Page 199 of Wolf Caged
Had it all been a lie?
Had I only been seeing what I wanted to see?
Because I felt something for him.
Because I had foolishly confused my first mating heat with true attraction and desire, with a need for this male rather thananyone. Apparently, I couldn’t do the emotionless mating heat thing that others in my pack did after all. I had let my emotions get tangled up in the exchange of pleasure, in the satisfying of my heat, letting myself get carried away and finding meaning in his actions.
But he had kissed me.
Made love to me.
I hadn’t imagined his feelings in that moment in the cave in the Wastes—the feelings I had seen in his eyes and felt in the way he had held me. I hadn’t. I knew it. I knew him. This attraction we shared wasn’t one sided. He wanted me as fiercely as I wanted him.
Felt something for me that was as violent and beautiful as what I felt for him.
Hurt and anger welled within me, mingling with the confusion, and I wanted to yell at him, to lash out at him, but I also wanted to run, or shift, or escape. Escape seemed like the right word. I wanted to escape because something inside me was breaking as I looked at him, as he stared down at me, eyes as glacial and empty as they had been the day we had met.
I looked at Vyr, but she kept her cheek to me, her gaze downcast. A sign she wouldn’t help me. She had told me once that her loyalty was to her brother, and it hurt now that she was shutting me out too when I had believed her to be a friend, someone who might talk sense into her brother or at least help me make sense of what was happening.
“Saphi,” Morden breathed behind me, a reminder that I had an ally in this room, someone who had traversed a dangerous world to find me, to take me home.
Home.
Tears pricked my eyes as I looked at the great hall, as I looked at Vyr and then Kaeleron.
This was home.
“There is a waygate just south of the entrance to Falkyr. Guards will escort you there and you will be able to return to your world using it,” Kaeleron said, each word like a dagger in my chest as he made it all the more real. This was really happening. He was just going to discard me now he had what he wanted. “Your debt is paid. You are free to leave.”
He was sending me away. Done with me.
But I wasn’t done with him.
“What about Neve’s visions?” I curled my hands into fists and steeled my heart.
“I have An’sidwain,” he countered.
“She saw more than that.” I growled at him, sure that she had and wishing I had asked more about the visions she had seen now, so I would have ammunition to use against him and stop him from doing this. “I haven’t paid you back anywhere near what I owe you.”
The bastard held his right hand aloft and the contract I had signed in my own blood appeared in it.
When he tore it in two, I felt as if he was ripping apart my heart.
“Your debt is paid. You saved my life in the Wastes.” He held my gaze, his silver eyes still cold, the mask firmly in place.
“Bullshit. That skeleton wouldn’t have dented your armour before you destroyed it,” I snapped at him and then shook my head, my voice softening as I whispered, “Bullshit.”
“Your debt is paid,” he repeated.
I wasn’t buying any of this.
I might have massively underestimated my ability to keep emotions out of my mating heat and the time I spent with him, but I hadn’t been wrong about his feelings. I hadn’t been wrong about this attraction between us that had only grown in the last few days. It was real. It was fierce.
He had just kissed me, and he hadn’t done it as a show of possession for Morden’s sake because he was kicking me out of his court, setting me free and placing me in Morden’s hands.
Or had he?
Ice tumbled down my spine as it hit me.
