The Night Prince (The Wolf King, #2)(57)

“Is that so?”

He kneels on the mattress. His eyes glint when they meet mine—full of mischief. “I promise it will be very pleasurable for you.”

Who am I to deny him?

***

Callum makes good on his promise.

We spend the morning in bed, with him drawing moans from my lips until I’m liquid in his arms. And then he starts all over again. He remains careful with me, though. Gentle. His promise to unleash himself upon me after the full moon is nullified. I didn’t shift.

At noon, after getting some food brought up from the kitchens, he goes to meet with Lochlan and Jack to plan tomorrow’s ambush. I spend the rest of the afternoon reading in the armchair by the fire, my legs curled beneath me.

As the sky darkens, so do my emotions. I was scared to shift, but being a wolf gave me an explanation for my mother’s death, and a connection to her. It connected me to Callum, as well. I’m sure his high spirits this morning were linked to my inability to shift. I think he’s glad I’m still human. Still weak, that wild part of me whispers.

I drop the book I’m reading onto the chair. I walk to the window. The bloated sky is dark grey, and shadows shroud the peaks of the mountains. The water ripples in the wind.

It doesn’t make sense. There’s something inside me, pressing against my skin. I’ve felt it since James bit me. I keep falling into fever. Lochlan believes my mother was a wolf, and my father must have thought I was like her, because he had me whipped so I would suppress it. I wanted to bite Blake last night. I wanted to bite him this morning. I almost did.

I can’t accept that the human part of me would ever do such a thing.

Movement draws my gaze. A dark figure walks to the water’s edge, hands in the pockets of his long coat. He looks out onto the loch, and the wind stirs his black hair.

I felt something from Blake, this morning. He knows something about me. Something he is concealing.

“Stay where you are,” I whisper, even though I know he can’t hear me.

I stride to the armoire, and pull on a warm coat and boots.

I’m going to find out what Blake knows.





Chapter Twenty-Seven





There’s a light drizzle in the air.

It washes over me as soon as I walk through the tunnel leading to the courtyard and out onto the grounds surrounding Lowfell. It’s dark, and the windows of the castle behind me flicker with soft orange light. Despite the rain, the air is crisp and smells like mud and woodsmoke. I pull my coat tighter, and, boots sinking into the earth, approach the figure who looks out onto the loch.

If he’s embarrassed about what happened last night, or how we woke up this morning, he gives no indication of it.

“You feel different today.” My voice is almost swallowed by the sound of the branches swaying overhead, and the rain hitting the loch.

Blake’s shirt clings to his chest and torso beneath his open coat. A few errant strands of his hair stick to his forehead. “I always feel better after it’s happened. Lighter.”

“Is it the act of shifting you don’t like? Or being a wolf?”

“Both. I cannot control it. I like to be in control.”

“I noticed,” I say. I catch a hint of one of his dimples. “Callum doesn’t think I’m a wolf.”

“What do you think?”

He’s the last person I want to come to for help. Yet. . . “Am I a wolf?”

He drags his teeth over his bottom lip as he looks out on the mountains. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? You let Callum—and me—believe otherwise.”

He shrugs. “Callum wasn’t too pleased with me this morning. As for you, I’m letting you know now, aren’t I?”

I sigh, and my breath mists in front of my face. “How do you know for sure I’m a wolf?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to share my life force with you if you were human.” He turns to face me. Rain runs down his cheeks and moistens his lips. “I saw you, the night when I shared my life force with you. I caught glimpses of your dreams, your memories, your thoughts. Was it not the same for you?”

I think of the fevered images and sounds that filled my being—screams, and scalpels, and darkness. “Yes.”

A pensive look crosses his face. “I found you. I saw your wolf form. She’s the color of moonlight.”

Something tightens inside me. I feel stripped bare, as if Blake has seen things of me that no one else has. It’s not right. A part of me wants to get away from him, to run back to the castle and find Callum. My legs won’t move. Even when he slips his hands into his coat pockets and turns back to the loch.

I think of all the experiments Blake has done on other Wolves. “Have you ever known a wolf to not shift on the night of the full moon?”

“No. Never.”

“Why didn’t I shift?”

His curiosity pulses inside me. “That’s the question, isn’t it, little rabbit?”

We both look out onto the mountains. The shadows hide their peaks.

“We have another problem,” he says.

“What?”

“My source from Madadh-allaidh has delivered some bad news.”

My pulse quickens. “Is Fiona alright?”