Page 58 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

KAELERON

W hen Saphira had filed a request— in writing —that she be allowed to learn more about the people of my court because she was curious about how so many different species had come to serve me, I had been pleased that the little wolf desired to know more about my world.

Now, I realised it was some twisted form of punishment.

I barely leashed the growl as I looked up from the three-dimensional map that took up the central space in the castle war room to find her smiling at Riordan.

“Fascinating!” she said, sounding and looking brighter than I had ever seen her, her blue eyes positively aglow with curiosity as the vampire regaled her with stories of his time in the Dark Realm.

“I can’t believe you ran across him in Hell of all places.

And Oberon calls himself a wanderer. I’m surprised the Shadow Court runs as smoothly as it does given how often its ruler is absent. ”

Riordan flicked me a nervous glance.

I had no need to make Saphira a dagger for her to plunge one in my chest. Repeatedly. Her verbal blows were fatal enough.

“What were you doing in Hell?” She beamed at the vampire, only having eyes for him today.

Riordan awkwardly preened his blond hair back. At least one of them was aware of my devolving mood and how dangerous the path they were treading was, although I suspected that Saphira knew too and that was part of her game.

No doubt she enjoyed tormenting me together with my sister.

Jenavyr had refused to speak to me yesterday and had buried herself in her work today, reviewing the rosters and the progress the newest soldiers were making with their training.

“I was with the Preux Chevaliers.” Riordan twisted the signet ring he wore on his little finger, spinning it around the digit with his thumb, not a sign of his nerves but of his regret.

That item was the only thing he had left of his family, and since leaving Hell, he had lived without knowing their fate.

Whenever I had offered to escort him to the human world, where they resided, he had made his excuses.

The vampire’s hand slipped to the back of his neck and he scrubbed it.

“They’re a mercenary corps. An army for hire, I suppose. ”

“And now you work for the Shadow Court.”

I was painfully aware of how Saphira avoided mentioning my name.

She idly rubbed at her chest, at the spot where I had branded her, a motion she had subconsciously made several times now. Was the mark irritating her? It would settle in a few days and she would no longer be aware of its presence, at least not as she was now.

“And now I work for the Shadow Court.” Riordan gave her an easy smile that brightened his sapphire eyes, and made me want to gouge them out with my claws.

I glared at the map and the mountains that separated my court from the Black Pass instead, and then beyond it, to the lands of the seelie and the Summer Court. So close, yet so far from me, beyond my reach right now. Soon.

Patience .

That patience frayed as Saphira continued.

“Why don’t you work for the Preux… whatever… now? Did he poach you?”

Riordan laughed, so easily, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Not exactly. I was… ah… kicked out of the Preux Chevaliers.”

A less observant person might miss the way the vampire spun that ring on his finger, or how that brightness in his eyes and that easy smile dimmed a little as he admitted that.

“Oh. Were you a bad boy?” Saphira smiled teasingly.

I could not hold back the low growl that rumbled up my throat or stop the tips of my fingers turning inky as I dug emerging claws into the map before me.

“I fucked around and found out.” Riordan’s tone was all business, not a trace of warmth or amusement in it.

Wise male. He was in danger of fucking around and finding out again, and I would not be as kind as his last commander had been. There would be no banishment. Only death.

“Western reaches,” I grumbled and held my left hand out towards Riordan. “Last year and this year.”

“Apparently, stealing your commander’s woman from him is a career-ending mistake.” Riordan shrugged as he went to one of the bookcases set into the black stone walls and gathered several leather binders.

Saphira looked a lot less enamoured with him, her pale eyebrows knitting as her gaze tracked him as he crossed the room to me. “Who’d have thought seducing someone else’s lover would be a terrible idea? Are all men ruled by their dick?”

Riordan’s eyes widened as he took that dagger to the chest.

I chuckled under my breath as I took the binders from him and set them down on the edge of the map, my gaze fixed on the area around Wraith Wood and the markers positioned there.

Saphira hurled one at me too. “What are you laughing at? I distinctly recall you sporting a hard-on for the whole of Beltane just because I was sitting beside you.”

