Page 85 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers
It carves a path through the pain, vanquishing the flames and dousing the burning.
It’s just enough to rouse me, to stir the fight lodging in my heart.
“Maeve?”
My name pierces the shadows and lures me up and out of the scorching darkness.
I follow the sound and let it lead me up into the light.
Cool, soft hands wrap around mine, soothing burning flesh.
Light filters through the suffocating darkness behind my eyes, dappling orange as I fight to blink. I start to open my eyes…
And a burst of white blinds me.
I hiss.
“Easy,” a calm, deep voice says, the hands on mine letting go.
Cold liquid brushes over my lips, easing the cracks and chapped skin there. Old Ones, every inch of me feels raw and tingling and tender, scorched to the damn bone.
“How long?” The words come out sounding scraped over coals, but at least they’re mine.
“Three days.” The deep voice is steady but tired.
“Threedays?”
My eyes fly open, and I instantly regret it. Sunlight pours in, blinding white at the far edge of my sight, flooding everything around me. Pain flares, and I press both hands to my eyes, biting back a cry as agony radiates through my palms at the touch.
“You didn’t miss much. Nobles scheming. Court politics. Acouple fancy dinners. The usual.” The hazy outline of a lean figure takes shape against the bright light. “Careful. Everything will hurt for a while.”
Hurtis an understatement, but a single, pressing need consumes me.
“Water,” I croak, and squint. Brilliant sunlight flashes on white marble, on gold and silver and obsidian set into the walls rising high around me. The gleam catches on gilded bedposts on either end of the exceptionally huge, exceptionally soft bed beneath my aching limbs—and on the sapphire eyes fixed on mine.
Prince Cashel stands against the wall just a few feet from me, a knife flipping end over end in his hand.
One ofmyknives.
“What—” Racking coughs tear my lungs apart. He reaches out the ringed hand without the blade, offering a silver cup.
“Drink,” he orders, sapphire eyes lingering on my face. “All of it.”
I want to refuse. But I’m so damn thirsty, and the promise of sweet relief for my blistered throat is too tempting to ignore. I gulp the whole thing down, and he offers a matching silver pitcher polished to a high shine.
I nod in answer.
He fills the cup back up, and I sip at it slowly this time, savoring the way the water chases away the worst of the aching thirst. My skin feels sunburned, hot to the touch and tingling.
I inch myself up on screaming limbs, eyeing him warily. “What do you want with me?”
The prince shakes his head. “I had thought the first wordsout of your mouth might bethank you, but perhaps that was too optimistic.”
“And were you expecting a bow or a curtsy with that,Your Majesty?” My eyes narrow up at him as I test out my muscles. But beneath the instinctual fear at the sight of him, there’s a current of something darker, near hypnotic, about being this close to him.
He catches the flipping knife by the tip without even looking at it. “Only my father and stepmother are called that.” The space between us feels as fragile as thin ice. “Though usually, warning someone about dangerandsaving their life in one afternoon might warrant a thank-you.”
I guess I wasn’t imagining things. He was hinting about the ice.
