Page 126 of Wolf Caged
“The same reason you just bit his head off. He branded me.” Riordan unbuttoned his black tunic, revealing a dark undershirt, and tugged it off his right shoulder, so it slipped down his muscled arm. He pulled the sleeve of his undershirt up, exposing toned pale skin that flexed beneath his brand as he moved. “My brand lets me walk in the sun.”
“It does?” Her eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t realise they could do things. I just thought?—”
She looked at me, her gaze colliding with mine as I watched her closely, watched the vampire closely too now that he was flashing his body at my little wolf. A step too far.
“What does mine do?” Her eyes searched mine.
“It allows you to summon me if you are in danger.” I held her gaze, letting her see the truth in it, that the mark wasn’t a brand in the way she thought it, it wasn’t a sign of possession, it was alink between us, a bond that would carry me to her should she ever need me.
“Oh. Well. That’s… sort of nice.” She hit me with a hard look. “But I’m still not forgiving you.”
“Not until I grovel. Yes, yes. I received that message loud and clear.” My gaze flicked to Riordan and I was about to tell him to get dressed again when Saphira turned back to the vampire and set fire to my fury.
By stroking her fingers over the mark on his arm.
“It is sort of pretty, I suppose,” she whispered.
Shadows exploded between them, a wall of darkness that hurled the vampire away from her and gently knocked her backwards. Riordan hit the wall between two bookcases with a grunt. Saphira gasped as her backside met the hard marble floor.
“Enough!” I snarled as I pulled my shadows back under control, fighting to calm myself before I had to pick up the scattered pieces of Riordan from my war room and begin looking for a new third in command. I levelled a black look on the little wolf as she planted her hands behind her, wide eyes fixed on me and her breathing unsteady. “Find another to question. You and the vampire are done.”
“What’s Riordan done now?” Jenavyr strolled into the room and stopped as she spotted Riordan picking himself up off the floor and dusting off his tunic and Saphira pushing to her feet. My sister glared at Riordan as he buttoned his tunic, covering his body, her eyes darker than I had ever seen them as she moved between him and Saphira. “What in the Great Mother’s name are you up to?”
“Nothing.” Riordan closed the final button, his motions jerky and filled with the anger reflected in his crimson eyes. “You always leap to the worst conclusion, don’t you?”
“Well, you do have a track record of seducing females,” she snapped and planted her hands on her black-leather-clad hips. “Old habits die the hardest, do they not?”
“This again?” Riordan squared up to her, his jaw flexing as he gritted, “I was feeding.Feeding. A guy needs to eat. That male I was… that isn’t me anymore. I changed the moment I realised what a fucking idiot I was. But Kaeleron tells you my sordid history and it sticks. I could be a fucking nun and you’d still think I was sleeping my way through Falkyr.”
Vyr refused to back down. “Because your reputation precedes you, vampire. More than one or two pretty females have tales to tell of your charms.”
Saphira wisely edged out of the line of fire, inching closer to the map and me.
Riordan threw his hands up in the air, looking at the vaulted ceiling as if he might find some help there. “Oh, forgive me for needing to blow off some steam from time to time. You’re one to talk, Vyr. Had a nice Beltane, did we?”
“Do. Not. Call. Me. Vyr,” she growled and then pivoted on her heel, storming towards me. “And I did not attend Beltane.”
Riordan stared after her, blue eyes wide, mouth agape.
The first time I had seen him speechless.
I looked between the two of them as Vyr scowled at the map, angrily shuffling the legion markers around the Shadow Court and muttering under her breath, and Riordan stared at her back, looking far too stunned.
Far too pleased.
“And you,” Vyr snarled at me and it seemed my neck was next on the chopping block. “It was wrong of you to brand Saphi without her consent.”
Saphi?
How close were my sister and the little wolf growing? It didn’t seem like a good thing, given one day her usefulnesswould end. But Jenavyr had never had many friends, despite her attempts to befriend various females throughout the years. The servants had kindly played along with her out of obligation, and the highborn had been more interested in courting my attention, only using her to get closer to me.
She was close to Neve, despised Riordan with a passion, and truly enjoyed Malachi’s company whenever he was at the castle. It was good for her to have another female for company, even if it would not be a permanent situation.
I shrugged at her and said the one thing I knew would distract her from her anger at Riordan. “Oberon brands people without consent all the time.”
“That isnota valid reason to do as you please with someone.” Vyr firmly shook her head, shifting her long black hair across the shoulders of her blue blouse. “Oberon does a lot of things civilised people should not.”
Saphira whispered, “I like Oberon. He seems nice.”
