Page 104 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

“Deal with them too hard, and we’ll be down another ally,” Saraid warns. “Talon’s valuable. You don’t exactly blend in with regular people.”

“I blend in fine.” Wolf bristles.

This time Saraid outrightlaughsat him.

I take the chance to really look at him without the green fire of his eyes on mine.

He’s dead wrong. I’ve known he was dangerous from the first moment I saw him, but it’s more than that. More than the wordless warning that the sharp cut of his jaw and the blades up and down his body make brutally clear. There’s a shadow of regal beauty in his chiseled cheekbones that reminds me of a statue a sculptor might carve of a long-lost king. The contrast with the bruised vulnerability in those rare moments his shields waver makes my pulse quicken.

“Keep telling yourself that.” Saraid turns a shrewd look to me. Heat rises up my neck, like she’s caught me staring, and I wrench my gaze away from Wolf. “She knows that one word of any of this getting out is all the excuse I need to end her before the last test, right?”

I narrow my eyes at her. “I do now.”

“Good.” Tension in her topaz eyes simmers beneath her dark lashes. “Because I did this for him, not for you.Heis my ally.Youare a liability, and one I frankly can’t understand why he’s so insistent on keeping alive.”

“Thisliabilityis going to—”

“Prove herself useful,” Wolf cuts in with a sharp glare at Saraid.

“Hmm.” She leans back, rapping one neat, trimmed fingernail along the carriage’s windowsill, and glances between Wolf and me. “Let’s just hope she’s feeling… forgiving.”

That word—she—carries more weight than it should for just me.

An awkward tension settles over us. No one speaks, but I hear all three of our breaths freeze in our chests at the sight of gardai running in stiff units past our carriage, down the path back toward the festival and the bodies of the assassins we left in the rowan copse.

At least if the gardai are there, we might face fewer of them in the castle yards.

Getting back inside isn’t going to be easy. Every inch of me aches like I just ran from Quayside all the way here, without stopping once.

Wolf squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. When he opens them a moment later, his darkened green eyes are… weary. As if he’s barely slept in the week since he found me in the prince’s chamber—his cousin’s chamber.

The same cousin who betrayed him and got Wolf’s entire family killed.

“Are you bleeding?” Wolf’s eyes skim over me as the carriage jolts to a stop. “Anything feel broken?”

Pain along my side still screams fiercely—I must’ve pulled a muscle, because the powder for the nerve pain isn’t touching that slicing burn.

But I’m not about to admit that out loud. He might trust Saraid, but I sure as shit do not. “I’m fine.”

He arches a brow and shifts to crack open the carriage door. Wolf glances around both sides before stepping out. “Hurry—the stable yard won’t be clear for long.” He looks at me, a challenge lighting at the edges of his eyes. “Need me to carry you, or are youfineenough to walk?”

“I donotneed you to carry me.”

As soon as I say it, I stumble on the steep dip from the carriage stair to the ground and catch myself on the ledge of the door with a curse.

His eyes rake me up and down, assessing. Whatever he finds in me, he nods.

“Good. Because we’re going for a climb.” Wolf shuts the carriage door, and I hear Saraid rap on the amber side paneling from inside, her sharp eyes watching us as the horses trot off.

“A climb where?”

“Do you want me to explain or do you want to live?” Green eyes flash, quickly taking in the stable yard around us. “Because I’m betting we have about two minutes before some guard or servant comes wandering out of the kitchens, and believe me—you donotwant anyone finding you like this.”

He tugs at the neck of my cloak, and I look down.

Fuck.

I’m drenched in blood. Bright sprays of it, darkening to crimson in hard, drying patches. A warm trickle runs down the length of my ribs, and I reach a hand to my side. Pain claws up my rib cage, and I bite back a gasp.