Page 51 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

H eavy black clouds swirled across the sky outside my window as I sat on the padded seat in the tower area of my room, rain pelting the glass as I hugged one of the pillows to my chest and watched the sea, losing myself in how dark and lethal it looked today, as if it was responding to my mood, or perhaps that of the owner of this castle.

The ruler of this unseelie court.

I compared the sea today to how it had appeared yesterday, fascinated by how dramatically it could change. One day, it was smooth and blue, barely a ripple on the surface, and the next it was rough and steel grey, battering the rocky shore with great waves that hurled white foam into the air.

Rain travelled like mist across the land, slowly devouring the mountains and hills that struggled to free themselves of its hold, peeking through at times.

Everything seemed darker today, a little more grim. Almost sombre.

I shook my head at that, aware it was just my mood colouring my perception of the world around me, and glanced at the door.

“I should leave my room,” I murmured as I set aside the pillow, as if saying it aloud would give me the courage to step over the threshold when I feared what I would find out there.

Feared how people might react to my presence now.

My wolf side pushed for freedom, all of me wanting to run free, run until I was exhausted and could sleep without replaying that fight in my dreams.

A fight that always ended in my death.

No matter how fiercely I fought, how cunning I was, the unseelie female always bested me.

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep the sudden chill at bay, and huddled down into the comforting thick robe I wore over my clothes, lifting one side of it so I could bury my nose in the soft, warm fabric.

The rain that battered the leaded window grew heavier as my mood darkened.

In an attempt to distract myself from what awaited me beyond my door, and how weak I felt, I stared towards the mountains that embraced the castle like great jagged black wings.

What kind of creatures lived in those mountains?

Or the forests I had glimpsed from my balcony?

What would I find if I bravely ventured beyond the protective walls of this castle city?

Death probably.

This wouldn’t do.

Hiding in my room wasn’t going to solve anything.

Kaeleron had mentioned a library once and I wanted to see it. I wanted to see if I could read the records it contained, and if I couldn’t, I would ask him to cast a spell on me that would allow me to read them. I would learn about this world and its dangers, and grow stronger.

And one day, I would be strong enough to face Elanaluvyr and win.

I stood and crossed the room, casting off my robe and tossing it onto the bed.

I smoothed my appearance, running my hands over my dark blue blouse and black leather pants.

I could do this. I would find Kaeleron and ask him to give me directions to his library.

Or better yet, I would find Jenavyr and ask her, avoiding the awkwardness of seeing the fae king after he had tended to me.

I still wasn’t sure what to make of that, but the part of me that had been softened by his careful attention had yet to harden again, leaving me rather defenceless where he was concerned.

Better to not face him just yet.

Where would Jenavyr be?

I had spied guards coming and going from a squat, fortified building in the grounds of the castle, and had spotted Riordan among a group of soldiers gathered outside it once.

Maybe it acted as a garrison of sorts, where the soldiers assigned to protecting the castle had their living quarters. I could start there.

I eased the door of my room open, half expecting to find guards stationed outside it.

There was no one in the elegant hallway, but voices drifted along it, distant and muted.

Several of them. I headed in the opposite direction, closing my door behind me and hurrying left then banking right, my pace quickening as I strode towards the end of the corridor, where it met the gallery.

I had discovered the gallery a few days ago during one of my adventures, avoiding Kaeleron although I hadn’t been aware he was away from the castle at the time.

The paintings hanging on the wall to my right, facing a bank of arched windows that overlooked a broad green and the building I suspected was the garrison, were beautifully done.

Each portrait was a blend of darkness and light, a masterful rendering of the figure it contained.

Jenavyr appeared very noble in hers, her head held high as she stood with a regal sword point down before her and a pale gold crown atop her black hair.

Kaeleron was far too handsome in his, and I avoided looking at it, partly because I found myself stood before it staring at it for long minutes, losing track of time whenever I looked at it, and partly because he had been painted seated on a spiked black throne before a night time lake.

The same lake he had swum naked in with me.

The next painting was the most intriguing.

A beautiful couple stood in the arched entrance of a half-timber building, eyes filled with love as they stood arm in arm, pressed close together, and gazed at each other.

They radiated warmth and light. Love in its deepest, truest form, captured for everyone to see.

I envied them. Even my parents had never looked as happy as this couple did, and all without either of them smiling.

I didn’t know who they were, but their black hair and the female’s silver eyes made me suspect they had been Kaeleron and Jenavyr’s parents.

But the portrait that always stole my breath, that roused a deep feeling of sorrow in my heart, was the one at the end of the gallery.

It was smaller than the others.

Set away from them.

As if someone had wanted to hide it, or had been reluctant to put it on display.

It was a study of three children, each with black hair and silver eyes.

A young girl who appeared barely six in human years, her silver-blue dress pooled around her legs as she sat on the ground before a seated rangy teenage boy with unkempt hair, dressed in a fine tunic.

