Page 180 of Wolf Caged
And bit out, “You mean to stop me from seeing my friend?”
Friend.
I despised that word.
I had not missed how the wolf had looked at her before I had stepped into her path, halting her. I had not missed the banked heat beneath the relief as his gaze had swung her way and taken her in. I had not missed his desperate attempt to take her attention away from me by producing something he knew would steal it and bring it to him instead.
“Until I know more about this wolf—this threat—the male will be staying somewhere he cannot harm anyone.” I watched as Malachi seized hold of the male and the wretched wolf fought admirably as a black hole opened beneath them and they fell into it together, Mal teleporting him to the dungeon.
Saphira’s glare was withering. “Morden wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
She said it with such confidence, as if she knew this male so well that she could say what he would and would not do. But she did not know him. Morden wanted to take her from me. Morden wanted to hurt me. It had all been there in his eyes when I had been speaking with her, when he had been seething with a need to make her look at him instead.
She went to walk away from me.
I grabbed her arm with one hand and my pack with the other.
And teleported.
She stumbled from the suddenness of the teleport as we landed on a sliver of plateau high on Noainfir, close to the peak of the black mountain, the loose gravel crunching beneath her boots as she turned on me.
“Why did you do that? What will happen to Morden?” She looked from me to the castle far below us, and the treacherous stretch of jagged rock, steep cliffs and loose shale that formed the only path back to it.
I growled, “Malachi will deal with him.”
She whirled to face me again, her damp silver braid swinging with the sharp motion, and scrubbed the rain from her face so she could glare at me. “Mal? The same Mal that helped you hurt those seelie?”
I slid her a black look as the storm pelted us, because she knew I had needed to deal with those seelie, that by entering my court, they had not given me a choice. They had known the second they had crossed my border that being caught was a death sentence.
“Answer me,” she bit out as worry and anger clashed in her eyes. “What will happen to Morden? Are you going to have him killed? He’s my friend!”
“Friend? Or lover?” I gritted from between clenched teeth.
She reared back, her eyebrows shooting high on her forehead. “You’re jealous.”
“I am not.” I adjusted the pack on my shoulder, hoping to draw her attention there instead. “It was simply time to leave. Malachi will deal with your friend.”
“The same Malachi you had been preparing to take with you instead of me?” She clenched her fists at her sides as the rain soaked her flimsy navy blouse and saturated her leather corset and pants, clothing that gave her far too little protection for where I was taking her, and I arched a brow at my astute little wolf as she tipped her chin up. “Just give me a moment with Morden. Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
She was asking for five minutes too many. I was damned if I was going to take her back to that wolf.
I shook my head, sending cold rain slithering down my neck. “I have waited too long for my revenge as it is. You can wait a day or two to see yourfriend.”
“Will he even be alive when I return?”
I growled now, rounding on her, my mood taking a dark turn as she averted her gaze, her air growing awkward and a flicker of regret crossing her face.
“I am not a monster, little lamb. Your preciousfriendwill remain unharmed.” Despite the dark urge I had to remove his head from his shoulders.
“Promise?” she whispered and glanced up at me, her brow furrowing as worry glittered in her eyes.
She worried so much for this wolf. This friend of hers. Her precious Morden.
Would she worry so much for me if I were missing, if we did not see each other for a time? I doubted it, and I did not care. Saphira was a tool in my arsenal, the key to my vengeance, that was all. Morden’s arrival was nothing more than a timely reminder that I had a goal that required my attention, one I had been working towards for too long now to get distracted by nothing more than a female.
I stared down at her, not revealing anything I felt as I built a wall around my heart, replacing the one she had been tearing down stone by stone. Closing it off just as she had accused me of doing.
“The wolf will live.” I pivoted away from her, hardening my heart, trudging up the barely visible path that would take me around the jagged peak of Noainfir.
