Chapter Twenty-Six #2
I see stars. Slam my fists on the table, stifle a groan. “Does this look like it feels good?”
“I was afraid of that.” Wolf doesn’t mince words. “The slash itself is long, but shallow. It’ll heal without stitches, but the edges of the wound are a lot more inflamed than I’d hoped. We need to sanitize it.”
“Sounds downright delightful.” I grimace.
Wolf reaches into his leather jacket, rummages, and pulls out a small metal flask. The cork pops off easily, and the sharp bite of uisce beatha makes my nose sting.
He offers it to me, jaw set. “Drink. It won’t block the pain, but it’ll help.”
I take it gratefully and swig the flask back.
Fire fills my mouth, a medicinal taste burning down my throat and reminding me of malted barley, of grains left out too long in the rain.
A cough breaks from me, and I press my wrist to my mouth, wincing.
Wolf takes the flask back, and his eyes skim over me. “It might be easier if you…” He gestures at the long table. “Lie down.”
This is not going to be fun, but there’s no other option. I hate it that he’s right—if the wound gets infected, I highly doubt the High Queen is going to make a healer available.
I need to be able to defend myself—to survive whatever is coming next.
I inch back, lifting my knees up so my boots rest on the edge of the table and anchor me as I lie down. Fear races through me—not of him but of the coming pain.
Of screaming—of the gardai hearing us and finding him.
All the bandages he brought over are covered in my blood, except for one length I know he’ll use to bind the wound around my ribs. My tunic is a filthy mess on the floor.
I find his eyes, unsure how to ask for what I need.
Understanding softens the hard lines around his eyes, and Wolf yanks his jacket off. He bundles it up and hands it to me. “Bite down on this.”
That absolutely should not be as hot as it is, especially given what he’s about to do to me. The worn leather sinks beneath my teeth but doesn’t break. Smoke and sage and leather fill my lungs, and fear grips my throat. He has me completely vulnerable in this position—and I let him.
“Ready?” His lips tighten, but he waits for me.
I can’t speak past the gag of the leather. All I can do is nod, and Wolf tips the flask over.
Fire.
The alcohol scorches the length of the slash, burrowing deep into my flesh. A scream fights to escape me, but I bite down so hard I swear my teeth will leave marks forever in his jacket. My back arches, my body fighting to flee the pain.
I don’t let it. I slam my fists back on the table so hard that the wood groans, and endure.
Wolf splashes the alcohol over the length of the wound a second time, his eyes strangely pained, like I’m the one hurting him.
“Done,” he says firmly a second later, and offers out the flask again. There’s still a swish of fiery spirit in the bottom, and his mouth quirks. “Saved you some.”
The racing in my chest eases in time with the burn in my side.
“Fuck,” I curse, pressing both bandaged hands to my eyes until I see stars. The nerve pain is a dull thrum, easy to ignore. But it’s still there. My hands shake as I take the flask from him. “I should probably say thank you, but I don’t really feel like it after that.”
The answering rumble in Wolf’s chest is almost a chuckle—low, but easy, and completely unlike any sound I’ve heard from him before. “You can thank me later.”
I swallow down the remaining liquor and ease myself up so I’m sitting facing him again, legs hanging over the edge of the table.
Blood from the assassins sticks under my nails, and my head spins faintly.
Not from the sight of it—blood doesn’t bother me anymore.
But from the thought of how close I came to not being here.
To being dead.
“Do you think the assassins were hers?” I ask softly. “The High Queen’s.”
Wolf keeps his eyes low, not meeting mine, and nudges the arm on my injured side onto his shoulder while he begins binding the remaining bandages around my ribs.
“What makes you think that?”
The light-headedness and alcohol loosen my tongue.
“Because I know there’s still magic left in the Wells.”
My words are barely more than a whisper. As if just saying them, even with no one else around to hear, is too dangerous to bear. The weight of them forces me right up to that precipice between us.
Wolf’s hands freeze.
A tremor of heat flares where his skin meets mine. He pulls that wary mask over his expression. “And how would you know that?”
His tone roughens, but I’m not afraid of him. I lift my chin and stare right back at him, even as my pulse thunders in my ears.
“The High Queen sent all the gardai and servants away for the Test of Wisdom, then made quite the speech.” My throat tightens at the memory.
