Page 131 of Wolf Caged
“Saphira,” I whispered, urging her to answer me, and silently demanding she grant me permission to hunt this wolf for her, to end him as I should have the night he had dared to sell such a spirited, beautiful female.
“I believed the lies… that his parents had been killed in an accident in the mountains. I grieved for him. My heart broke for him. But that accident that placed him in power as alpha was no accident at all and I learned it that night… Lucas killed them while their backs were turned.” Tears slipped down her pale cheeks as she turned her profile to me, her voice whisper-soft as she stared out to sea and gripped the wall, as if she needed to anchor herself. “I wasn’t the first he betrayed.”
My claws dug into my palms and I squeezed my fists, relishing the pain as I drew blood.
The sharp edge to her voice, the twist of her expression as she spoke of betrayal, and the pain that glittered in her eyes spoke to me, revealing something new about her that felt vital, a warning I needed to heed and in a way had failed to already.
She abhorred betrayal.
This Lucas had broken some kind of cardinal rule by betraying her. Not by betraying his parents, but by betraying her. Loyal and gentle little wolf. But a fool to trust so easily. Not a fool perhaps, but too innocent to know better, sheltered by kind and loving people and led to believe all were like them.
The male’s betrayal must have been a great shock to her.
A blow that had cut deeply enough to leave a scar.
“Using wit to defeat another, playing such games, has a place and a purpose, but a battle between kings or a fight to overthrowa current king and take their throne, should be a battle carried out with honour. Face to face. The wolf is spineless. Weak. He will find his end sooner rather than later.” A vow. I made those words a vow, a veiled one but a vow nonetheless. When my vengeance was done, I would find this Lucas and I would end him.
For Saphira.
She snorted. “He might be a bastard with no morals, but he has a strength that serves him well. He’s good at manipulating those around him into doing what he wants and as long as that gift continues, he will be safe, protected, and a force no sane wolf would dare face.”
“I am not a wolf, and there is no place where this male can hide that I will not find him.” I lifted my hands to her face, framing it in my palms, and stared down into her wide, bewitching blue eyes as everything dark within me writhed and snarled, baying for blood and death. “Say the word, Saphira, and the wolf is as good as dead.”
Those bewitching eyes widened.
A trace of excitement in them.
For a heartbeat, I could see a shadow of darkness within her, a tendril of night that echoed the hungers within me, a vicious and cold need for vengeance. For destruction. For death.
And then it was gone.
She tore her gaze from mine and stepped back, slipping from my grip, and wrapped her arms around herself as she looked at the castle, a flicker of regret crossing her features.
Shadows writhed at my feet, hungry to find the wolf and kill him, to tear him apart piece by piece and gift her with them, but I tamped down that urge, aware that Saphira would not appreciate it. She was no killer. She was kind and gentle, or at least believed herself only capable of light and warmth, but twicenow I had seen her darker side, had seen the wolf beneath her innocent exterior.
A vicious and violent beast that wanted blood.
I had stolen her revenge on Elanaluvyr from her and she had looked ready to fight me.
How badly did she crave vengeance against Lucas?
How deeply had the wolf harmed her?
I would find out the answer to the latter, and would mould her into a weapon fit to carry out the former. Now she had tasted what it was like to lose your revenge to another, she would only crave it more.
Just as I did.
“You still haven’t taken me to your library,” she murmured, voice distant, as if she was afraid to bring up my failure to carry out my promise to let her use it, or perhaps she was just lost in her thoughts and looking for a distraction from them.
I ushered her towards the castle, letting her walk in brooding silence beside me, aware she needed the quiet and the space to think. So like me in many ways. Whenever I craved silence and peace so I could plot my revenge, I went to my sanctuary.
Saphira had no such place, so I would grant her one.
The library.
I led her up to the fourth floor, to a corner of the castle few visited and one of the largest rooms on the floor, and watched her closely as I leaned past her and twisted the knob, my back to the wall and my shoulder against the wooden panels of the door. I eased it open, savouring how her eyes slowly widened as the library was revealed to her and I cast a simple spell, one that had the lamps in the spacious room lighting one by one.
She slowly stepped into the room, eyes dancing over the three levels of black wooden shelves packed with books and accented with brass fittings that encircled a main sitting area, upto the glass dome above that open area that allowed light to flood the room during the day and revealed the endless stars at night.
