Page 61 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

This Lucas had broken some kind of cardinal rule by betraying her.

Not by betraying his parents, but by betraying her.

Loyal and gentle little wolf. But a fool to trust so easily.

Not a fool perhaps, but too innocent to know better, sheltered by kind and loving people and led to believe all were like them.

The male’s betrayal must have been a great shock to her.

A blow that had cut deeply enough to leave a scar.

“Using wit to defeat another, playing such games, has a place and a purpose, but a battle between kings or a fight to overthrow a current king and take their throne, should be a battle carried out with honour. Face to face. The wolf is spineless. Weak. He will find his end sooner rather than later.” A vow.

I made those words a vow, a veiled one but a vow nonetheless.

When my vengeance was done, I would find this Lucas and I would end him.

For Saphira.

She snorted. “He might be a bastard with no morals, but he has a strength that serves him well. He’s good at manipulating those around him into doing what he wants and as long as that gift continues, he will be safe, protected, and a force no sane wolf would dare face.”

“I am not a wolf, and there is no place where this male can hide that I will not find him.” I lifted my hands to her face, framing it in my palms, and stared down into her wide, bewitching blue eyes as everything dark within me writhed and snarled, baying for blood and death.

“Say the word, Saphira, and the wolf is as good as dead.”

Those bewitching eyes widened.

A trace of excitement in them.

For a heartbeat, I could see a shadow of darkness within her, a tendril of night that echoed the hungers within me, a vicious and cold need for vengeance. For destruction. For death.

And then it was gone.

She tore her gaze from mine and stepped back, slipping from my grip, and wrapped her arms around herself as she looked at the castle, a flicker of regret crossing her features.

Shadows writhed at my feet, hungry to find the wolf and kill him, to tear him apart piece by piece and gift her with them, but I tamped down that urge, aware that Saphira would not appreciate it.

She was no killer. She was kind and gentle, or at least believed herself only capable of light and warmth, but twice now I had seen her darker side, had seen the wolf beneath her innocent exterior.

A vicious and violent beast that wanted blood.

I had stolen her revenge on Elanaluvyr from her and she had looked ready to fight me.

How badly did she crave vengeance against Lucas?

How deeply had the wolf harmed her?

I would find out the answer to the latter, and would mould her into a weapon fit to carry out the former. Now she had tasted what it was like to lose your revenge to another, she would only crave it more.

Just as I did.

“You still haven’t taken me to your library,” she murmured, voice distant, as if she was afraid to bring up my failure to carry out my promise to let her use it, or perhaps she was just lost in her thoughts and looking for a distraction from them.

I ushered her towards the castle, letting her walk in brooding silence beside me, aware she needed the quiet and the space to think. So like me in many ways. Whenever I craved silence and peace so I could plot my revenge, I went to my sanctuary.

Saphira had no such place, so I would grant her one.

The library.

I led her up to the fourth floor, to a corner of the castle few visited and one of the largest rooms on the floor, and watched her closely as I leaned past her and twisted the knob, my back to the wall and my shoulder against the wooden panels of the door.

I eased it open, savouring how her eyes slowly widened as the library was revealed to her and I cast a simple spell, one that had the lamps in the spacious room lighting one by one.

She slowly stepped into the room, eyes dancing over the three levels of black wooden shelves packed with books and accented with brass fittings that encircled a main sitting area, up to the glass dome above that open area that allowed light to flood the room during the day and revealed the endless stars at night.

I leaned against the doorframe, gaze tracking her as she moved deeper into the room, the fascination painted across her face a beautiful thing to behold.

Until she turned a confused look on me.

“What?” My eyebrows dipped low, because I knew that look, that teasing edge to her eyes.

“Do you have a brother I don’t know about?”

I locked up tight, heart seizing as I thought about my brother, and her expression softened as she noticed my reaction, her hands coming up and an apology dancing in her eyes, but I shook my head, dislodging the pain and subduing the shadows that twined around my legs and my shoulders, because I knew she had not meant to wound me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her brow furrowing as she inched a step closer to me. “I was going to make this whole joke about the library and I forgot… I can’t believe I forgot.”