“Not just because you were sitting beside me,” I purred as I lifted my gaze to lock with hers. “Because you were sitting on me.”

She huffed, her eyes widening slightly as she folded her arms.

“And who made me sit on you?” She shook her head. “You know what. You don’t get to talk until you’re on your knees, grovelling for my forgiveness for branding me like I’m a cow.”

I smiled wickedly, gaze narrowing on her. “If you want me on my knees before you, you know our deal, little lamb. You only need to beg.”

Colour climbed her cheeks but then her eyes became nothing more than thin slits. “That is not going to happen.”

I gave her a sly look as my grin stretched wider, and she glared at me, her lips thinning as she silently dared me to mention what had happened between us.

I would not.

Because some darkly possessive part of me did not want anyone else to know. I wanted to keep her all to myself.

“Aaaand now the air in here makes sense,” Riordan said, and we both hit him with a glare. He held his hands up. “If you need the room, I am more than happy to exit it and leave you two alone to… uh… work things out.”

“There will be no working things out,” she muttered and turned her cheek to me, fixing her attention back on the vampire as she haughtily tipped her chin up.

“Until I beg forgiveness, apparently,” I muttered right back at her. “Which is not going to happen.”

She huffed again. “You’re dead to me.”

I chuckled at that, because we both knew it was a lie.

She might be mad at me, but I had not missed the secret glances she stole whenever she thought I was not paying attention, lingering looks that had spoken of yearning more than once.

She still wanted me, desired me as much as ever, and in time, she would surrender to me again.

Although she seemed rather intent on shutting me out and pretending I did not exist.

“How is it you can walk in this world without burning to ash? Does the light not affect you here, like it doesn’t in Hell?

” Saphira angled her head, her focus fixed solely on the vampire, but I knew she was aware of me, of how my mood had been darkening drop by drop from the moment she had begun talking with Riordan.

Flirting with him.

“The same reason you just bit his head off. He branded me.” Riordan unbuttoned his black tunic, revealing a dark undershirt, and tugged it off his right shoulder, so it slipped down his muscled arm.

He pulled the sleeve of his undershirt up, exposing toned pale skin that flexed beneath his brand as he moved. “My brand lets me walk in the sun.”

“It does?” Her eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t realise they could do things. I just thought?—”

She looked at me, her gaze colliding with mine as I watched her closely, watched the vampire closely too now that he was flashing his body at my little wolf. A step too far.

“What does mine do?” Her eyes searched mine.

“It allows you to summon me if you are in danger.” I held her gaze, letting her see the truth in it, that the mark wasn’t a brand in the way she thought it, it wasn’t a sign of possession, it was a link between us, a bond that would carry me to her should she ever need me.

“Oh. Well. That’s… sort of nice.” She hit me with a hard look. “But I’m still not forgiving you.”

“Not until I grovel. Yes, yes. I received that message loud and clear.” My gaze flicked to Riordan and I was about to tell him to get dressed again when Saphira turned back to the vampire and set fire to my fury.

By stroking her fingers over the mark on his arm.

“It is sort of pretty, I suppose,” she whispered.

Shadows exploded between them, a wall of darkness that hurled the vampire away from her and gently knocked her backwards. Riordan hit the wall between two bookcases with a grunt. Saphira gasped as her backside met the hard marble floor.

“Enough!” I snarled as I pulled my shadows back under control, fighting to calm myself before I had to pick up the scattered pieces of Riordan from my war room and begin looking for a new third in command.

I levelled a black look on the little wolf as she planted her hands behind her, wide eyes fixed on me and her breathing unsteady.

“Find another to question. You and the vampire are done.”

“What’s Riordan done now?” Jenavyr strolled into the room and stopped as she spotted Riordan picking himself up off the floor and dusting off his tunic and Saphira pushing to her feet.

My sister glared at Riordan as he buttoned his tunic, covering his body, her eyes darker than I had ever seen them as she moved between him and Saphira.

“What in the Great Mother’s name are you up to? ”

“Nothing.” Riordan closed the final button, his motions jerky and filled with the anger reflected in his crimson eyes. “You always leap to the worst conclusion, don’t you?”

