Lyra still faced away from them. But at the word panic, her shoulders stiffened, and Red heard her let out a single, rattling sigh.
“It was an accident,” Eammon rumbled behind her. Red looked over her shoulder—his mouth was held that particular way that meant he was angry, but at himself, and his eyes were shaded in the sunlight. “That’s not an excuse, but I promise, Fife, it wasn’t intentional. You know—I hope you know I would never command you that way.”
“And yet you did.” Fife let go of his arm; the throbbing of the Mark seemed to have subsided, though pain still lived in the line of his jaw. “You, the Wilderwood, whatever you and it have become reeled me in. And it hurts, Eammon. Kings and shadows, it—”
“He knows it hurts.” Red’s voice cut across his, jagged and angry, at herself, at Fife, at Eammon, at everything. “No one knows how much the Wilderwood hurts better than Eammon does, Fife. He told you he didn’t mean to.”
“Did you feel it, too?” Fife’s hazel eyes swung to Red. “Or are you exempt? Is it just those of us that aren’t magic who get the pain?”
“I felt it,” Red said, and in the corner of her eye, she saw Eammon’s shoulders slump.
Still, he stepped forward. “We’re all trying to figure out how this works now—”
“How it seems to work is that the Wilderwood hasn’t gotten any better at communication, and you haven’t gotten any better at listening.”
Lyra’s hand landed on Fife’s arm, cutting him off before things could devolve further. “We’re going back to the Keep.” She glanced over her shoulder at Red and Eammon. “I don’t think you should follow. Not for a while, at least.”
Her voice was steady, but there was steel in it. She was upset, Red could tell, rattled and barely held together. There was a faraway look in her eyes, like she was turning over something new in her mind, some piece of information she hadn’t yet had time to square with.
Understanding came quick. Fife still hadn’t told Lyra about his bargain. It seemed that Fife’s being called by his new Mark was the first Lyra had heard of it. The two of them needed a minute alone. And from the venomous looks Fife and Eammon kept shooting each other, they needed some space, too.
“We’ll talk later,” Red said quietly. Lyra would need someone to talk to. Red knew what it was like, to have someone you loved make difficult decisions on your behalf.
She knew it twice over.
With one last burning look, Fife followed Lyra into the forest. Before they disappeared into the shadows, Red saw Lyra take his hand.
Sighing, she turned to face her Wolf.
Eammon loomed over her, eyes sparking, the veins in his neck blazing green. His voice was all leaf-layered resonance now, one she felt as well as heard, and she knew he did it on purpose. “That was exceedingly stupid, Redarys.”
“I couldn’t just leave it, not knowing whether it might work.” She couldn’t loom like he could, but she matched his glare, and felt the brush of leaves over her scalp as the ivy threading through her hair unfurled. “I can’t leave a path untaken just because it might be too hard, not like you can.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not. But she’s my twin.” She shook her head, voice climbing. “You don’t understand what that kind of loss is like, losing someone who’s a part of you!”
“Don’t I?” One hand hooked on her hip, pulling her closer as the other cupped her face. His thumb dragged roughly over her cheek, pulling down her bottom lip. “I lost my parents. I almost lost you.” A tremor went through his scarred fingers. “I know what that fear is like, and you will not make me feel it again.”
Heat flared in her middle, stoked higher by anger. “So you’re ordering me around now?”
“I certainly am.” And his lips crashed into hers, and she dug her nails into his shoulders hard enough to hurt, and it was exactly what both of them wanted. A release. A reprieve. Anger and lust and lostness tangled together, and this was an outlet for it, a way to fight and heal in equal measure. His teeth sank into her bottom lip, and Red gasped, tangling her hands in his hair.
He pulled back just enough to look at her, one hand on the back of her neck, the other running up her side as he dragged her tunic off. Burning mouth moving down her throat, over her collarbone, closing over her breast until her back arched and her gasp became a moan.
Eammon licked her, hard and rough, then moved down. He kissed her hipbone, pulled at the waist of her leggings, mouth on every inch of skin he revealed. When he’d pulled them off, Red anchoring her hands on his shoulders to kick them into the underbrush, he looked up at her, kneeling on the golden leaves like a penitent, his eyes bright and his dark hair mussed.