Behind me, Wolf presses his open hand against my stomach, holding me steady as Myst stumbles. His voice ghosts in my ear, “There’s a crossroads ahead. We’ll make camp in the woods a ways before it.”
I nod, all too aware of how firm his hold is—and how I don’t have on a stitch of clothes. I should feel ashamed, and I am embarrassed—but not as deeply as I once would have been. I lost track of time since we left the village. His steady arms around me were my only focus, trusting that this man would protect me. Not only because it’s his job, but because Myst was right about Wolf: He’s loyal. I know I’ll never be able to compete with his devotion to Lord Rian, but I believe Wolf cares about me to some degree.
Enough to keep me safe.
And it’s a strange thing—trusting someone. Especially someone sent to jail you. But I do trust Wolf, which is a foreign concept. A daughter should always love her father, but I hate mine. There was no sense of safety under his roof, even before my mother died. And the convent? That was even worse.
Other than Suri, who I only had the joy of knowing for a few days, Wolf is the sole person in my life who’s stood by their word. Even Adan, though he holds my heart, is an uncertainty. As much as I want to trust him, I only spent one day with him—I barely know him.
I feel as though our intense days and nights have shown me who Wolf is. I could go years knowing a person and still never understand them half as well as I do Wolf. He’s every bit the hardened hunter he presents outwardly, but he’s also a damaged boy who was handed a heartbreakingly bleak childhood, made to survive by his fists and his godkiss, who convinced himself in some twisted way that he’s grateful to be a servant. He’s a man who sees me shivering and fetches a blanket. Who tries to comfort me, though no one has ever comforted him.
He’s more than Wolf—he’s also Basten.
And we only have eleven more days together.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fearful of what lies ahead in Duren. Until now, I haven’t allowed myself to ruminate on a future married to Lord Rian. I convinced myself the marriage would never happen, because I’d run away with Adan long before we arrived at Sorsha Hall. But my escape attempt was an unequivocal failure. As frustrated as I am that Wolf caught me, I accept the stark truth behind his warning: The Valveres would hunt me down by whatever means necessary.
Maybe, in a twisted way, Wolf did me a favor.
But I’m not ready to face marriage to a ruthless man. Or a castle notorious for debauchery. Or marrying into a family with the reputation of cutthroats dressed in silk and gold.
Plus, I won’t have Wolf to protect me anymore.
We make camp in a clearing covered with springy green ground cover that smells like thyme. Wolf winces as he pulls his shirt over the bloody wound on his arm, then tosses it to me, before he starts to build a fire.
I drag his shirt over my head, flinching at the cold wetness of his blood staining the fabric. Rubbing my tired eyes, I say, “Aren’t you afraid the priests will see our fire from the road?”
He rakes his curtain of dark hair back as he studies the coals. “They won’t be looking for us. The Order of Immortal Woudix isn’t based in Charmont. They were only there to cause a scene. Sent by the Grand Cleric to stoke the ire of the Valvere family. They’ve long been rivals.”
As I smooth his shirt down my arms, my fingers come away sticky with blood. From a distance, I can’t tell if his wound has stopped bleeding. Hefting my tired body to my feet, I shuffle over to the fire and plop down next to him.
With a poke, I gently inspect the blood-smeared skin around his cut.
“What are you doing?” he snaps, jerking his arm away.
I ignore his tone, knowing that with me, he’s all bark and no bite. “It looks like the bleeding has stopped. The cut is deep but sliced cleanly. That’s good. I’ll need water to wash it . . . ” I look around for any indication of a stream nearby.
Wary, he jerks his head toward his rucksack. “The water flask is there.”
I root around until I find it, and grab a handkerchief as well. Taking my place by Wolf in front of the fire, I gently wash away the blood from his arm.
“The Sisters taught you how to heal?” he asks.
“No.” I wring out the handkerchief and then pat the area dry. “I learned by tending to my own wounds.”
His bicep flexes on instinct. I can see a vein throbbing in his neck. From somewhere high above us, an owl hoots. He growls, “I could kill every last one of them for what they did to you.”
My hand pauses as our eyes meet. The firelight dances in his dark irises. For a second, I forget who we are. That he’s my jailor and I’m his master’s bride. Here in the hidden contours of the forest, we might as well have stepped back in time one thousand years to the fae realm. An age of magic when the trees sang, and puffy white cloudfoxes skimmed the air.
I don’t know if all the stories in the Book of the Immortals are true—the mythical animals and cursed lovers and vicious battles between the gods—but being with Wolf makes me want to believe in fantasies.
Slow, he presses his palm to where his shirt hangs over my ribcage, gently feeling the bone. For a crazy second, I wish the fabric barrier wasn’t between us, and he was holding me again like when we rode Myst together.
Stop that, you idiot, I chide myself, but it feels hopeless.
“You reinjured your rib in the fight, didn’t you?”
I give a soft shake of my head, still unable to tear my gaze away from the firelight reflecting in his eyes. I did hurt my rib, but if I said that aloud, he’d stalk straight to the Order of Immortal Woudix’s church and burn it to the ground. “No. I’m okay.”
His hand remains cemented against my side in a way that makes me think he found as much solace in our horseback ride together as I did. That having me close meant something to him.
Over the next days, I keep thinking of his gentle touch on my ribs. The first time I saw him, I thought he was a gorgeous monster. Now, I’m starting to realize that for all his brutish ways, he isn’t at all like the men who catcall in the villages we pass.
There’s a part of me that wants to trust him with more than just my safety. That wants to lower my walls and ask for something I’ve never had: help.
The next time he lowers me down from Myst, I place my hand over his and, gathering my courage, look him square in the eye as I say, “Wolf, I want you to teach me to fight.”
Chapter 12
Wolf
I stare at Sabine like she’s speaking the incomprehensible Immortal Tongue. Teach her to fight? For a moment, with her soft hand pressed against mine, the moonlight painting her skin with a beautiful glow, and her leaning toward me with those rosebud lips, I had thought, maybe . . .
But that can never happen.
Sabine Darrow isn’t mine to kiss.
“I never want to be in the position again that I was in at Charmont,” she says in a voice that nearly breaks as her hand moves to her opposite wrist, where the Patron grabbed her. “My whole life, I’ve done nothing while others abused me. In the convent, there was nothing I could do. I was ten years old when I moved there, a child outnumbered by adults. When I got older and stronger, they threatened to hurt Myst as a means to keep me under their control.” She swallows, her throat catching on a lump of fear, but then her eyes turn determined.