Page 58 of The Wolf King

Perhaps I’ll try them another day.

Instead, I select a simple brown dress that should make me look non-threatening, and put it on.

I’m pulling my fingers through my hair when someone taps against the door.

My breath hitches because I know who it will be.

“Can I come in, Princess?” asks Callum.

When I open the door, he’s wearing the same clothes as last night. A couple of the top buttons of his cream linen shirt are undone, and the sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. His jaw is shadowed with stubble, and I wonder if he slept.

His eyes are still bright, though.

“You look nice,” he says.

Compliments seem to come so easily to him, and they seem sincere. It is unnerving.

I walk toward the window so that he can’t see my smile. “Thank you.”

The sky is full of grey clouds, and rain ricochets off the loch. The scenery, and the weather, is so different to the sun-drenched city beyond the Southlands palace walls.

Callum comes to stand behind me and his scorching body heat burns into my back.

“Miserable day, isn’t it?” he says. “It rains a lot up here. I don’t suppose you’re used to such weather down in the south?”

“Have you ever been? To the south? Beyond the Boderlands, I mean.”

“Everything’s south when you’re from Highfell.” I hear the smile in his voice. “Aye, I visited King’s City once. About... hm... must have been five years ago.”

“To cause trouble, I presume?”

He laughs. “No. I was looking for someone. I thought she might be there.”

A strange feeling surges through my body. “You were looking for a lover?”

“A lover? No.” He sighs. “I was looking for my mother.”

I glance up at him. He’s staring out of the window, a pensive look on his face. Something softens inside me.

“Why would she be in the Southlands?”

He chews his bottom lip. “She went missing one night. My father thought she was taken by humans. She was presumed dead. But...” He shakes his head. “I never bought it. I think she ran away.”

My eyebrows knit together. “Why would she do that?”

Callum swallows. “My father was... he was a difficult man.”

“Oh,” I say, softly. “Did you find her?”

He offers me a sad smile. “No.”

A long silence stretches between us as we both stare out of the window. The trees beyond the loch whisper in the breeze, and there are no people in sight.

Again, peace washes over me.

Until Callum sighs.

“So, about this condition I have for you staying in here...” he says.

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