Page 107 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers
After a moment, he reaches under the neck of his leather jacket and pulls out a thin chain with a key he fits into the knob, and shoves his shoulder against the door.
With a groan, the wood yields to him.
Green eyes find mine, and the flicker of doubt there—offear—steals my breath.
He offers out a hand, and there’s nothing mocking in the way he looks at me. No dare or challenge. Instead, there’s only a question, silent but wavering in the dusty air.
Will you trust me?
I swallow down the brush of matching fear wrapping around me, try to ignore the trembling warmth gathering low and insistent in my core, and bring my hand to his.
Surprise flares in Wolf’s gaze. His rough, warm grip tightens around mine.
And I let him lead me through.
TWENTY-SIX
Stepping through the worn door feels like stepping back in time.
It’s as if time itself could freeze here, and no one outside these walls would be any the wiser. Every inch of the stone room somehow reminds me of dried leaves skittering in a late-autumn breeze, the crumbling fragility hollow and haunting in the same breath.
“What is this place?”
No one’s here, so I don’t know why my words come out as a whisper. But anything louder feels like shouting on hallowed ground.
Wolf untangles his fingers from mine and steps away. When the warmth of his touch flees from my skin, something in me protests.
He turns his back to me and crosses the wide sweep of the carved stone room in long, familiar strides. My eyes follow him, skimming over the leather shielding the broad expanse of his shoulders, as he approaches a cupboard lining the far wall.
Wolf rummages inside it, digging through the shelves stocked with an impossible variety of dried herbs in glass jars. There are fragile heads of white yarrow, bundles of velvety sage, and delicate, tiny roses—not white, not crimson, but a golden yellow withsilvered stems—hanging upside down from rough yarn, along with baskets of bandages and wide glass bowls like the apprentices in the temples used to light incense, to keep the ash off the altars.
Another table has a terrifying array of metal instruments laid out, as if for surgery.
Or torture.
Nope.Not going there. The risk is all too real.
If the Lady of Shadows ever gets her hands on me, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Wolf turns back to me, his arms full of heaps of bandages, a spool of fine black thread, and a pair of silver scissors that shine menacingly even from across the room. He lays the supplies on a wooden worktable in the middle of the room and lifts his gaze to mine.
“Just a memory everyone wants to forget.” His answer sounds so weary. “Don’t worry. We’re safe here.”
I take in the still, quiet space. A narrow glass window thick with grime lets in a dreamy kind of light. There’s an assortment of little tables and chairs scattered all around, with arcane glass vials and baskets of fraying papers, and leather-bound books on every available surface.
Their titles hint at histories I’ve never read and battles I know next to nothing about.
Battle Songs of Tara: A History of Mage Warfare
The War of Wasted Blood and the First Fight for Succession
Cymrea, Resurgent: Strategies and Tactics for a New World
I thumb a finger over the second title, curiosity battling with the pain in my side. The War of Wasted Blood was after Berach the Cunning, the first High King, seized power from the OldOnes. But therewasno fight for succession—he only had one child, Fachtna the Unwise.
Didn’t he?
“I’d offer you another one for a bit of bedtime reading,” Wolf ventures, his eyes taking me in. “But these are all… mildly treasonous.”
