The Night Prince (The Wolf King, #2)(75)

He slides out the last piece of glass from my wound and gets up. He pours water from a jug into a wooden basin, then kneels back down again. He takes a cloth from the bowl and rings it out.

“Just after my tenth birthday, there was a vicious storm.” He presses my knuckles into his palm, and gently wipes my hand with the cloth. “In the evening, just before it broke, I could feel the wolf. Half-wolves can sense storms, too, sometimes. My eyes changed, and my mother saw, for the first time, what lurked inside me. She dragged me to the church in the village and ‘confessed’ to the priest what had happened to her, and what I was. It was the first time I’d ever heard her speak of my father.”

He puts down the bowl, and picks up a small pot from the table. Moonflower is written on the label. He twists off the lid, and puts some ointment on his thumb. He slides it on my wounds.

“The priest tried to get me to ‘repent’, tried to force the wolf to submit. The more afraid I was, the more provoked my wolf became. Finally, he grew tired of the beatings and dragged me to the well in the center of the village. He threw me down there and told me I could come out when I could control the wolf.

“All the while, the storm raged. My wolf senses were activated for the first time—not as strong as a full wolf’s, but stronger than a human’s. Every flash of lightning was blinding. Every crash of thunder near deafened me. The wounds the priest gave me were raw on my back. The rain beat down hard and the water rose to my chest. I couldn’t stop the panic, try as I might. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I was going to die. A part of me wanted to.”

In one of my fevered dreams, I remember shivering in a confined space, with water up to my chest. Was I there with him?

Blake grabs a roll of gauze from the desk. “I know it’s irrational, but every time I sense a storm coming, I’m back in that well. Powerless.”

This story explains more than his fear of storms. He told me before that his wolf condemned him to darkness from the moment he was born, and I know he doesn’t like shifting on the nights of the full moon.

“I can understand that,” I say softly.

He wraps the gauze around my hand, his touch firm but gentle as he winds it between my finger and thumb. It strikes me how competent he is at this. I knew he was a healer, but I’ve never seen him do anything but torment people before.

“What happened that night, when you were in the carriage, with Sebastian?” His tone is uncharacteristically careful. “Your emotions around it. . . they feel. . .” His brow furrows. “They feel like I’m ten years old again, trapped in the storm.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

He continues wrapping the bandage around my wound. “I wonder, sometimes, if I ever left that well. It feels as if I am constantly clawing at its sides, trying to lift myself out. Yet every time I get closer to the edge, I slip further into the darkness.”

My heart almost stills at the rawness of his confession, the vulnerability it displays. I realize that is the point. It’s transactional. An unspoken bargain. He is offering me a part of him, in exchange for a part of me.

His eyes flick to mine. Serious. Expectant. I don’t owe him anything. Yet the words bubble inside me. They claw up my throat, desperate to be heard. Even by him. Maybe only by him. Somehow, I know he won’t judge me, nor try to protect me from them.

“James gave me a dagger to kill Sebastian with,” I say quietly. “He sheathed it to my thigh. When I was in the carriage with Sebastian, I didn’t know how to get it out without drawing attention to it. I. . . I sat in his lap. I could feel him, beneath me. He was. . .” I swallow. “I got the dagger, but he grabbed my wrist and disarmed me. He told me to show him what I’d learned when I was a whore to the Highfell beast.” My skin cools. “He told me to get on my knees.” Blake’s jaw tightens. The shadows in the room seem to darken around him. “I felt helpless. The dagger was out of reach. I thought he was going to. . . And then James knocked the carriage over. It saved me from. . . I was able to get the blade. I killed him.”

“How do you feel about that?”

My eyes burn. The confession, shameful and abhorrent, that has taken root in my soul swells and spreads vines up my throat. It threatens to rip me apart if I don’t get it out. “It was my choice.”

He angles his head slightly. “What was?”

“Sebastian.” I stare at the ceiling. “I chose him. It was my fault. I chose my fate. My father told me to marry him, and I could have said no. I wanted to please my father. Even when I met Sebastian, and I realized he was a monster, I didn’t run. If Callum had not escaped. . . If I had married Sebastian, the things he tried to do to me in that carriage. . . I would have let him, wouldn’t I? I would have pretended it was my choice, because he was my husband, and I would have let him.”

Blake’s expression is unreadable. “Coercion and consent are not the same thing. And you do not deserve to be treated cruelly, regardless of what choices you make.”

I’m embarrassed when a watery film creeps over my eyes. I’ve not let anyone see me cry since my mother’s funeral, and I was scolded for it. I blink it back.

“I was helpless,” I say. “I hate myself for it.”

Do as he says. I push away Callum’s voice.

I don’t know why, but my next shameful secret spills from my lips. “I’ve started to hate my mother too, because she was helpless, as well. How did she not know she was being poisoned? Why did she not try to escape?”