutely on his as Blake walks to his armoire. When he opens it and pulls out breeches and a shirt, my resolve wavers and I look. Raised white ridges crisscross the muscles in his back. I overheard him tell Callum he was whipped for being a half-wolf.

“I didn’t shift,” I say.

A slow grin spreads across Callum’s face. “No. You didn’t. You’re not a wolf after all.”

I feel Blake’s emotion. That thread between us shudders, as if he is holding something back.

“You sound almost as relieved as I am,” I say. “Did you not want me to be a wolf?”

He brushes his thumb against my cheek. “I know it’s not what you wanted, that’s all.” I frown, because I’m not sure he’s being entirely truthful. “Come here.” He scoops me into his arms, and I reflexively hook my hands around his neck. Without a backward glance at Blake, he carries me out of the room.

“I hope you’re going to put some clothes on,” I say, as Callum carries me down the corridor.

“Don’t need them.” He kicks open the door to our chambers and grins. “Not for what I have planned.”

He drops me onto the bed, and I squeal. “Callum!”

“What?” he asks as he crawls over me, then drags his teeth along my throat. “You know, it would be nice if, for once, I could spend the morning after the full moon with you not smelling like my worst enemy.” He shifts down and plants kisses on my collarbone, then my torso, and then between my legs through the fabric of my dress. I breathe in sharply. “Last time, there was not much I could do about it. This time, I plan to rectify the situation.”