Filed to story: My Kidnapper Is the Wolf King
Chapter Sixty-Three
Iforget how to speak.
As Blake stands before me on the cliff edge, the waves spraying the rocks below, I can partially understand Ryan’s desire to dip his head and get away from him. Dominance I hadn’t noticed before seems to roll off him. Perhaps I strengthened the bond between us, and now I’m more aware of him than before. Perhaps whatever links me to all Wolves senses the animal in him. He feels. . . dangerous.
It could just be how still he is as the elements rage around him, or the tension in his shoulders, despite the calculated dimple in his cheek. A streak of blood on his face mingles with the heavy rainfall, rolls down his cheek, and drips off his chin.
James grins. Widely. He grips Blake’s shoulder and turns to me. “See this? Stiff shoulders, hard biceps, tight jaw.” He points at Blake’s face. “Classic guarding signs. If I touched you now, Princess, he’d probably try to kill me.”
Blake flashes James a dangerous smile. “If you touch me again,
I’ll remove your hand and insert it up your areshole.”
James laughs, and taps Blake lightly on the jaw. “Terrifying.” He starts to walk away toward the iron gates of the keep. Blake turns and kicks him lightly on the back of his knee, causing him to stumble. “Prick!”
“Cunt.” The corner of Blake’s lip twitches as he turns back to me. The realization slams into me that even though Blake and James would happily kill one another, Blake was part of James’s inner circle of alphas for two, maybe three, years. James knew Blake well enough to determine the true meaning of the bond before even Callum did. Perhaps they’re friends, in a way.
As the gates screech shut, and James’s footsteps are swallowed by the rain that hammers the ground and the sea, my stomach tightens. Blake and I are alone for the first time since I broke into his bedchambers and he was restrained by Lochlan’s men. We’re supposed to be enemies, working against one another, but he saved my life and I saved his.
He runs a hand over the back of his neck. He’s caged his emotions from me, but I think he feels as awkward, as uneasy, as I do.
“How are you feeling?” he says, finally.
“I. . . I’m well. Thank you. And you?”
He releases a soft laugh and shakes his head. “I’m fine, little rabbit.”
He sighs, and my muscles tighten. I’m sure-drenched and shivering as I am-he’s going to tell me to go back inside, that I need to be resting. I don’t want to go back to bed, not yet. I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I don’t want to risk the nightmares that I’m sure will come.
He strolls over to a boulder on the edge of the cliff and sits down so he’s facing the ocean. I release a soft breath. I walk toward another rock a few feet away from him and sit down. My legs dangle over the side of the cliff.
In the distance, the amphitheater is almost completely consumed by black smoke. “James said you insisted it was burned,” I say. “Why?”
“It was the bodies I wanted burned. The acolytes bore Night’s mark, which means they’ve offered their souls to Night. I’ve heard stories that some of his prisoners are strong enough to possess the dead. It got me thinking about Kai, back at Madadh-allaidh, and the way his eyes changed.”
“Do you think he was possessed?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. But they know the truth about you. I didn’t want to risk it.” He turns his head to look at me. “What you did in there. . . you were magnificent.”
“Hm.” My blood cools.
A crease forms between Blake’s eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”
“I felt. . . powerful for a moment. But then”-I shake my head-“I wanted to escape my fate. I wanted to feel like more than someone else’s puppet. I didn’t want to be an object anymore. Wars will be fought over me, won’t they? People will try to kill me. Not because of who I am, but what I am and how people can use me. I’m a weapon.”
“Darling, no.” His voice, silk-soft, cuts through the roar of the wind. “You’re not a weapon. You’re a fucking tornado.”
There is something so intense in his eyes I have to drag my gaze to the roiling waves.
“Alexander called you his brother,” I say.
“We’re not related, but we are brothers, in a way. Just as Jack and Arran are my brothers, too. Some bonds are forged by blood. Some by light and love and hope. Others. . . others are forged in the darkness.”