“All about how important it is for them to keep working to drain the Wells. To keep the Martyr and the mages from ever coming back, or any power making its way to the people. None of the nobles were the slightest bit surprised.” I fight to keep my tone light—careful.
Like skating around the edge of thin ice.
“What I can’t figure out is how the fuck you’ve all kept this a secret. ”
So much for light and careful.
He says nothing.
“That’s what you were hinting at in the temple, wasn’t it?” Hurt follows close behind the quick flare of anger in me. “You were trying to gauge how I’d react if I ever learned the truth.”
Would you fight, he had asked me, if there was even a drop of magic left?
“Yes.” Wolf grinds the word out.
“Who else?” There’s no point in yelling. “Talon? Everyone working with you?”
Old Ones, does Finn know? Another, more agonizing possibility slivers through the bruised center of my heart. Did my mother know?
Wolf rubs a hand over his stubbled jaw, avoiding the branching scar there. His eyes rake over me, and I can see the moment he makes a decision. The tension in his shoulders releases, and his hard glare unwinds into familiar shadows. “You’ve never left Dyfflin, have you?”
“I don’t see how that—”
“It matters,” he insists, and there’s a raw exhaustion in his voice that makes my fingers ache to reach out to him.
“Yes, you’ve seen what the High King does here, but you have no idea what goes on outside.
How tightly the gardai control any letters or information about what happens past these city walls, especially since the uprising. ”
Wolf’s hands make quick work of the final wraps of the bandage around my side. He tucks the ends into the wrappings so they won’t come loose. “Talon knows. All our leadership does. Fang. Others. Me.” He glances up at me, those eyes like coals. “Finn suspects, I think.”
The still air grows sharp edges between us. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“Knowing any of this is dangerous, Maeve. Not just for you but for all of us. For everyone you love. Trust me on that, if nothing else.”
His eyes search mine, conflict warring in their depths.
“Plenty of the nobles are with us—Saraid’s family is one of them,” Wolf admits.
“They’re delaying draining their Well as long as they can to buy us more time for this fight.
And she’s our best chance of putting a queen on that throne who could help us save what’s left of the Seven Wells.
No one was willing to put her in even more danger than she’s already facing in the Assay by making her our assassin, too.
It’s taken us five damn years to be ready to fight.
To organize, so we won’t just be another failed uprising. ”
The very thought makes my chest ache. “People still deserve to know the truth.”
“Telling the people about magic has always been our plan,” Wolf says intensely. “But we need to do it at the right time. So that when that fire catches, we’re ready to fan the flames and wage a real war—a war we can win.”
“And can we?”
That last word crackles, vibrating in the fragile space between us.
We.
Wolf’s eyes smolder. A dark flash of hope streaks across his expression, and there’s a brush of longing where his gaze holds mine.
“We have to find a way to divide the nobles who support the High Queen.” Those eyes wander, just for a fraction of a second, to my lips. “There are more of them than there are nobles who support us, so we can’t take them on united. We have to cleave them apart.”
“A schism.” I breathe the word. A divide they won’t be able to bridge again. “But how? None of them seem to care about their daughters dying in this contest, so what else could…”
The idea slams into me with vicious ferocity so hard, it steals my breath as I look up at him.
“You have an idea?” Wolf’s lips curve, and a glimmer of pride sparks in my chest.
The noble daughters in the Assay die with dignity—or at least, what their families see as dignity. Fighting for a crown. For power. For everything that keeps them them.
What if one of them dies without dignity?
What if one of them dies for treason, and the High Queen is the one who sentenced her?
“I might,” I venture, keeping the words soft enough that he takes a half step closer to hear. Warmth pools low in my stomach at the sight of him moving nearer toward me. “But this plan might cost you something.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Wolf takes another half step toward me, his eyes boring into mine like I’m a puzzle he can decipher if he just tries hard enough. “Tell me.”
The quiet command in his voice stirs something in me.
“What if one of the noble daughters were to get caught with that vial in your pocket?”
I reach out before remembering—his jacket’s on the table. There’s nothing but hard muscle beneath the soft, worn shirt across his chest where my hand brushes, and his gaze heats at the contact.
A flush creeps up my neck.
Touching him was a mistake.
I rip my hand back, curling my fingers around the edge of the table.
“There’s no way I could get close enough.” Wolf shakes his head. “No way you could, without putting yourself in…” He cuts off, understanding turning his eyes dark. “No.”
“He could get close enough.”
“No.”
“He could. You know he could.”