Vyr had told her.

I stared at her as that sank in, as she held my gaze, hers softer than I had ever seen it, all of that tenderness directed at me.

“My brother is not dead,” I said, voice hollow and distant to my own ears.

“But Vyr said?—”

“My sister believes he is gone. I know he is not. Seelie took him. I am sure of it.” I shifted my gaze to the stone fireplace behind her, at the other end of the open area, and summoned a little magic, enough to spark a flame that rapidly, hungrily engulfed the dry wood in the hearth.

I forced a smile and purged the darkness from my heart just as that fire purged it from the room, not wanting this moment marred by it all.

“That is a conversation for another time. I believe you were making a joke?”

She didn’t look sure if she should continue, so I waved her on, my smile gaining genuine warmth as I waited.

“You asked if I had a brother.” I willed her to take the bait, needing the moment of lightness to illuminate the darker reaches of my heart as I looked at her standing in a library my brother would have loved. He had always been the more bookish of the two of us. “I answer ‘no’.”

Not right now, at least. I would have a brother again soon.

“Um.” She tripped over the words. “Then… perhaps your… sister… loves to read?”

I frowned. “Also no. She despises books. What are you playing at?”

A little smile was my reward for playing along, acting the role of the gruff king she had assigned me in this little farce of hers.

“I’m trying to figure out why there are so many books. A family collection perhaps? Or a public library?”

I genuinely frowned at her now, as I realised where she was going with her teasing. “A private collection.”

“Whose?”

“Mine,” I snarled.

“But there’s so many books.” She took them all in, surprise colouring her eyes and her mouth gaping open, and then sized me up.

I folded my arms across my chest. “You make me sound like some kind of heathen.”

“You’re not?” Her eyebrows shot up and then she smirked. “I thought you were.”

“I have read most of them.” I smirked right back at her when she gawped at the numerous shelves and the thousands of books they held.

“How old are you?” She blinked at me.

I sighed.

I knew exactly where this was going.

“I’m just saying, as a king you must be very busy, yet you’ve read all these books! Or you’re not a very good king and neglect your duties in favour of reading.” Her smile grew teasing and a little wicked.

As did mine as I closed in on her.

“I am a very good king,” I purred. “Exceptionally skilled. Very attentive. Able to anticipate what my people need. Willing to give it to them. But then I thought you were aware of that, since you had first-hand experience.”

A blush climbed her cheeks as she backed away from me, and her eyes widened as her back met one of the bookcases.

I leaned in close, bringing my lips down to her ear as I caged her with my body.

“Perhaps you have forgotten how skilled and attentive I am,” I murmured against her skin, eliciting a shiver that I felt and savoured as her breath caught. “I am more than happy to remind you. You only have to ask, little wolf.”

“Kaeleron,” she whispered, my name a balm on her sweet lips but a shock that leaped along my bones too, sizzling like lightning through my veins, and angled her face towards me, bringing her lips closer to mine.

My breath caught.

The world narrowed down to her.

To those lips.

So close to mine.

I shifted my head slightly, a fraction closer, aching to know the taste of her lips.

“Kaeleron,” she murmured again, setting fire to my blood.

No female had ever uttered my name with such need.

“Yes, Saphira?” I traced my lips across her cheek, heading for her mouth.

“I want…” She placed her hands on my chest, over my thundering heart, “…to read now.”

She shoved me backwards.

I growled and she smirked.

“Wicked little thing,” I rumbled, watching her cheeks catch aflame to betray her true desire as I stared down into her eyes.

The one she had been too afraid to voice.

I bowed mockingly and lifted my gaze to lock with hers as I straightened, snaring her.

“Very well. Read all you like. I have business to attend to anyway. Unlike some believe, I am rather busy.” Not busy enough that I would not have blown it all off had she wanted me here, in the library.

No, I would have indulged her just to see her shatter, to see her come apart in my arms, breaking for only me.

“But as payment for your wickedness, I order you to join me for dinner…”

I faded into the shadows, relishing how she shivered as I disappeared from view, that flicker of heat still in her eyes.

“Where you will sit on my lap and tell me all you learned.”