Page 110 of The Night Prince

“I amnota human, Princess.” Each word is rough and deliberate as he steps closer to me, his furious heat blazing my skin. “I’m a wolf.”

“Right now, you’re acting like a brute.” My tone is harsh, yet some small part of me welcomes his fury as if I’ve been waiting for it. Let us tear into one another and shout and scream so that we can release it. Let him treat me to his wrath, for once, as though I can take it.

A frustrated noise rumbles in his chest. He shakes his head, turning his attention to one of the torches flickering on the wall. “I cannot speak to you when you smell like that.”

He brushes past me and stalks down the corridor toward the stairwell.

“Do not walk away from me, Callum!”

“Have a bath,” he snarls. “I shall deal with you later.”

Indignation rises within me. “Deal with me?!”

“Aye! Deal with you!”

“What is theAnam-Cridech?”I say.

He halts. The muscles in his back shudder. His hand flexes at his side. My stomach lurches at his reaction. Blake was right. Callum knows what it is.

“Where did you hear that word?” he growls.

Coldness spreads through my bones. “What is it, Callum?”

He straightens. He doesn’t turn. “Have a bath. I will talk to you later.”

“No. You will talk to me now—”

“Do not follow me.”

His words power through me and I practically stagger back with the force of them. I feel him inside me—the taste ofmountain air on the back of my tongue. His command grabs the wild thing in my chest and pushes it down.

He is using his alpha voice, his king voice, and trying to force me to submit to him—like when Blake used the Àithne. I’m not sure he knows he’s doing it.

I grab it and push it off me, as easily as I did when Blake tried it. Yet as he storms away, I stand breathless and shaken.

I don’t follow.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Somewhere beneath the castle, Blake is in the dungeons. I don’t know what Callum is doing. Probably strategizing with the alphas because of Alexander’s threat, or cooling down after our fight. I’m angry with them both. Blake burned the pages, and Callum walked away.

At least Blake was about to tell me something. I know I won’t be able to get to him now.

My eyes are heavy as I stare at the paperback I took from Blake’s room. I need to read it, but I fear it.

Blake’s eyes were uncharacteristically sincere as he sat, hunched, on the edge of his bed—his hands clasped, the firelight dancing over his scars and muscles. Perhaps I don’t want to know what he was about to say. Perhaps a thought has been planted in my soul—an explanation for the bond, for what James was trying to demonstrate and Callum’s reaction to it. I want to cull it before its roots grow any deeper.

Callum told me about a wolf thing, once. When I first arrived here and he asked me to wear his collar. It sounded like a bond, of sorts, though he didn’t exactly describe it as such. I glance at the battered paperback book, and wonder if I’ve been searching for answers in the wrong place. Blake has taken two of these books from me. This one was hidden in his drawer, as if to keep it out of my reach.

I nudge the book away. I drop back onto my pillows and pull my hands through my hair. I tug it, welcoming the sting on my scalp. The wind howls against the stone walls, and my mouth aches, and my skin is tight. I chew my finger. I break the skin and tear some off the side of my nail. I sit up. I pick up the book, my blood seeping into the parchment.

I open it, and begin to skim the neatly inked words. It’s a story about a beastly alpha who lives in a castle, and who—in retaliation for a slight made by an alpha from a nearby clan—takes the alpha’s daughter prisoner. Only, as they spend time together, they begin to fall in love.

It’s not until near the end that I come across it. The two Wolves share a bond. It’s namedAnam-Cridech.

My heart pounds in my ears. The words on the page blur. I slam the book shut.

The shadows darken, and I’m underwater, thrashing for air. I kick for the surface, but something has hold of me and it’s pulling me down. The thought that has taken root grows. I cut it back. I wish I could speak to Elsie, but she’s back at Lowfell. I remember something she told me.The old cook here at Lowfell used to pen them.

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