“Where are Jack and Arran?”
“Arran went to check on Lowfell. Jack is making sure the Grey Keep is secure. They’ll be back.”
I suck in a deep breath of algae-scented air. “I’m ready to talk about it.”
A long silence stretches between us. He clasps his hands between his thighs. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
“The truth. When. . . when did you know about. . . this?” I touch my chest, not wanting to say it aloud.
“I’m not sure. I thought I just wanted to play with you, at first. But the longer you were around. . . I told you before, I thought you seemed familiar when I first met you, even though we’d never met. Arran was kept prisoner with me, beneath the palace. So was his mate.”
“Fara,” I say softly.
He nods. “Our captor experimented on them and recorded it in the pages of the book you took from my chambers. I learned more about the mate bond than I ever wanted to know during those dark days. It’s why I first took the book from my old room, not long after you arrived in the Northlands. I’d started to suspect something. I didn’t know for sure, though. Not until I had you in the dungeons, with your legs wrapped around my waist.”
I recall that moment-how he looked like he was going to kiss me, and seemed disgusted with himself for it.
He sighs. “So, later that night, when you were dying, I knew I could share my life force with you, because Arran and Fara had done it, time and time again.” He shakes his head. “You think I tricked you. In truth, I did not. I did it because I didn’t want you to die.” The words sound raw against his throat, and I can find none to fill the heavy silence that stretches between us.
He shrugs. “I suppose the full truth of it is, I was arrogant enough to think I could pull away at the last minute-that I could grab you, like you did to me earlier, when I was in the well, and then let go without there being any consequence. But you gripped so tight. Honestly, Aurora, I did not mean for this to happen. Make no mistake, I had designs on the throne-I still do. Your part in my plan was over. I was going to blackmail Callum once we had taken Madadh-allaidh from James. I did not plan for. . . this. It complicates things for me.”
“You hid it from me. You had no right to do that.”
He releases a dark laugh. “What was I supposed to do? You were with Callum. I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it. The truth would have destroyed you both.”
“And your plan, too, in the process.”
“Yes. There’s that, too.” A smile plays on his lips. “You have the power. Break the bond now, if you must.”
“I think I made it stronger, before. I feel. . . it feels. . . different.”
“Yes. I think so too.” The amusement dies from his eyes. “You may have missed your chance. You could have broken the bond when I was dying. Why didn’t you?”
I drag my hands down my face. “Oh, I don’t know, Blake. You’re obnoxious, and devious, and manipulative. You have intentionally provoked me time and time again. You bit me. You plotted against me. You keep secrets and hide things and I don’t trust you in the slightest. You are the most irritating person I have ever met in my life. And yet. . .” I sigh heavily. I feel exposed, naked, in front of him.
“And yet?”
I admit something that makes me feel more vulnerable than I have ever felt in my life. “You are my friend.” My voice sounds small.
I expect him to mock me, taunt me. I await the sly curve of his lips and the antagonistic glint in his eyes. Instead, his expression is more serious than I have ever seen it. When he smiles, it’s sad. I wonder if he has ever had a real friend before, or at least one that was not forged in the depths of a prison cell.
The truth is, though, that I have never had a real friend, either-no matter how much I have longed for one.
Overwhelming remorse floods me, before he pulls it back.
“Likewise, little rabbit.”
The air feels awkward again. Suddenly, I’m exhausted. I shiver and rub my arms. I stand. “I’m going to go back inside. I’m tired.”
He nods and pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll come with you.”
Together, we walk back into the Grey Keep.
***
Darkness.
It washes over me, so thick I can taste it.
I breathe in sharply. I’m in a long, dark corridor and shadows whisper across the ground as if they have a mind of their own. They coil around my bare ankles. My pulse quickens when the scent of something old and ancient hits my nostrils. I creep forward, past locked doors. Something hisses behind one-the sound raspy and familiar.
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat and hurry past. I need to get out of here.