Page 156 of Wolf Caged
“Tell me what you did see.” I resisted the urge to order her to seek another vision, one that might give her a clearer picture of the location of An’sidwain. I had to be delicate about this, teasing the information out of her, because if I pushed, she would push back and refuse to give me anything. “The smallest things will do. Was there snow? Sand? Sapphire crystals?”
She frowned at my chest, her face pinching, and shook her head. “I told you. It was blurry. I saw Saphira. I saw you. I saw… I sawit.”
An’sidwain.
“Could you see where it is if you tried again?” I studied Neve as she shrank back from the bars of her cell, subtly shaking her head as fear flickered in her amber eyes.
“Do not make me look,” she whispered and I regretted pressing her as she retreated and pain flashed across her eyes as she grew breathless. “I cannot see it.”
She was not talking about the location now. She was talking about An’sidwain.
Her greatest treasure.
And her greatest fear.
A dragon stone from ancient times.
Chapter 41
SAPHIRA
Inky night erupted across the door of the cottage I sat outside of on a bench set against the grey stone that formed the lower half of the wall. I kept my gaze on the forest that stretched below me, watching birds flitting between the trees, breathing deep of the clean air and savouring the silence.
“You are awake,” Kaeleron said.
“You are so observant,” I muttered, not in the mood for him.
He was ruining my peace.
It was hard to enjoy the warm glow of a morning after when the male who had been your bedroom partner the night before had done a disappearing act and once again taken no pleasure for himself. I had just about forgotten that he had rejected me again and here he was, reminding me.
“I have a task for you.” He came to stand beside me.
I kept looking at the forest. “Bother someone else.”
“I could order you to do it.”
I slid him a black look. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Because I refused to fuck you.” He was observant and astute. Bully for him. He huffed. “You are still not ready, little lamb.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Stop calling me that.”
“Fine. If you are ready, if you can honestly say you will not blame your heat or regret it, then get up on your feet and I shall fuck you right here against this wall.” He slapped his hand against the timber and cream plaster near the door. “Come along then.”
My lips flattened as nerves rose, as I saw in his eyes he was serious and that if I wanted it, he would do it. But the bastard was right. Every time I had asked him to take me, I had been wild and delirious, lost in the mating frenzy, and I would have regretted it in the morning, even more than I regretted asking him and having him turn me down.
“Come along, little wolf,” he purred, silver eyes growing hooded. “I promised I would fuck you one day, and I mean to keep that promise. Is a wall not good enough for you?”
He petted the damned thing, and the vision of him taking me against it, slamming my back into it and shaking the plaster loose, was wickedly hot, but I managed to school my expression into a deadly glare.
“Some other time then.” He smirked down at me.
I rolled my eyes. “What’s this task you want me to carry out? And if it involves your manhood and some pun about meat, Iwillbite it off. This cottage is beautiful, but the room service sucks. I’m starving.”
“I should have considered you would be hungry after such energetic activities.” His smirk widened as he held his hand out to me. I eyed it suspiciously, earning an irritated huff from him. “I have no nefarious plans, little wolf. I simply intend to return you to the castle. Unless you wish to run the gauntlet of the forest and see whether luck is with you today or not. Hunters have reported the harpy numbers are rising again. Just yesterday one of them was injured during an encounter with them. No deaths so far this year, but it is not even summer yet.”
I slapped my hand down onto his because I had read about the feathered half-female half-bird beings who stalked the woods of Lucia, and their taste for eating humanoid prey, and I didn’t want to test my luck today. I was fast as a wolf, but I was tired too. It would be just my shitty luck to run into a group of harpies and get eaten.
