I hadn’t realized that he was watching me until I looked up—he had the audacity to wink at me.As if his ego could get any bigger.
“You’re shaking. Can I help you?” Fenris whispered.
I answered, “That depends.” My flat tone warned him that I wasn’t in the mood for his flirtatious antics.
He motioned to the ink on his arm. “He seems to like you…and he makes a comfortable pillow. Plus, he’s warm.”
It took me a moment to realize what he was offering. He wanted to lethimout to sleep with me. My mind snagged on his words—had he somehow been able to see what happened after I had unbound him?
He continued, “Also, I can tell he needs to stretch and relieve himself…”
Confinement.The beast was restrained when he didn’t want to be.
Caged in a tower. Never seeing the world, never wading through rivers or climbing the Hussa mountains. Was I much different from the beast in his arm? No, the beast had it better—Fenris cared about his wishes. But who truly cared about mine?
That raw emotion shocked me. Bitterness, anger, sadness…
I snuffed the emotions out. I didn’t getwishes. That wasn’t part of my duty.My mind felt at war with itself, and Fenris’ quizzical stare told me he noticed.
“Fine, but he stays away from the Constable. And…I don’t need a pillow.”
“Suit yourself.”
I looked at Emmerick once more before turning back to Fenris, who sat upright and was reaching his cuffed hands toward me. If in contact with the wearer’s skin, the cuffs prevented any use of magic. They were designed using ancient spells that even I didn’t understand.
I warned, “Don’t think for a second I won’t kill you if you, orhe, moves to harm us or run.”
“I’m in such lovely company. Why would I run?” That infuriating flirtatious smirk spread across his face. I leveled an unamused look at him, though my heart skipped.
Reaching into my robe pocket, I retrieved the key and unlocked the shackles. Fen’s gaze seared into mine with quiet intensity as the metal thudded to the dirt ground between us.
The idea of being shackled without my magic made my throat constrict.How could he bear being so helpless?
Yet nothing in his demeanor indicated he wanted to flee—he appeared content and relaxed to be where he was.
“They were Emmerick’s idea. I thought you would be more useful without them,” I stated flatly.
He shrugged. “The boy is justified in wanting me cuffed.”
“I told you I wouldn’t ask youwhyagain. Butwhoexiled you to those woods?”
His shoulders stiffened. It was the first time I had seen him look somewhat vulnerable, and his arrogant smirk slipped away. It appeared like he was straining against his thoughts, like a wolf fighting the impulse to kill. The hair on the back of my neck stood. Maybe uncuffing him wasn’t a great idea.
He sighed. “Telling you who would make no difference.”
Such simple words and yet the sorrow in them filled the cave like a somber melody. The hairs on the back of my neck stayed on edge as I began to hear whispers. It was uncommon for this to occur without me trying or a moonstone in my hand.
It seemed I was at the mercy of whatever my magic wanted to show me.
“Foolish…Damned…Traitor…Murderer…”
The words were an onslaught of vicious hisses into the night air between us. Each accusation hit my mind with painful angst.
Fenris looked unaffected—he couldn’t hear them. But he seemed to notice the shift in me.
“You just saw something…” Hope laced his voice.
“I don’t always see things—usually, it’s whispers or fragments of images. Sometimes, a heightened sense of what path is best. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether what I’m experiencing is the past or the future. This time, it was whispering and it was in the past.”
