Page 82 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

KAELERON

M alachi checked his weapons, a tower of black leather and muscle, the silver blades glinting in the warm torchlight in the great hall as he cleaned and sheathed them against his ribs one by one.

“I still wonder whether it was wise to teach the wolf to fight when you did not know what she might be. For all Neve can see, she might be your future enemy, and now you have made her stronger.”

We had been going over this argument for the last fifteen minutes, since I had mentioned resuming my training of Saphira once we returned from the Wastes, a way of smoothing things over with the little wolf and hopefully taking the edge off the mood that would no doubt hit her the moment she realised I had gone ahead and left for the Wastes with Malachi instead of her.

“If we are meant to fight one day, I will deal with it when it happens, but I was not going to leave her unable to defend herself when there was something I could do about it.” I tucked rolls of gauze into the leather satchel and two vials of liquid the physicians had prepared for us—one to speed healing, the other to reverse any poison that hit us.

A third vial followed it, this one gifted to me by my royal necromancers, an elixir that would remove any necrotic effects should the lich we were due to fight manage to hit us with any of his dark spells.

“You could have locked her away again.” Malachi did not even glance my way as he said that, his words as cold and carefully crafted as the steel he carried.

I pushed my hair back and neatened the top half, the black leather of my light armour creaking as I retied it, aware where this was going. “She was in the cell for barely a few days, until I had made sure it was safe to allow her out.”

Mal grunted, “Until Vyr wore you down.”

I did not deign that with a response.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and the scent of rain covered the subtler smells in the castle as the temperature dropped a few degrees.

“Neve believes you should take Saphira.” Malachi tossed a change of clothes into his own pack.

“Has she recruited you to her side too now?” First it had been Saphira, and then my sister had been intent on bringing up what Neve had seen, and now Malachi was going to push me in a direction I did not want to take—one I had considered just this morning, when Neve had told me bluntly that my vengeance would fail without Saphira at my side.

Lightning struck in the mountains, the thunder echoing around them, rattling the castle, and the sound of heavy rain reached us even in the heart of it.

A summer storm.

That bad feeling that had been nagging at my gut all day grew stronger, but I continued to shove things in my pack, ignoring it. I would not take Saphira to the Wastes. It was far too dangerous.

Malachi straightened and looked towards the entrance to the great hall as footsteps sounded. Hurried footsteps.

A guard halted at the threshold, his black armour dripping water all over the floor as he pressed his hand to his chest and his words fell like a death knell.

“My king, there is a visitor at the gatehouse.”

A traveller.

I stilled right down to my breathing as thunder rattled the windows again, as I stared beyond the guard to the end of the long hallway and the rain that pelted Falkyr so hard that it was like a mist, obscuring everything from view.

A traveller in a summer storm.

Malachi looked at me, as tense as I was.

A bad sign.

Millennia ago, a traveller had come to an unseelie court in a summer storm, seeking shelter. That traveller had ended up murdering the king who had offered him refuge.

And now a traveller had entered my court unnoticed, crossing the border into my kingdom unseen and had managed to reach my door.

Dread trickled down my spine beneath my black armour.

“Send him away,” I growled.

The guard hesitated.

“What?” I barked and rested my hand on the hilt of my sword, the unease rippling through me becoming waves that rocked me as he refused to carry out my order.

“My king, the visitor… is wolven.”

My breath left my lungs as they constricted.

As the need to send the male away only increased a hundredfold and I strode for the guard, ready to seize hold of him and shake him until he did as I ordered.

Was it the one who had sold her to me, come to take her back?

Two guards appeared beyond him, a soaked and bedraggled male held between them, his dark checked shirt and black jeans plastered to his muscled frame. Stormy grey eyes locked onto me, narrowing fiercely as his lips compressed.

Grey eyes. Brown hair.

I growled through emerging fangs as I realised who this male was.

Morden.

Saphira’s protector.

The one she had spoken of with light in her eyes and a bright smile, who she had grown angry with me over when I had used past tense for their relationship, accusing me of making it sound as if they would never see each other again.

