Page 114 of The Wolf King

Callum.

He’s home.

I pull on a dress, then run out of my chambers.

Chapter Forty

Isit on the edge of Callum’s four-poster bed and wait.

All my life, it seems, I have been waiting for something. Waiting to be dismissed by my father, waiting to be wed to the highest bidder, waiting to be seen. To be heard.

To be used.

To befree.

I have been waiting for Callum, now, for days.

I am tired of waiting.

Since he’s been gone, something wild and ugly has sprouted in my chest and grown thorns.

I knew he would need to leave at some point, but he left without saying goodbye. He kissed me then abandoned me. He left me to the Wolves.

What’s more, he left to retrieve the Wolf King, who will either trade me for the Heart of the Moon in the coming days or realize I’m of no value to him, and execute me. What is to be my fate, now he is here?

It’s always been part of my plan to be sent back to my people. I wanted to make a trade of my own with my father; information on the Wolves, and the Wolf King himself, in exchange for my freedom. I have plenty of that now.

The more time I’ve spent with Callum the harder I’ve realized that will be. I do not want to betray him. In fact, I’d started to wonder whether I wanted to leave him at all.

I wonder now if I have been foolish, and misinterpreted his affections like a naïve princess with a silly crush.

I am envious of the Northlands winds that rattle the window and howl against the stone walls. How good it would feel to unleash that rage with no thought to the consequences.

My muscles tighten when footsteps approach the door. It bursts open, and my breath catches in my throat.

Callum stands in the doorway, and he looks every bit the fierce warrior I feared he was when I first met him.

He is covered in dirt and blood and gore. His shirt is drenched in it and sticks to his muscular torso and chest. There’s mud smeared across his face, and it has dried in his hair, slicking it back from his forehead.

His breathing is fast and agitated, but when he sees me, a broad grin spreads across his face. It is infectious. I have to fight the twitch at the corner of my lip.

“There you are!” he says. “I was worried when you weren’t in your chambers and I found this.”

He lifts up his collar, and the red stone glints in the firelight.

“I ... where did you find that?”

His forehead furrows. “It was beside your bed.”

I grit my teeth as he shuts the door and places it on the small table by his armchair. Isla must have slipped into my chambers when I came down here.

He turns and looks at me, his brow creasing. “Is something the matter?”

I let out a laugh—sharp like splintered glass—and his frown deepens.

“You’ve been gone for days, Callum, and you’re truly going to ask me that? Have you forgotten I am the princess of your enemy kingdom? That our people are at war? That your people despise me?”

That you left me alone after the moment we shared.

---