My gaze shifted to the boy who stood to his right, head held high, shoulders squared. A boy who looked no older than ten.

A boy who was smiling with all his heart.

Kaeleron.

I knew it in my soul.

He stood so proudly, reflecting the man he had become, but there was such warmth and light in his eyes, a softness to him I couldn’t see in the male he was now. What had happened to this smiling boy?

Did it have something to do with the reason he had needed to take care of me last night, had felt compelled to reassure himself that I was alive by being the one to tend to my wounds?

I glanced back at the portrait I felt sure were his parents, and then the boy seated between Jenavyr and Kaeleron.

Did it have something to do with them?

The seated boy was older than Kaeleron. The clear heir to the throne of the Shadow Court.

But he wasn’t the one on the throne now.

Meaning he was dead. I wanted to know what had happened to them, but I didn’t want to pry or reopen old wounds.

Maybe in the library, I would find the answer to those questions too.

I dragged myself away from the portrait of happy siblings, trying to find one of them and hoping it would be Jenavyr.

But when I stepped through the door at the end of the gallery, one that led onto a broad balcony that overlooked a courtyard of sorts, I found the owners of the voices I had heard.

I glanced back at the door behind me, debating slipping back through it before I was noticed, but their low murmurs drew my focus back to them.

They were all looking at something below them.

I edged forwards, using all the stealth I could muster, sneaking to the edge of the stone balustrade to peer into the courtyard, curious about what they were looking at.

And froze.

Shock iced my limbs and stilled my heart as I stared unblinking into the crowded courtyard.

At Elanaluvyr where she hung from her wrists on a curved crossbeam of a black Y-shaped pillar that mimicked her pose.

Brutally clawed and bloodied.

Dead.

Sickness rolled through me as I reeled backwards, tensing as my back met the stone wall, and I struggled to breathe as a maelstrom of emotions rioted within me. I wanted to feel bad, I wanted to feel responsible, and I knew I should be horrified.

But as I stared at her broken body, a strange, dark sense of satisfaction rippled through me.

And then there was the feeling that shocked me most of all.

Rage .

Anger that I had been denied a chance to defeat the female myself in a rematch.

That someone else had taken that moment—my revenge—from me.

On a vicious growl, I pushed away from the wall, pivoting towards the cluster of fae gathered at the far end of the balcony who were all watching me now. I bared my fangs at them as I prowled towards them, on the hunt for the king.

Aware he was the one who had stolen my kill from me.

My wolf side snarled and snapped fangs at that, battering the cage of my human form, wild with a need to put him in his place, to punish him for daring to steal what had been my kill to make.

The strength of my rage was overwhelming, startling even as it swept me up in it, as it stole control of me and had me stalking past the gawping fae, heading for the staircase in the vestibule.

I lifted my head and scented the air, trying to catch a trace of Kaeleron’s in it.

The smell of wild storm hit me hard.

The fae on the balcony were quick to disappear, leaving us alone as their king emerged from the doorway ahead of me.

“How dare you!” I snarled, curling my hands into tight fists at my side as my fury reached boiling point, my wolf blood running hot. “I wanted a rematch!”

“So bloodthirsty today, little lamb.” Kaeleron arched an eyebrow at me as he teased me, evidently unbothered by the threatening growl that tore from me as I stormed towards him.

I mentally rolled the sleeves of my blouse up, preparing to clobber him for mocking me with that nickname of his. I was not a lamb. I was a wolf, and I would show him just how sharp my fangs were.

“You will have plenty of opportunities to get your fangs bloody in my court. I am sure of that.” He remained where he was, shoulders relaxed, utterly calm in the face of my fury. “This will not be the last challenge you will face—or the biggest.”

A veiled warning to watch my back.

That knocked a little of the wind out of my sails and I slowed my steps, the ominous feeling that accompanied his words making me reconsider striking him and potentially making an enemy of him too.

I glanced at the dead female, hung on grim display for all to see.

“You didn’t have to kill her,” I muttered, unsure whether I would have shown her any mercy had I been able to fight her again. Even now, I wanted blood. Her blood. I wanted to taste it on my fangs.

Kaeleron stepped closer, halting mere inches from me, his power pressing down on me, dark and malevolent as he growled, “I did. Her death is a message.”

That disturbing ripple of satisfaction swept through me again, but I held my ground, refusing to let him see that some part of me was pleased he had killed her. I jerked my head towards the mutilated body. “It was a little extreme.”

He crowded me, glowering and dark as he looked down at me, silver eyes ringed with crimson, and murmured, “Extreme would be using her entrails as bunting. I was restrained.”

If that was restrained, I didn’t want to see what he was capable of when he let loose. Gods, it wasn’t healthy for me to find what he had done alluring, or condone it, but he had never been so hot as he towered over me, all darkness and death embodied, and growled.

His words pure possession.

“Her death is a message. No one touches what is mine.”