Page 107 of On Wings of Blood

The voice had been a girl’s. Not Regan’s. Quinn’s? Maybe.

I started to push myself up from the floor. I’d dropped my book bag and some of the textbooks had spilled out.

A strong, slender hand reached down and picked one of the books up.

I looked up. Blake stood there, a bored expression on his handsome face. He passed me the book but made no attempt to pick up the others.

Grimacing, I pushed myself to my feet and brushed my clothes off.

“Thanks,” I said curtly, grabbing the book and shoving it into my satchel.

“You have such a winning way about you, Pendragon,” he drawled. “No wonder you’ve made so many friends.”

I gave him a fake smile and started turning away.

His hand grabbed my shoulder. Just for a moment. Long enough for me to stop. Long enough for me to feel the heat of his skin through the fabric of my sweater.

“What?” I demanded. “You're going to shove me against a wall, too?”

“Been there, done that. Too easy,” he said, with a sneer.

He looked around us carefully. The hall had emptied out.

“I came to tell you,” he said, lowering his voice. “The fluffin is with the healer.”

The fluffin. I’d almost forgotten about the little thing.

“Good. That’s...good. Thank you for telling me.” I frowned. Had he sought me out just to tell me that?

“He’ll have the best treatment. The healers in our tower are the finest.”

“That’s good to know,” I said cautiously.

I was still shocked he’d complied, that he was doing this for me at all. Not to mention finding me just to update me on the pup’s condition the very next day.

“What will you do with him? Once he’s healed, I mean,” he said.

I stared at him. He looked at me, cool and nonchalant. Maybe trying a littletoohard to look nonchalant. What was he up to?

“I don’t think Florence and I had thought that far ahead,” I said slowly. “Maybe we could try to return it...”

“No,” he said, cutting me off. “Its family will be gone by now. Besides, we have no idea how it got to the surface. It could have been running from a predator...”

“We? There’s no ‘we’ here,” I interrupted, my temper rising. “And we know how it got to the surface. Itwasrunning from a predator. From which it did not, in fact, escape. For all we know, your sister brought it above ground. Why can’t we bring it back down?”

He frowned. “Aenia?”

He glanced around again, but we were still alone. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t go below the surface. There’s a passage on the island but it’s been caved in for years.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Maybe the fluffin fit through a crack in the rocks somehow, but I doubt there’s any way she could have.” Still, he looked uncertain.

“What was she even doing on this island in the first place? Doesn’t she live in the Keep?”

He looked uncomfortable.

I shook my head in disbelief. “You don’t even know how she got here, do you? She’s a child. Is she just allowed to run around wherever she wants? Where’s her mother?”

As soon as I said those words I knew I shouldn’t have.

“That’s none of your concern,” he said coldly. “She’s my sister, not yours.”

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