Page 60 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

I lengthened my stride to keep up with her, closing the distance between us. “You were the one who insisted I beg forgiveness on my knees. If anyone is responsible for the mental images I now have of us, it is you. I merely indulge them, taking pleasure where I can.”

Her eyes flicked to me and back to the path, and the colour on her cheeks deepened, a delightful blush that made me want to trail the backs of my fingers down her soft skin to feel the heat of it.

“I’m still waiting for that apology.” She touched the spot on her chest where I had given her my brand, drawing my gaze there and then lower as her hand fell to her breast.

“And I will gladly give it one day, in a form that might please you.” I licked my lips, gaze fixed on her breasts.

She rolled her eyes and folded her arms over them. “Nothing you do pleases me.”

I chuckled, the sound slipping out before I could stop it, and she gaped at me.

So I scowled at her and swept my left hand forwards, summoning shadows to sweep her along.

They twined around her limbs and cupped her backside, the sensations relayed to me as if it were my own hands touching her.

She fought them every step of the way to the gazebo, hands slapping at the tendrils of night, her beautiful face set in a black snarl as she bared fangs.

When we reached the gazebo, I released her and she was quick to hurry away from my shadows as I withdrew them, pulling them to me. She strode to the wall that embraced the garden and leaned against it, staring first at the waterfalls that thundered into the bay below and then out to sea.

Ships bobbed on the gentle waves, slowly making their way towards the port, while others anchored out at sea.

“Why don’t they enter the port?” She frowned at them, her lips pursed. “The only vessels I ever see in the harbour fly your flag.”

She absently touched the brand on her chest again, one that also bore my court’s seal.

“Because no outside ship is allowed to dock here. Any goods they bring to my shores must be handed over at sea, beyond the boundary of the Shadow Court.” I watched as one of my ships met one from the Night Court at sea, the two boats bobbing in unison as they were lashed together so the goods could be transported between the two.

“Why?”

“Such a curious little lamb.” I smirked at her.

She huffed. “ Wolf . And you said I could ask any questions I wanted. You gave me permission to question people of this court about things that happened here and how they came to be here, remember?”

“I did not expect you to be interrogating me, but I will answer your questions. They must meet at sea to trade goods because the Shadow Court borders are closed and have been for many years now. No one from outside my court is allowed to enter it, whether that is on foot or by sea.” I charted the course of another two ships, neither of which looked as if they were making their way towards Falkyr.

One bore the dragon flag of the Stygian Isles and had been built for war.

The other was a small merchant vessel bearing the flag of the Forsaken Court, most likely heading back from a trading mission with the Winter Court to the north.

“You make this place sound like a cage,” Saphira murmured, her focus fixed on the two boats trading goods just beyond the border of my court.

“Not a cage. Merely protected, and with good reason.”

She leaned further forward, folded her arms across the top of the wall and rested her chin on them. “As someone who spent a great deal of her life ‘protected’, I can say with good authority that’s a cage.”

I turned my back to the sea and studied her instead, watching the subtle changes in her expression as dark clouds gathered in her eyes. “I do not expect you to understand my reasons, but this is my court to rule, and I shall rule it as I see fit.”

“Until a more rabid wolf comes along.” Her blue eyes darted up to me and then back to the ocean, a sombre edge to them as she sighed.

“I don’t have first-hand experience of a lot of things.

I’m first to admit my life has been sheltered…

but rabid wolves, as you put it, aren’t the only ones who differ in strength.

Alphas do too, and sometimes one is foolish enough to let that power go to his head. ”

I frowned down at her, my hands coming to rest against the stones on either side of my hips as she watched the sea with a sorrowful edge to her expression. “You speak of someone you know?”

She shook her head, her silver-white hair brushing her shoulders, the soft strands loosening from her braid to catch on her blouse. “I never knew him. I only know of him. My uncle. He challenged the alpha of the neighbouring pack in an attempt to take control of it and seize more power.”

“Sounds much like court politics to me,” I murmured, my mind on the way several courts had ended up with a new king in the last few decades, usurped from within by another member of their family or from without by another bloodline with royal ties.

