“I asked you a question, spirit.” The smaller man grabs Aurora’s face, jerking it in his direction, extending her neck painfully.
I bite my cheeks to keep from shouting out. My nails dig into my palms, knuckles white. I can’t help Aurora if I’m caught as well or, worse, killed. The best thing I can do is bide my time and help her escape the first moment I can.
Aurora still says nothing.
“Now tell us where the ring is,” he demands.
“I told you, I don’t have it anymore.” Aurora stares up at him with the slightest bit of smugness. “And you’ll never find it, either. A wolf king will never again hold my power.”
“How dare—Your absence has almost caused the loss of a generation of pups and a new age of bloodshed, yet you sit there with your obnoxious little smile, as if you’re all too pleased for it—as if you can abandon your duty. You serve us.”
“Were I a servant, I might at least be offered a modicum of respect. No, your wicked kings have made me a slave,” Aurora says with more venom and hate and pain than I had thought possible from her. A deep sorrow courses through me. “But I will be free. One way or another. Damn the lykin.”
The man raises his other hand as a fist. “How dare you?—”
“Enough, Bardulf.” The younger man, Evander, catches the older’s wrist. I see Bardulf straining against him, but he’s not nearly strong enough to shake Evander’s grip.
“You want to tussle again?”
Evander ignores the challenge. “Go for a run and sweat out your rage. She’s riling you up so you can’t think clearly.”
Bardulf wrests his hand free with a grunt and stomps off in the direction opposite of me—thank the old gods. He murmurs the entire time, all hateful things about Aurora.
Neither of the two moves for a long minute.
Finally, Aurora speaks. “What was the point?” The question is pain and anger.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Evander shifts his stance, looking down at Aurora.
“Were you just toying with me?” She glares up at him. “Some kind of sick thrill to go on the hunt?”
Evander says nothing. He won’t even look at her. Aurora spits at his feet.
“You’re just like the rest of his pack, twisted and disgusting. You’re nothing more than a pup with a tail between your legs the moment it gets tough.”
“Take caution not to speak to a knight of the king with such disdain,” he says coolly. “When we return to Midscape and are around Conri again, I won’t be able to allow it to slide.”
It’s become clear to me that neither Evander nor Bardulf is the wolf king. The man named Conri seems to be. I breathe a little easier given the way they speak of him. It doesn’t sound like he’s close by.
“No? Your rebellious streak ended with me?”
“Aurora—” He sighs heavily. “You know what happens when we cross him.”
“I do not care about the king. He is not my king—need I remind you, he is not yours, either, Evander. He killed?—”
“Watch your tongue.”
“Or what? You’ll strike me like Bardulf?” The words are almost a challenge. One I’m pleased to see that Evander doesn’t rise to.
“No matter how we feel, we are forever bound to him by our oaths.”
“Do not speak to me of deals and promises and oaths.” Aurora is on her feet. She strains against the rope holding her to the tree. Evander continues to linger, just beyond her reach, as her eyes dig daggers into him. “I have kept oaths from long before your parents were even pups, suckling at their mothers’ teats. So I will not be reminded by a man-child of what oaths I must and must not keep.” Her voice is as cold as the darkest winter’s night.
Evander continues to stand as tall and strong as a stone wall against her. But eventually he walks away without another word, sitting on the opposite side of the fire. As he approaches, I see his cheek by his eye is bruised and I hope Aurora put up a fight when they tried to take her.
With his back to me, I now can see massive scars that run between Evander’s shoulder blades, as though a wolf took its two front paws and dragged its claws across him. They’re deep grooves with raised sides. Gnarled. Painful to even look at. Whatever, or whoever, did that to him was vicious, indeed.
“We should get rest while we can,” he murmurs. Aurora doesn’t even bother to look at him. Evander nestles himself into the moss and, soon, his breathing slows into a steady cadence.
