Page 91 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

I stared at Kaeleron as his words rang in my ears, pierced my soul and leaked poison into it.

He was done using me?

My mind raced, images of how he had been since I had awoken layering on top of each other. His icy tone. His distance. But then he had kissed me.

And even that had hollowed out something inside me, leaving me feeling bereft and cold.

I looked at him, reeling and trying to make sense of everything, torn in so many directions by my thoughts that I felt dizzy.

The fragile, frustratingly weak part of me that still nursed the wound Lucas had inflicted on me rose to the fore, stripping my strength from me.

Sowing doubts in my heart. He was done using me?

I stared into his striking silver eyes, trying to see if any of it had been real.

Had it all been a lie?

Had I only been seeing what I wanted to see?

Because I felt something for him.

Because I had foolishly confused my first mating heat with true attraction and desire, with a need for this male rather than anyone.

Apparently, I couldn’t do the emotionless mating heat thing that others in my pack did after all.

I had let my emotions get tangled up in the exchange of pleasure, in the satisfying of my heat, letting myself get carried away and finding meaning in his actions.

But he had kissed me.

Made love to me.

I hadn’t imagined his feelings in that moment in the cave in the Wastes—the feelings I had seen in his eyes and felt in the way he had held me. I hadn’t. I knew it. I knew him. This attraction we shared wasn’t one sided. He wanted me as fiercely as I wanted him.

Felt something for me that was as violent and beautiful as what I felt for him.

Hurt and anger welled within me, mingling with the confusion, and I wanted to yell at him, to lash out at him, but I also wanted to run, or shift, or escape.

Escape seemed like the right word. I wanted to escape because something inside me was breaking as I looked at him, as he stared down at me, eyes as glacial and empty as they had been the day we had met.

I looked at Vyr, but she kept her cheek to me, her gaze downcast. A sign she wouldn’t help me.

She had told me once that her loyalty was to her brother, and it hurt now that she was shutting me out too when I had believed her to be a friend, someone who might talk sense into her brother or at least help me make sense of what was happening.

“Saphi,” Morden breathed behind me, a reminder that I had an ally in this room, someone who had traversed a dangerous world to find me, to take me home.

Home .

Tears pricked my eyes as I looked at the great hall, as I looked at Vyr and then Kaeleron.

This was home.

“There is a waygate just south of the entrance to Falkyr. Guards will escort you there and you will be able to return to your world using it,” Kaeleron said, each word like a dagger in my chest as he made it all the more real.

This was really happening. He was just going to discard me now he had what he wanted.

“Your debt is paid. You are free to leave.”

He was sending me away. Done with me.

But I wasn’t done with him.

“What about Neve’s visions?” I curled my hands into fists and steeled my heart.

“I have An’sidwain,” he countered.

“She saw more than that.” I growled at him, sure that she had and wishing I had asked more about the visions she had seen now, so I would have ammunition to use against him and stop him from doing this. “I haven’t paid you back anywhere near what I owe you.”

The bastard held his right hand aloft and the contract I had signed in my own blood appeared in it.

When he tore it in two, I felt as if he was ripping apart my heart.

“Your debt is paid. You saved my life in the Wastes.” He held my gaze, his silver eyes still cold, the mask firmly in place.

“Bullshit. That skeleton wouldn’t have dented your armour before you destroyed it,” I snapped at him and then shook my head, my voice softening as I whispered, “Bullshit.”

“Your debt is paid,” he repeated.

I wasn’t buying any of this.

I might have massively underestimated my ability to keep emotions out of my mating heat and the time I spent with him, but I hadn’t been wrong about his feelings. I hadn’t been wrong about this attraction between us that had only grown in the last few days. It was real. It was fierce.

He had just kissed me, and he hadn’t done it as a show of possession for Morden’s sake because he was kicking me out of his court, setting me free and placing me in Morden’s hands.

Or had he?

Ice tumbled down my spine as it hit me.

I hadn’t underestimated his feelings at all. I hadn’t been wrong about them.

They were the reason he was sending me away.

That kiss had been a goodbye, but also a message to Morden that I was his.

War was at his borders, at the very borders he had closed with a magical barrier when he had lost his parents and brother, sealing them in the same way he had closed off his heart.

To protect it. I had been wounded in the Wastes, beyond the safety of that magical barrier, and it had changed something within him.

And I was now a liability.

Or something to be protected.

I looked him right in the eyes, staring deep into them, trying to penetrate the cold mask of indifference.

A shimmer of regret crossed his silver gaze, there and gone in the blink of an eye, a flicker of unspoken things that echoed inside me too and made me want to stand up to him, because I knew he was pushing me away on purpose, deliberately being a cold bastard so I would leave his court and return to my world, far from the danger of the war brewing here.

He knew if he shoved me away, if he rejected me and prodded that lingering wound that still pained me, that I would run.

Just as he wanted.

And maybe the old Saphira would have fled with her tail tucked between her legs, with her head bowed and tears in her eyes, pitying herself and withdrawing from the fight.

I would have broken down, and might have even begged or pleaded, desperately hoping I could convince him to change his mind or come with me to help me.

But I wasn’t that weak little lamb anymore.

He had made me strong. He had made me a fighter.

And that strength he had seen in me rose to the fore as I stared him down, unflinching as his cold gaze penetrated my heart.

A heart that beat strong and steady, defiant and ready to go to war for what I wanted.

Him.

When I had first found myself in the Shadow Court, I had wanted my freedom.

But now?

I wasn’t the winner in this game we had been playing from the moment he had bought me. Gaining my freedom didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like a punishment.

One I was going to return to him tenfold.

“Send me away all you want,” I growled as I stormed towards him. “But know that we’re not done.”

I strode up the steps of the dais to him.

Grabbed him by his nape and looked him right in the eye.

“This isn’t over. We’re not over. We’re only just beginning and once I’ve dealt with my asshole fated mate, once I’ve saved my pack, I’m coming back here and it’s going to take a lot more than a ring and a dagger to win me back.”

I kissed him. Hard.

With all my fury.

With all my growing love for him.

And just as he softened and began to kiss me back, I broke contact and stepped back from him, satisfied this moment would torment him and keep me in his mind while we were apart.

“When I return, and I will return,” I growled, holding his silver gaze, catching the glimmer of shock in it, and need, “you’re going to have to do some real grovelling to win me back. On your knees.”

I backed away from him, not hiding how angry I was about what he was doing. I stared at him the whole time, making him see it.

Making sure that he knew.

My words had been no idle threat.

They were a vow.

As unbreakable as his brand on my chest.

I was going to do what he wanted.

I was going to leave and return to my pack, to my world, because I was needed there, just as he was needed here.

We both had a war to fight. It was time I showed my pack just how strong I had become, just how strong I had always been beneath the surface, using what Kaeleron had seen in me and honed with his training to save them from Lucas.

To end my fated mate.

I turned on my heel, a wolf on a mission as my hand came to rest on the hilt of my dagger and I stormed away from Kaeleron, his gaze a fierce caress down my spine.

But after my vengeance was done, I would find my way back here.

To Lucia.

To Kaeleron.

To this place that felt like home in a way my pack lands never had.

And I was going to make him mine.