Page 101 of The Wolf King

His face is serious, and something in his eyes seems lost. Nervous, even.

He runs a hand over the back of his neck, and releases a long breath.

“I’m so sorry.” His voice is rough. “The way I behaved earlier... I... I want you to know I’d never hurt you. Ever.”

His eyes bore into mine, and in them there is a silent plea that I believe him.

He’s standing so close that I could touch him. Goddess, I want to. Yet neither of us move. His hands remain firmly at his sides, his forearms corded, as though he’s making a concerted effort to show me he can behave like a gentleman.

A shameful part of me doesn’t want him to.

“I know that,” I whisper.

The air feels warm and tight. Stifling. I need to break this tension, somehow, before it breaks me.

“Did you get the message from your king?”

“Aye. He needs my help. I’ll have to ride out in the next couple of days to meet him.”

The tension thickens. I swallow.

I note how the moonlight reflects off his skin. “It’s a little late for a swim, isn’t it?”

He huffs a laugh. “Aye. A wee bit. I had some extra energy I needed to get out of my system.”

I think of the feeling that’s been crackling beneath my skin all evening. I think about what I was about to do before he knocked on the door.

“Did it work?”

His jaw tenses. “Not really.”

“And now you’ve come back.”

“I can’t keep away.”

There’s something so raw in his voice that my stomach jolts.

“I wanted to show you...” Tentatively, he puts his hand on my cheek. “I wanted to show you I can be gentle.”

I feel, again, as if I have swallowed the Northlands winds. That they’re billowing inside me, raging inside my chest, demanding I release them.

I force myself to remain steady, to not reveal the wildness that’s building inside me.

Even though I want that release.

Even though I want to scream and bite and tear into something. Into him. I want the storm that has been building for days—or perhaps since Callum first set foot into my bedchambers during the siege and threw me over his shoulder—to finally break.

From the way he is breathing, I wonder if Callum is containing something too. I’ve seen what he cages inside him—so different to the storm building in my chest, yet just as wild. I touch his chest, so I can feel his heart pounding. I wonder whether the beast within will stir.

“Show me, then,” I say.

His eyebrows raise. He smiles.

He cups my cheek. He brushes his lips against mine. True to his word, he is gentle, restrained.

Yet his kiss unleashes something violent within me.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, Princess—”

---