For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten (freda ebook reader .txt) 📕

could barely keep the accusing edge from her voice. Here was her sister, whom she loved down to her bones, but the air between them was thick with secrecy and things misunderstood. “How did you weaken the Wilderwood so I could . . .” She couldn’t finish it. Escape wouldn’t hold its shape on her tongue.

Neve’s dark eyes flickered up from her pale, knotted hands, a line between her brows. Like Kiri before, her gaze was searching. As if she was looking for something in Red, some abnormality hiding just out of sight.

The moment passed. Neve blinked, and the calculating light in her eyes went out, replaced instead by relief. “It doesn’t matter.” A smile, more brilliant for how pale and wan she looked otherwise. “You’re here now. Whatever else we have to do to make sure you’re safe, we’ll do it.”

Red shifted nervously.

Neve put a reassuring hand on her knee, mistaking the reason for her discomfort. “There’s no need for worry, Red. The Wolf can’t reach you here, and we’ll root out the rest—”

“I’m not staying.” It came out sharp, and she knew she should’ve swallowed it the moment it left her mouth. But there was so little truth between them, it was almost unbearable.

Maybe her own honesty could wrench some from her sister.

Neve’s brow knit, uncomprehending. “If you’d rather go to one of the other holdings, I can arrange that, too. I understand not wanting to be in the capital.”

“No.” Red winced. This could only sound graceless. “Neve, I . . . I’m going back to the Wilderwood.”

Disbelief fell like a shadow, dimming Neve’s eyes. “What?”

Red didn’t know where to go from there, how much to safely share, and she hated it. “I came back because I wanted to see you. Because . . . because I wanted to know what you were doing.” She didn’t say because she wanted to stop it, unsure if she could admit that or not, unsure what Neve might do. “But I want to go back. Eammon—”

“Eammon?”

“The Wolf. His name is Eammon. Gaya and Ciaran’s son.” A pause, a deep breath. “Neve, so much is different than—”

“Stop.” Quiet, but with enough gravitas behind it that Red’s teeth clicked shut. Neve’s hand was up in the air between them, a slight tremble in her fingers. She took a deep breath of her own, let it out with her eyes closed. “You’re on good terms, then. Good terms with the Wolf. Good terms with the Wilderwood.”

The cold in her voice sent heat to Red’s cheeks, an inverse reaction. She reeled truth back into her mouth; it was obvious Neve didn’t want to hear it right now. “You could say that,” she murmured, nervously tugging at the hem of her cloak.

The movement drew Neve’s eye. For the first time, her twin took stock of the cloak, mouth drawing tighter. “That isn’t the one you left with.”

The embroidery pressed against Red’s skin, grounding. “Not technically, no.”

Silence, silence, a well of it they couldn’t fill. Then Neve’s voice, tremulous: “What have you done, Red?”

She’d asked herself the question, more than once. She’d married the Wolf of the Wilderwood. It was a massive, frightening thing, and one she’d do again in a heartbeat.

“Nothing I didn’t want to,” she answered quietly.

Her sister’s hands knotted tighter, knuckles blanched white. Across the room, the ornate mirror shone them back at themselves. Golden and dark, reflections of each other.

Neve’s eyes pressed closed. “Don’t worry.” It was a murmur, a reassurance for herself as much as for Red. “We expected . . . not this, but something. We’ll fix it.”

“What do you mean?”

But whatever answer Neve might’ve given was interrupted by the opening door.

Servants pushed in a dinner cart to Neve’s forgotten sitting room, enough food for five people with place settings for three. They were in and out in silence, staring wide-eyed at Red’s cloak, avoiding her face. As they left, a lone figure filled the doorframe.

“The prodigal returns,” Arick said.

He stood straighter, was a trifle thinner. He’d taken to wearing his hair differently in the time she’d been gone, curling long over his collar. Red stood, though her legs felt stiff, forcing a smile and pushing Neve’s strange behavior aside, something to be dealt with later. “Hello, Arick.”

Smiling, he pushed off from the doorframe, met Red in the center of the room, and folded her in his arms. The embrace felt oddly clinical, so unlike what they’d shared before. Arick smelled different, too. Maybe he’d switched cigars, or his valet had stopped packing mint leaves in his pockets. She couldn’t name this new scent, only that it was cold.

“You look well, Red.” Arick’s hands rested on her shoulders, and the part of her that remembered the alcove wanted to squirm away. Gloaming light through the window dimmed the edges of things, but she didn’t miss the searching way his eyes flickered over hers. “Or should I call you Lady Wolf? That’s the title you gave Noruscan, I heard.”

Neve made no sound behind her, but Red still glanced over her shoulder, like the jolt through Neve’s spine rattled hers, too. Her twin froze for half a moment before going to her sitting room, sinking to the couch.

“Just Red is fine,” Red murmured.

The corner of Arick’s smile sharpened. He released her shoulders and crossed the room to stand next to Neve. She visibly relaxed at his presence. One hand feathered over her forearm, a light, reassuring touch.

Tentatively, Red took the seat across from them. “Is Raffe joining us?”

The name made Neve stiffen. “No.”

“Raffe returned to Meducia.” Arick opened a pot on the cart. His eyes flashed as he glanced at Red, and for a moment, they didn’t look green. “Pheasant, Red. Your favorite.”

The scent made her stomach growl. It’d been a long time since breakfast in the Keep. “Seems a strange time for him to leave.”

She couldn’t imagine Raffe abandoning Neve so soon after her coronation. Not when every line of her frame spoke of struggling, not when their feelings were so clear.