Page 189 of The Wolf King
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says.
“What are you doing here?”
“Tea.” He places a chipped cup on the bedside table. “For the pain.”
I eye him warily as he straightens. I try to sense the joke, the deceit, but I feel only sincerity. I take the cup and bring it to my lips, smelling willow bark.
“I can feel it, you know,” he says. “The pain.”
I place the cup back down. “Good.”
“Are you truly so stubborn?”
When I merely stare at him, he sighs.
“Very well. I’ve experienced worse.”
He steps back and leans against the fireplace.
“Callum is getting his people out of Castle Madadh-allaidh,” he says. “He’s worried James will know we’re planning something and go after Fiona and Ryan.”
“Why did you do it?”
He picks up the decanter on the fireplace, and pours a dram of whisky. “Save you?”
“Yes. No. All of it. How does helping Callum get you what you want? Why capture me and plot against Callum only to save us both? It doesn’t make sense.” My brow furrows. “You planned all this, didn’t you?” I say.
I stretch my mind back to earlier. I’d felt Blake’s triumph when Callum said he was going to take the throne.
“You wanted Callum to challenge James all along, didn’t you?” I say. “Is that why you wanted James to propose to me? He was going to send me back to Sebastian, anyway. That would have been enough to make Callum fight.”
Blake shrugs, swirling his glass. “If James had sent you back to Sebastian, Callum would have torn the world apart to get you back. But he would have understood, deep down, why James had done it. If he’d married you, though... If James had taken what Callum believed to be his... no, Callum would never forgive him for that.”
I shake my head. “Why? Why do you want Callum to be the next Wolf King? And why would you... bond our lives together like this? How does this get you what you want?”
My soul hardens, and I feel the shadowy caress of his darkness twisting around it as something occurs to me. Back in the dungeons, Blake told me he wanted to rule the Wolves.
“Because now Callum can’t kill you,” I whisper in horror. “You’ll gather support among the outlying clans while you’re pretending to support Callum. And once Callum gets rid of James for you—once he takes the throne—you’ll challenge him. Callum will forfeit. He’ll have to. Because you bonded our lives together. He can’t hurt you without hurting me. That’s what this is, isn’t it? That’s what this has all been about.”
And despite the outrage that rises like bile within me, triumph ripples through me too. Because now I know his game, I can play to beat him.
Blake’s eyes glint in the dying embers, and I know he feels the challenge that radiates from me. I know hewelcomesit.
He raises his glass, and a slow smile spreads across his lips.
“Long live the king,” he says.
