The words strike like a blade. Darius releases me at last, shoving me back into the wall. I slump down, boots hitting the floor, blood dripping from my split lip. I wipe nothing away. Ijust stand there, silent, steady, my chest heaving but my hands at my sides.
The Brotherhood mutters low, voices rising like wind in trees. Some doubt, some disbelieve, some study me with eyes sharp, calculating. None step forward.
Darius turns back to Mary, his voice rough, warning. “Don’t let his fox trick your heart. They always turn. Always.”
Mary doesn’t answer. She stares at him a long moment, then at me. Her gaze lingers, unreadable, before she turns and walks away, her shoulders straight, her wolf steady.
Tessa lingers near the hearth, her eyes on me one last time, cool and knowing, before she follows.
The cabin empties slow, the wolves filing out, their voices fading into the night. Darius stays a moment longer, his gaze sharp on me, his lip curled. Then he spits blood to the floor, his voice low. “You won’t fool me, fox. Not now. Not ever.”
He leaves. The door slams.
The fire cracks in the silence that follows. Blood runs from my lip, from the split at my jaw. My ribs ache where his fists landed. I don’t move to wipe it clean. I don’t curse. I don’t complain.
Pain I can take.
What I can’t take is the truth in his warning.
Because maybe he’s right.
17
MARY
Ifind him in the small back room they’ve given him, sitting on the edge of a narrow cot. The air smells of old wood, cold stone, and the sharp, coppery tang of blood. He’s stripped off his coat and shirt. His torso is a canvas of fresh bruises blooming over old scars, a dark, mottled map of a life lived hard. He’s dabbing at the cut on his lip with a wet cloth, his movements stiff, his face a mask of cold control.
I lean against the doorframe, a roll of clean bandages in my hand. “You look like you lost a fight with a mountain.”
He doesn’t look up. “Mountions don’t hit back. Your brother does.”
“He’s good at it.” I push off the frame and walk in. The floorboards creak under my boots. “Let me see.”
“I can handle it.”
“Your pride is bleeding on the floor, Silas. Let me clean the rest of you up.” I kneel in front of him, my knees pressing into the cold wood. I take the cloth from his hand. It’s warm from the water, stained pink. His jaw is tight, a muscle feathering along the line of it. I press the cloth to his split lip. He flinches, just a fraction, but his eyes snap to mine.
“This what you do? Patch up the strays?”
“Only the ones who get punched for me.” I dab at the cut, my touch light. His breath hitches. “You didn’t have to stand there and take it.”
“What was the alternative? Fight the entire Brotherhood in a cabin? I’m a fox, Mary, not a fool.”
“You could have said something. Defended yourself.”
“With words?” A dry, humorless laugh escapes him. “Your brother doesn’t trade in words. He trades in consequences. I knew the price of walking in here.”
“And what’s the price now?” My voice drops. My thumb brushes the uninjured corner of his mouth. His skin is warm, rough with stubble.
His gaze darkens, the gold in his eyes deepening to something molten. “This.”
His hand comes up, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck. He doesn’t pull me gently. He pulls me to him, his mouth crashing against mine.
It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s a collision. A claiming. The taste of blood is sharp on his lips, on my tongue. It’s fierce, raw, a storm of need and anger and something else, something that’s been building since the moment I saw him in that Roman cell. My hands fist in his bare shoulders, my nails digging into hard muscle. A low growl vibrates in his chest, and I answer it with one of my own.
The bond between us, that thin, silken thread I’ve felt since the woods, doesn’t just pull. It ignites. It flares white-hot behind my eyes, a surge of pure, undiluted heat that has nothing to do with the fire in the other room. It’s him. It’s me. It’s the space where we stop fighting each other and justare.
His kiss is a storm, and I am the shore. I bite his lower lip, not hard, but enough to taste the iron-sharp truth of him. A sharpinhale, and then his hands are on me, pulling me onto the cot, his body a hard weight over mine.
