Page 87 of The Night Prince

Mine.

This is mine.

Blake laughs, and I want to bite him. I’m going to bite him. It’s all I can think about. My teeth ache. Everything aches.

“Settle down, little wolf. I’m not going to take it from you.”

He lets me feel him. The shadows that coil around my soul feel soft, nonthreatening. I taste moonlit forests, and hear ducks in a river. The wild thing inside me settles, and I breathe out slowly. My cheeks heat.

“Wolves guard things that are of high value to them.” He inclines his head at the book. “Keep it. I don’t need it anymore.”

I sense no threat from him. Perhaps this is the wrong book. Perhaps this is another of his games. I relax slightly, and pain flares in my hand. I’m bleeding onto the cover of the book.

Blake pulls his shirt back over his shoulder. He drags out the wooden chair that’s tucked beneath the desk and pats it. “Sit.” When I stand there, breathing hard, my grip tight on the book, he arches his eyebrows. “You’re hurt. Sit down.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re in enemy territory, surrounded by Wolves who will not hesitate to kill you or hand you over to Alexander, and I’m the best healer in the Northlands. Sit down.” I eye him warily. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to take the book. Come on.”

I let out a shaky breath. I put the book on his bed—far enough away from him that he can’t snatch it from my grip. I sit down.

“Good girl,” he says.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Ilift my hand. Hot blood pours down my wrist. There are shards of glass protruding from my palm. From the ease in which Blake gave the book to me, I’m starting to think my means of acquiring it were unnecessary.

Beside me, Blake pulls a leather pack from one of his drawers and unfolds it on the surface of the desk. Outside, the sky is grey over the mountains, and cold sunlight makes his line of scalpels glint. I eye them warily, having read some of the experiments in his books, but he slides out a pair of tweezers. He kneels on the floor between my legs, nudging them apart slightly, and his body heat washes over me.

He holds out his palm. I offer him my bloody hand. A strange feeling hums beneath my skin when he curls his fingers around my wrist.

His gaze flicks to mine. “This may sting a little.”

He grips the largest shard with the tweezers, and pulls. I withhold my cry as he slides it from the wound. I bite my bottomlip. He drops it on the desk and more blood pumps from the wound and coats his fingers.

He starts work on digging out the smaller pieces. It hurts, but he is surprisingly gentle. “Who took you from Lowfell and brought you to James?” he asks.

“Why do you want to know?”

“You know why,” he says. I purse my lips and shake my head. “I’m guessing it was someone from Lochlan’s clan. No one from Lowfell would have done it. Ian, perhaps?” I can’t stop the quickening of my pulse. Blake drops another piece of glass on the desk. “Ian, then.”

“I don’t want you to kill him.”

“Why not?”

I shake my head. “Alexander has his brother. He thought taking me would enable James to get the prisoners back. It doesn’t excuse what he did, but I’d feel bad if he died for it.”

“Would you have put someone in harm’s way for the sake ofyourbrother?”

“My brother is awful. It’s not the same.” I swallow. “You would have done the same for Elsie, wouldn’t you?”

His grips tightens around my wrist. I’ve touched a nerve. He shrugs, and plucks out another piece of glass. “Has it occurred to you that I must kill IanforElsie? For my clan? For little Alfie? For you? I cannot have other Wolves thinking they can stroll into Lowfell and take what is mine.”

“I’m not yours.”

“No. But you’re part of my clan. To Wolves, that means something.”

I bite my bottom lip. “I don’t want another death on my hands.”

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