Page 139 of Wolf Caged
In the hopes I could draw him back again, that I could open his eyes to what he had done so he would loosen his hold on his court and free his people.
He growled as he stepped up to me, darkness branching from his eyes, staining his skin as his irises gained a crimson corona.
I wouldn’t be silenced.
“Can you see how afraid your people are of you or are you truly blind to it?” I looked beyond him to the blacksmith.
Kaeleron looked over his shoulder at him too, some of the tension in his body fading in an instant when he saw the older male cowering in the shadows of his home, watching us as if he feared for his life.
“You might believe you are keeping your people safe, you might even truly believe they are happy, but there is a difference between keeping your subjects safe and keeping them caged. This kingdom is beautiful, Kaeleron, but to many it’s a gilded cage.”
He snarled in my face, his canines and the incisors beside them as sharp as the dagger I gripped in my trembling hand.
Gods, I was being an ungrateful bitch by doing this to him when he had just been so kind to me and had let me see the warmer side of him, but someone needed to say it.
And deep in my heart I knew it had to be me.
He knew my history, he knew how caged I had been, and he might listen to me because of it. He might show his people the side of him I had met today—the warmer, kinder male.
“You closed the borders to your kingdom, for the same reason you closed off your heart—to protect it and avoid pain—but in doing so you condemned your people and yourself toliving half a life. You built a cage—no, a magically reinforced steel wall—around everyone and cut them off from the world… from their kin… from their families.” My heart pounded against my chest, an unsteady and rapid rhythm that had me shaking as I faced him, as I braced myself for his wrath.
Shadows swept around me, buffeting me and chilling my skin.
And then they were gone.
And so was Kaeleron.
Chapter 36
SAPHIRA
Training would take my mind off the things I had said to Kaeleron and the fact he hadn’t summoned me to dinner.
I had dined alone in my rooms, staring out at the city as the lights had slowly come on to drive back the darkness, mulling over what I had done. I hadn’t been able to hold back the words, not when they had beat within me so fiercely, all the years I had spent at my pack, enduring my gilded cage, rolling into one furious roiling beast within me that had demanded freedom.
I regretted them now, even when I knew I had spoken true, that this court was suffering as I had back at my pack, the walls Kaeleron had constructed around it to keep it safe chafing at them.
Alphas had a right to protect their pack as they saw fit, to decide who had what freedom and what those within it did or didn’t do. A king had the same right, and gods, maybe I was just taking out my frustration over my own silence during the years at my pack on Kaeleron.
But I wasn’t projecting my own feelings on his people, not as he had believed the first time I had confronted him about it.
I would try to find him later and, not apologise for what I had said, but at least try to heal this breach between us.
Before I found myself living in a dungeon again.
I jogged into the clearing, eager to blow off some steam with Jenavyr.
And found Kaeleron standing in the centre of it, his hands in the pockets of his soft cotton trousers and his head tipped back, silver gaze on the sky.
I slowed to a walk, nerves rising as I realised I was about to face him right now, before I had time to prepare a pretty speech that would soothe his temper and maybe spare me from a downgrade to a prison cell.
“Was Jenavyr called away?” I tried to sound bright and not at all nervous as I approached him, and he continued to stare at the sky, as if I didn’t exist. My gut said the reason he was here wasn’t because his sister had been called away. This was my punishment. He knew how much I enjoyed these sessions, and he was taking them away from me. “Is my training cancelled?”
His head slowly lowered, his gaze cold and unreadable as it landed on me, and his voice devoid of emotion as he said, “You will be sparring with me today. I want to see what you have learned.”
So this was my punishment for speaking out of turn with him.
Not a prison cell.