“Well, you do have a track record of seducing females,” she snapped and planted her hands on her black-leather-clad hips. “Old habits die the hardest, do they not?”

“This again?” Riordan squared up to her, his jaw flexing as he gritted, “I was feeding. Feeding . A guy needs to eat. That male I was… that isn’t me anymore.

I changed the moment I realised what a fucking idiot I was.

But Kaeleron tells you my sordid history and it sticks.

I could be a fucking nun and you’d still think I was sleeping my way through Falkyr. ”

Vyr refused to back down. “Because your reputation precedes you, vampire. More than one or two pretty females have tales to tell of your charms.”

Saphira wisely edged out of the line of fire, inching closer to the map and me.

Riordan threw his hands up in the air, looking at the vaulted ceiling as if he might find some help there. “Oh, forgive me for needing to blow off some steam from time to time. You’re one to talk, Vyr. Had a nice Beltane, did we?”

“Do. Not. Call. Me. Vyr,” she growled and then pivoted on her heel, storming towards me. “And I did not attend Beltane.”

Riordan stared after her, blue eyes wide, mouth agape.

The first time I had seen him speechless.

I looked between the two of them as Vyr scowled at the map, angrily shuffling the legion markers around the Shadow Court and muttering under her breath, and Riordan stared at her back, looking far too stunned.

Far too pleased.

“And you,” Vyr snarled at me and it seemed my neck was next on the chopping block. “It was wrong of you to brand Saphi without her consent.”

Saphi?

How close were my sister and the little wolf growing?

It didn’t seem like a good thing, given one day her usefulness would end.

But Jenavyr had never had many friends, despite her attempts to befriend various females throughout the years.

The servants had kindly played along with her out of obligation, and the highborn had been more interested in courting my attention, only using her to get closer to me.

She was close to Neve, despised Riordan with a passion, and truly enjoyed Malachi’s company whenever he was at the castle. It was good for her to have another female for company, even if it would not be a permanent situation.

I shrugged at her and said the one thing I knew would distract her from her anger at Riordan. “Oberon brands people without consent all the time.”

“That is not a valid reason to do as you please with someone.” Vyr firmly shook her head, shifting her long black hair across the shoulders of her blue blouse. “Oberon does a lot of things civilised people should not.”

Saphira whispered, “I like Oberon. He seems nice.”

Everyone looked at her.

I arched an eyebrow at her, adding another male to the list of ones I needed to watch more closely around the little wolf.

Riordan howled with laughter.

She shot him a confused look, a mulish twist to her lips as she found herself under scrutiny, and then glared at me, as if I had been the one to laugh at her.

“Oberon is not nice ,” I said as I rounded the map to her side, closing the distance between us so the vampire would stop stealing her attention. “Only the side of him you have seen is nice. The other side… I would not cross him.”

She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. “He seemed so charming.”

“Charming, eh?” I looked at her, watching the colour climb her cheeks. “More charming than I am?”

She laughed this time. “Good gods. No. When have you ever been charming? It goes Oberon, Riordan, and then you’re somewhere down here.”

She held her hand at head height for Oberon, lowered it to level with her breasts for Riordan, and then bent over and waved her hand close to her ankles for me.

Vyr stifled a snicker.

I silenced her with a look.

“Most charming male in the Shadow Court. I’ll take that.” Riordan grinned.

“I have met lich with more charm than you,” my sister shot back.

And the two of them were in each other’s faces again, exchanging verbal salvos.

I tuned them out as I returned to studying the latest troop movements in the other courts, comparing their positions to the reports I had received from the people I had concealed within them and shifting the markers if they had been moved to another location.

Saphira watched my every move, but I had the feeling her attention was elsewhere and she was only pretending to be interested in what I was doing.

Jenavyr stormed out of the room, Riordan hot on her heels, and Saphira watched them go, her gaze lingering on the door long after they had exited through it.

I studied the closed door and then glanced down at her, seeking any trace of desire in her eyes or in her scent, the darkness that prowled in my veins whispering that she wanted the vampire and that was the reason she was gazing after him.

And growled at her.

“What is wrong?”