Chapter Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN
The kiss is reckless and wild and hard—
And I can’t get enough.
Wolf pulls me in roughly against his hips, and our bodies connect, heat flushing through me where his warm chest presses against my exposed skin.
His lips are insistent on mine, and I kiss him back, eager.
My bandaged hands knot in the thin linen of his shirt, pulling him in closer to me. The nerves tingle, but the antidote keeps the pain at bay in my palms. Wolf’s fingers find the back of my neck and tilt my head just enough…
My mouth opens under his. Wolf deepens the kiss, coaxing a gasp where his teeth nip at the sensitive skin of my bottom lip. I feel myself melt against him, and he only pulls me in closer.
This is madness. It has to be, right? But I can’t stop.
I don’t want to stop.
His touch brings heat rushing to the surface of my skin everywhere his fingers trail. Tracing down the back of my neck. Along the curve of my bare shoulders.
Each movement is careful, avoiding the cut down my side he’s bandaged so carefully.
Wolf’s mouth finds mine, again and again, and I let the press of his body back me up onto the ledge of the table again. His hips press into mine, and I arch against him.
The rough sound his breath makes catching in his throat at the friction between us sets my blood on fire.
Maybe wanting him like this is a mistake. No—I know this is a mistake.
But I don’t care anymore.
He kisses me like I’m something lost, then found again, and none of it makes the slightest bit of sense, but fuck, I feel it too. For the first time since I got here, I don’t feel alone.
Wolf’s mouth skims along my jaw, and the gasp he coaxes from me…
More, I almost beg. Please.
But he breaks the kiss. Tears his lips from mine, even as his hand tightens at the dip of my waist and the rough stroke of his thumb skims the sensitive skin just above the waist of my leathers. Every nerve in me protests.
The hunger in his gaze tells me he does too.
“Fuck.” Wolf’s voice is ragged. His forehead brushes mine as he shakes his head. “You’re hurt. I shouldn’t have—”
“You shouldn’t have stopped.”
I flush at the boldness in my words. They come out like a confession, one I never meant to make—but it’s too late now. And it’s not the first time being near him has made me reckless.
Reckless? The whisper curls around my mind. Or brave?
His eyes flare, the heat in them scorching my skin. But he takes a half step back, as if he doesn’t believe me. Like he won’t let himself believe me. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean.” Irritation crackles in my veins. I feel the heat of it in my cheeks, my swollen lips, every damn place his fingers skimmed along my skin.
Wolf’s brow furrows. He studies me, but I can’t for the life of me work out what he’s searching for. I lift my chin stubbornly and the corner of his lips curls up into that familiar crooked smirk that makes heat pool low in my stomach.
He lifts one hand, cupping my face, and leans in close enough that our chests are flush all over again. His breathing is rough but controlled. And all I can wonder is what it would sound like—feel like—for him to completely surrender.
This time, the kiss is slower. Careful. Deeper, but no less exhilarating.
His tongue teases mine, drawing out a soft sound that catches in the back of my throat and makes me press in closer, as if there’s still any space to close between us. Wolf’s fingers fist gently in the hair at the back of my neck, pulling me in tight against him.
His other hand curls at the dip in my low back like it belongs there, stirring the pool of aching longing in the very core of me.
When he draws back, the hunger rearing in those green eyes is a tamed beast. He rakes both hands through his hair, making it stand on end, and steps back. A darker, more dangerous intrigue sparks in the gaze he offers back to me now. “Tell me more about this plan of yours.”
A shiver trails over my skin, and I feel suddenly exposed.
Aware, in a way I wasn’t before, of all of me bare except for the breast band and the bandages he wrapped so gently around my ribs.
Wolf’s eyes follow the path of the tremble, and he pulls his shirt over his head, exposing swathes of bare, sculpted chest—and scars, all of them the same purpled, branching marks as the one along his jaw.
The sight makes my heart hurt.
