Chapter Thirty-One #2
The errant locks are tousled in the ribbons tying his mask in place. With every distinguishing mark and feature concealed, no one looking for him just from a sketch should be able to recognize him, right?
I glance up to the rafters and the noble banners that ripple in the heating air above the bonfires. A soft ache gathers in my chest. “Were yours ever there?”
Wolf wrestles with a darkness behind his eyes.
Let me in.
His voice scrapes, and he relents. “For a time.”
It’s just three words. But I can see the conflict raging in him. How much it cost to offer them to me.
And I know it’s stupid—but I let myself hope that there’s a path where we can work together, where we can trust each other.
Where we can do more than just survive.
Where we can rise, together.
Wolf draws in a breath, eyes drinking me in. He closes them softly, just for a heartbeat, as if lost in the past. “You smell of rock rose and the sea.”
Warmth builds beneath my skin at the nearness of him. “Is that bad?”
Longing and the pull of memories shadow his eyes. “No,” he says, resolute. “Just reminds me of the cliffs where I was a boy. Rock rose grew wild there. A sea of yellow, only blooming after the storms passed through.”
I should thank him—for the dress, for the letter, for bringing the sword. Does he expect me to use it on the High King tonight? But all that comes out is “How is she?”
Wolf doesn’t pretend not to know who I mean.
“She’s… worried.” That muscle where his sharp cheekbone meets his jaw ticks. Bonfires turn the room around us to a blur of shimmering air and shadows, as if there’s no one left here but us.
Somehow, I have no trouble picturing Finn handing Wolf his ass. The mental image draws a laugh that I stifle against his shoulder.
His whole body tenses like he’s fighting himself not to lean into me.
Like he’s… bracing.
“I hope she let you know it.” I risk a glance up at him.
The shift brings his cheek close enough to brush against mine.
A faint curve cracks across his mouth. The hand holding mine comes up to brush it against the stubble of his jaw, and I feel the faint heat of a blooming bruise. “She most definitely did.”
Letting my thumb brush over the heated spot is so easy. Natural, even.
He lets me, only for a second, before pulling back. “Maeve.”
My name is a low warning in his voice. A reminder of the danger all around us.
Even though I know better, the closeness of him eases the gnawing loneliness inside me.
The mask and the imminent threat of death as the Test of Strength looms tomorrow make me bold. “Tell me this is all in my head.”
Beneath the mask, Wolf’s jaw tenses. His eyes have dark circles beneath them again, just barely visible where the cutouts of the mask dip and swirl.
“I can’t,” he says softly, hand trailing lower at my waist. “But that doesn’t make it right.”
“Fuck what’s right.”
If these might be my final hours, Old Ones—I want to go down burning.
I want him to strike the match.
“Maeve,” he says again, the sound of my name rougher, like it’s been torn from his lips. “Being with me… you have no idea how risky it is. I’ve put you in enough danger. Let me do this one thing to not put you in any more.”
“So why come here?” We keep pace with the music as it slows, dipping into a seductive, darker melody. “You know the gardai are hunting you, right?”
“I risked it,” Wolf says, hand pulling me in close enough that his lips brush my ear. A soft shiver runs down my neck as his breath warms the sensitive skin there. “Because I couldn’t put what I have to tell you into writing.”
“A little treason never stopped you before.” I whisper the words back to him, so close my lips brush against his cheek.
He lets out a breath and doesn’t pull away.
“This isn’t just treason,” he confesses, pulling back to guide me into a slow swirl in time with the other couples dancing around us.
Wolf’s fingers flex at the nip of my waist as he brings me back toward him at the end of the spin, and my pulse leaps. “We found him.”
There’s only one him any of us have been searching for.
“How?” I breathe.
“The how doesn’t matter.” Wolf hesitates, then one of his fingers finds the place where the laces up my spine end, revealing the bare curve of my shoulder blade and upper spine. “But I had to come find you as soon as I knew.”
“And?”
His finger just barely dips beneath the edge of the laces, hot against my skin.
Leaning into even this small touch from him is pure instinct, and his eyes flare in surprise.
“Fifth floor,” he says, low. “Southwest corridor. Last door on the left.”
Somewhere, a clock strikes midnight.
I can feel the thunder of my blood in my ears. It’s officially tomorrow—the last day of the Assay. My birthday… and the day I very well might die in the Test of Strength.
If I’m going to kill the king, I have to do it now.
“I’ll go.” My words are steel, and exhilaration is a heady fizz in my veins.
I can do this. I know I can do this.
“Listen to me. I can’t stay here. Fang…” He scowls at her name.
“I’ve been ordered back. But after you do it, you run.
” The hazy glow of the bonfires flickers, catching on the shadows in his eyes.
Concern tightens the edges. “Understand? Once you’re out of this castle, I can get you to a safe place.
Talon will help you find me.” A pause. “Where are they, anyway?”
I glance over Wolf’s shoulder, but Talon is nowhere to be found. They’re probably gathering intelligence from anyone too drunk to keep their mouth shut now that Wolf is with me. Talon’s easy enough to talk to that it’s not hard to picture. “I’ll find them.”
The melody of the piano swells, and Wolf bends me back into a low dip in time with the other couples dancing, then leans just another inch closer, so the soft press of his lips is almost hidden where he brushes them against my jaw.
“Stay alive, Maeve,” he whispers.
“You too,” I whisper softly as he pulls me back up and sets me on my feet.
As the next melody begins, he bleeds into the crowd and the shadows.
Heat burns in my cheeks, up the back of my neck.
I search for any sign of Talon in the darkness, but the bodies of the crowd are hard to tell apart in the shifting, flickering light.
I twine my way along the far side of the dance floor, to where the darkest shadows shudder at the edges of the bonfires and I have to hope any noble daughters are less likely to notice me.
The shadows shift.
I flinch—right into the rough span of a broad chest. A massive hand clamps a rag down over my nose and lips. The stink of sweat and boot polish fills my lungs, along with something sharper—sour.
Darkness floods my vision, and a harsh voice growls.
“No peasant will ever be strong enough for a crown.”