But internal battles were not the only way courts changed hands.

“It is not uncommon for one king to challenge another in this world. What happened to him?”

“He paid the price for his actions.” Her gaze lowered. “He was executed and my cousin, Chase, was left without a father, and Morden lost his father and brother, and my pack ended up without an alpha. The mantle passed to my father.”

I mulled over what she had said, filing away the information about the one called Chase and marking down this new name, Morden, in my mental roster of people I wanted to know more about. I would task Vyr with discovering more about this new male.

Saphira stared at the sea, a trace of fascination in her expression, layered with sorrow and a hint of hurt that had me closing ranks with her, edging nearer against my will, some powerful part of me demanding I be closer to her.

“I think our worlds are more alike than I could have imagined.” The hurt gained a foothold in her eyes, beginning to overpower the fascination directed at the ocean and the sorrow for her uncle and family.

“You have courts. We have packs. You play at civility while plotting murder. We employ deception and outright lies to get what we want.”

I grew increasingly still as she spoke, each word that left her lips cranking the tension within my body higher and higher, and not because she talked of the unseelie as if we were dark and cruel things.

“Who in your court—your pack—acted in such a manner?” My voice had never sounded so cold, so dark, as I stared down at her, heart pounding like a war drum that demanded blood and vengeance, because she might not have said the words, but she had said enough for me to know someone had gravely wounded her with deception and lies, and they had taken what they had wanted with them.

That little crease between her fine eyebrows formed again as she twisted towards me, her gaze lifting to lock with mine, no trace of fear in it as she faced me even when I knew my wrath, my dark desire to harm the one who had harmed her, was written all over my face.

“Not my pack. He was never my pack, and I was never to be part of his, apparently.” Though she kept her voice steady and full of malice, it came dangerously close to breaking as pain surfaced in her eyes.

Pain I recognised.

I had seen it in her eyes when she had been in that cage.

When she had been in my dungeon.

Only in the last few weeks had that pain disappeared.

And now it had returned.

And I growled low as I realised why.

“You speak of the wolf who sold you.”

She swallowed hard and averted her gaze, that pain so fierce in it that tears lined her lashes and she angled her face away from me, as if she was ashamed I had seen them, and perhaps angry too—but not at me. At herself. Because she was letting this pain rule her.

As I had let my pain rule me all those years ago.

“What did he do?” My voice pitched low, a vicious snarl as I took hold of her arms and twisted her towards me, needing to see her face as I asked that because I knew she would try to evade the question if I let her withdraw and I wanted answers.

I wanted to see the truth in her eyes.

They leaped to mine, the tears in them ripping at my soul, shredding my control so rapidly I did not have a chance to hold my shadows at bay.

They whipped from me, but rather than lashing at the world in a fit of rage, they swirled around her in an embrace some buried part of me hoped gave her comfort.

Because those eyes, so haunted and distant, revealed how much this male had wounded her, and how that pain continued to fester within her. Even now, far beyond his reach, the wolf still had influence over her.

Invisible bonds I could not shatter.

“Saphira,” I whispered, urging her to answer me, and silently demanding she grant me permission to hunt this wolf for her, to end him as I should have the night he had dared to sell such a spirited, beautiful female.

“I believed the lies… that his parents had been killed in an accident in the mountains. I grieved for him. My heart broke for him. But that accident that placed him in power as alpha was no accident at all and I learned it that night… Lucas killed them while their backs were turned.” Tears slipped down her pale cheeks as she turned her profile to me, her voice whisper-soft as she stared out to sea and gripped the wall, as if she needed to anchor herself. “I wasn’t the first he betrayed.”

My claws dug into my palms and I squeezed my fists, relishing the pain as I drew blood.

The sharp edge to her voice, the twist of her expression as she spoke of betrayal, and the pain that glittered in her eyes spoke to me, revealing something new about her that felt vital, a warning I needed to heed and in a way had failed to already.

She abhorred betrayal.