My fingers itch to brush over each of them, as if just one touch could reveal all his secrets.
But the moment my hand drifts toward the first mark, angry and sprawling from the curve of his shoulder and down across his heart, Wolf flinches. He tears his gaze from mine and squeezes his eyes closed.
He doesn’t pull away from me, though. And he doesn’t pull that practiced blank mask over his features.
Whether he means for me to or not, I see everything. The shadows and the flare of guilt he wrestles with behind them—and the hurt, and the ache—as he lets his eyes lift back to mine.
For the first time, I think I see him.
“Take it,” Wolf offers, holding the soft, worn linen out to me. The shirt is as black as his hair, matching the leathers doing a valiant job hiding the need for me I can feel he’s fighting.
I take it and pull the too-big shirt over my head. I’m practically swimming in it, but his body heat lingers and chases away the shiver.
Wolf’s lip catches in his teeth, and his eyes move over me. “Now, that’s just fucking unfair.”
“What?” I flush, suddenly self-conscious.
He leans in so his lips just barely brush the shell of my ear. His hands work behind me, rummaging on the table, and I have to fight the instinct to arch myself that tiny bit closer to him.
“How good you look in my shirt,” he says, and draws back, leather jacket in his hands.
He pulls it on, fastening the clasps and covering the branching scars across his chest. Relief unfurls in me to see there aren’t any bite marks in the leather.
Wolf catches me looking, a question in the lift of his dark brow.
“Right. My plan.” I draw in a breath. “We need Cash to plant that vial on a noble daughter and hope her inglorious death will enrage the nobles enough to break with the High Queen.”
His gaze turns hard, assessing.
Gone is the man whose hunger chased my own higher and higher just moments ago—in his place is the ruthless rebel I first met in that safe house.
Because even if Wolf and Talon both say he isn’t the leader, I’m only getting more and more sure—he’s important to the Whisperers in a way I don’t understand yet.
He’s more than just what he called himself—their knife in the dark.
How else would he know so much about their plans?
Why else would he actually get to carry around magic?
“Go on,” Wolf urges me. There’s a testing weight in his stare, in the tilt of his head as he watches me think the plan through. As if he wants to see how my mind works, to trace the path of my thinking. “Who would you pick?”
Fire runs along the insides of my veins.
Life and death. That’s what I’m holding in my hands right now.
And I don’t hesitate.
“Oona.”
Cunning simmers in his eyes. They don’t leave mine for even a heartbeat. “Why?”
The way he watches me… my heart thrums. Finding the right words to explain what’s in my head is hard, but I try to lay out my thinking as clearly as I can.
“We aren’t a traditional army. We can’t match the nobles or the Crown in open conflict—not yet, at least, since you haven’t told the people the truth about magic.
So, we have to pick targets that will have the biggest impact on the Crown and the nobles we’re trying to tear apart.
Specific, targeted violence with no innocent victims if we can help it. ”
Slowly, Wolf reaches into the inner pocket of his leather jacket. He draws out the vial of shimmering black magic, only a few viscous drops—but it’s enough.
It has to be enough.
“When?” A flicker of dark tension carves the space between his brows.
Exhilaration heats my blood. “Tomorrow night.” The High Queen’s birthday feast. “The whole court will be there. Can you plant a tip with the Lady of Shadows?”
Wolf’s hand finds the curve of my jaw, the other cupping around the back of my neck as he leans in. There’s a protective weight to his touch, and I can’t deny the ache it stirs inside me. “I think we know someone who can manage that.”
Wolf’s mouth finds mine again, even as he pulls himself away. “I need to tell the others. Just promise me…” His voice roughens. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me you won’t let your guard down for even a second. Not with him.”
I squeeze his hand in mine, undeniable hurt racing through me at the memory of Cashel admitting what he did to Wolf and his family. How easily he said it, like he still has no regrets.
If we’re right, this could change everything for us.
If we’re wrong, we could all die tomorrow.