Chapter Forty-Four
T he castle is awakening. I battle through the current of people who light the torches, carry food, and make their way outside with weapons.
That wildness in my chest I have felt since James bit me rears its head. My blood roars and my heartbeat howls. Dots dance before my eyes. My body is trying to shut down my emotions.
I pass the kitchens, and barely register Mrs. McDonald shouting at Kayleigh for burning the porridge. Blake strolls toward me from the direction of the infirmary. I grab him and shove him against the wall before he can speak. He makes a low sound in his throat. I grab his shirt and pull it out of his breeches.
He grabs my wrist. “If you’re reaching for my cock, darling, that is off limits.”
His voice is far away. There’s a long scar that curves down his abdomen. My breathing is hard. Fast. My eyes flick to his, and the corridor swims around me. “Who did this to you?”
He nudges me back. “Does it matter?”
“Does it matter?!” I shove the book at his chest and he pulls a face. I open it at the page I earmarked. “ Do Wolves’ internal organs grow back when removed? Incision was made on the right-hand side of the test subject’s abdomen in order to remove the kidney. ”
I hit him with the book again, and he grunts. There is a diagram of a body, where there is a curved line on the abdomen to depict the incision point. It mirrors the worst of Blake’s scars.
I recall that dark feeling that had twisted inside me when I read one of his books full of experiments in the Great Hall—so similar to the feeling I had every time the High Priest beat me. I thought it was shame, that perhaps he felt bad for harming other Wolves.
I had not considered there could be another reason: he might be ashamed that he let these things happen to him.
I shake my head, my hands trembling. “You led me to believe you wrote these books.”
His expression is dark. “You came to that conclusion by yourself, little rabbit.”
“All those experiments... all those terrible things... they were done to you.”
“No.” His tone is clipped. “I wasn’t his only pet.”
“Who?” I shove the book at him again. “Who did this?”
“Why?”
“I want to know.”
He shrugs, as if it’s inconsequential. “Who do you think? The Maester of Healing at the palace.”
I feel as if I’m underwater. “Did... did my father know?”
“Did he know?” The corner of his lip tugs up, but there’s no amusement in his eyes. “It was his program, little rabbit.”
My pulse thunders in my ears, and I hear another one competing with it. I’d place Blake as three or four years older than me. That means he must have been somewhere in the King’s City—perhaps even the palace itself—being torn apart, while I was attending dancing lessons, or preening in front of the mirror. My own naivety rises up in my throat on a wave of nausea. How could I have been so clueless as to what was happening?
Yet amid the shock and the anger that courses through me, something darker pervades. That wildness stills. My skin prickles, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Any empathy is replaced by something cold and wary. I step away, and my back bumps into the wall on the other side of the corridor. All this time, I had thought I was a pawn in his game with Callum. He told me he hated the Wolves, and that he wanted to rule them.
It occurs to me now that he has just as much reason to hate humans. My father may be a far bigger foe to him than Callum, or James, or any of the Wolves. Perhaps taking the Wolf Throne is part of a bigger game, and my role in it won’t be over if he defeats Callum. Perhaps he has something even bigger in store for me. Last night, in my dream, he tried to persuade me to kill Philip.
Perhaps he wants the whole world to burn.
“Are you going to hurt me?” I ask.
A tense silence stretches between us. My skin hums.
He drags his teeth over his bottom lip. “No.”
I try to feel him through the bond, but everything feels dark. “Are you going to hurt my brother?”
“Only if you ask me to.”
“What about Callum? Will you kill him? Do I get a choice in that?”
He runs a hand over the sharp edge of his jaw. “If he forfeits when I challenge him, I will let him go.”
“And me? Will you let me go?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
My skin prickles. He’s lying. His choice seems to pulse in the air between us, dark and certain, and a word vibrates along the thread that links us. No.
I steady my breathing. “What happened to the Maester? Did you kill him?”
“That is not the right question, little rabbit.”
“What is the right question?”
“If you ask it, I shall tell you.” He tucks in his shirt. “But no, the Maester still lives.” He walks away, in the direction of the Great Hall, and the tension is broken.
“Blake.”
He halts. “Yes?”
“Last night, the dream... It was real, wasn’t it?”
He inclines his head. Coldness fills me.
“Alexander truly has one of Night’s prisoners,” I say.
“It looks that way.”
“What does he want with me?”
Blake shakes his head. “I hope we don’t find out.”
***
Callum spends the day in meetings with Blake and the other alphas, talking strategy for the impending battle with Alexander. Other than a few exchanged pleasantries over dinner that night, he doesn’t speak to me.
The next morning, I get tired of waiting for him, and knock on the door of his bedchambers. He’s already gone, so I spend the morning tailing Philip after he’s released from the infirmary.
After being shown to his bedchambers on the first floor of the castle, he heads outside. He stops Kayleigh on her way inside from the kitchen gardens, and—after flirting with her—asks her if it’s true that the Heart of the Moon is here.
He does the same thing to a couple more women, before he sits on the shore of the loch and looks out onto the mountains across the water. I watch him from a spot by the castle walls.
He’s clearly looking for the Heart of the Moon. Is that the real reason he has come to the Northlands?
Philip gets up and wanders back to his bedchambers. When he doesn’t emerge, I visit Fiona in the stables, share some bread and cheese with her on her break, then head back to the castle.
Back in my chambers, I pore over Testing the Lore of Wolves .
The experiments seem even more horrible now I know they may have been done to Blake. The sky darkens. The ink blurs. Frustration wells inside me, because I’ve scoured this book and can find no mention of a bond. I wonder if I’m wasting my time.
My heart jolts, and I slam my hand down onto the book.
There. The numbers change from page seventy-seven to eighty-three. I run my finger down the spine. There’s a tear. Pages have been removed from the tome. I curse myself. I should have trusted my instincts. I knew he gave me it too easily.
If these pages weren’t important, he wouldn’t have removed them.
If I’m lucky, the alphas will still be in their meeting. Blake will still be in the meeting.
I slide out of bed. I head out of my room, and down the spiral staircase.
I make my way to Blake’s bedchambers.