I held the male’s fierce gaze, unflinching as he broke free of my guards and stormed towards me, his heavy leather boots loud on the marble floor.

It would have been better had it been the wolf who had sold her come to try to take her back.

Then I could have slaughtered him without restraint.

This traveller visiting me in the midst of a summer storm felt more like the blade of fate, come to cut her away from me.

“Where is she?” Morden snarled, baring short fangs, no trace of fear in his scent as he approached me, ignoring the guards’ attempts to block his path.

He shoved them aside, knocking them away from him, snapping fangs in their faces before his unwavering gaze landed back on me.

“Where is she?” he bit out, harder this time, his eyes taking on a hard edge, one laced with disgust as he looked me over, his lip curling. “What have you done to her?”

This male thought me a beast, a monster who would take her against her will and hurt her.

“She is safe, no thanks to you,” I growled back at him, my aim true as the male flinched at the reminder of what had happened to her on his watch and how he had failed to protect her.

I had felt very few things in recent years that were as satisfying as taking this overbearing wolf down a peg or two.

Morden halted a few metres from me, gaze dark and promising death, as if that paltry distance would be any sort of hindrance if I wished to disembowel him.

The wolf had come to a world of monsters without preparing himself, had no doubt rushed in to save his little pack princess without sparing a single moment to discover what kind of creatures lived in this world he now found himself in.

My world.

My court.

“How did you pass through my court unseen?” I growled at him, staring him down as I studied him. I sensed no magic on him, no method of concealing himself, meaning he had traversed my kingdom in the open.

His right eyebrow lifted. “Easily. It’s heavily wooded.

It wasn’t difficult to avoid the locals, and with my wolf sight and hearing, it was a simple matter of listening in from the shadows near a few taverns and inns to find out the name of your capital and then following the signposts at night, when I wouldn’t run into anyone. Any hunter could have done it.”

Hunter.

The male thought to make himself out to be an apex predator when he was in the presence of one far superior to him.

But still, I would dispatch a few of the stronger members of my court to strengthen the barrier magic, reinforcing the detection spells.

I had the feeling that the Silver Court seelie who had crossed the border had tampered with the spells somehow, leaving them open to this wretch before me, and that was the reason he had gone undetected.

“I want to see her. I want to see she’s unharmed.” The wolf stood his ground, back ramrod straight, gaze never straying from me even as my guards formed a line behind him, ready to seize him at my signal.

Malachi casually toyed with one of his knives, a looming shadow at my back.

The wolf was outnumbered, and seriously out of his depth, yet he dared insinuate that I would harm Saphira, risking not only my wrath but that of my men.

“The little wolf is fine. She has no need of your assistance. Return to your pack, wolf.” I tipped my shoulders back as I stared him down, looking down my nose at the bastard as he continued to remain where he was, dripping all over my floor.

Trying to take my little wolf from me.

Lightning flashed crimson behind the wolf, throwing his shadow out long before him, and it writhed as fury curled through my veins, as darkness clouded my mind, whispering how easy it would be to eliminate this fool before he even knew what had hit him. My shadows would make swift work of him.

And then the threat to Saphira would be gone.

But fate was against me.

And the dread pooling in my chest only grew stronger as Saphira strolled into the room through the side door, muttering about the rain as she wrung out her long silver braid.

“I thought I might find you here,” she said. “About An’sidwain?—”

Her eyes widened as they landed on Morden, shock dancing across her beautiful face as she noticed him, followed by something terribly like relief and happiness as her eyes lit up.

And my heart froze solid.

She ran towards the wolf, fracturing the sickeningly fragile thing in my chest.

I stepped forward, almost blocking her path to the male, and she drew up short and looked at me.

“Return to your room,” I said in the fae tongue so the wolf could not understand me and wove magic to make her words come out in the same language, concealing our conversation from him.

“But this is Morden… my protector. The one I told you about. I can’t believe he’s here, that he’s come for me!”

That was a blade in my chest, slipping into the fracture in my heart and twisting to prise it open. “You believe this male has come for you… to take you from me. To save you. Do you feel you need saving?”

She blinked at me and then frowned. “No, of course not.”