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

His fingers closed over hers, cutting her off. She tried to pull away, knowing his intention, but warmth and golden light flared before she could. Eammon growled through gritted teeth as cuts opened on one hand, but he didn’t pause, reaching for the other. A pop, and her bones righted even as his broke over them, the shift sharp against her skin.

Red flinched. She looked at Eammon expecting changes, new height or the whites of his eyes completely taken by green. But other than a faint blush of emerald along Eammon’s veins, nothing happened. The bark braceleting his wrists remained, and the green-threaded veins around amber irises, but the Wilderwood wrought no more changes in him.

She’d taken half the roots, rebalanced the scales. Made him closer to man than forest.

His eyes widened, locked on hers. Then they closed, his jaw tightening against the pain he’d taken.

“Self-martyring bastard,” she whispered.

A low grunt was his only reply. Eammon went to the desk with its scattered paper, rummaging for a bandage with his bleeding hand. When he found one, he turned his attention to his broken fingers. Red turned her head and closed her eyes, not wanting to see him set the bones. Another low, strained growl, another pop that made her wince.

When she looked back, both his hands were wrapped. He spoke to them rather than her. “You shouldn’t have done this. Without the roots, the Wilderwood would’ve let you go.”

“And it would’ve taken you.” The image of him half subsumed in forest was as easy to recall as a recent nightmare. “It needs two, Eammon. You can’t carry it all alone, not forever. I couldn’t leave you to—”

“You should’ve left me to rot.” Eammon did look up then, eyes fierce. “You know what happens.” His voice was hoarse, the last word barely sound. He turned away on it, like he didn’t want her to see him break.

“It won’t happen this time.” She knew it, knew it as sure as she knew the shape of his mouth. “This time it’s different. I chose to take them, knowing the consequences.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.” Gently, she stood from the bed, crossing the room to stand behind him. They didn’t touch, and he didn’t turn, but every line of him attuned to every line of her. “Eammon, I took the roots because I lo—”

“Don’t.” A whisper, low and rough. “Don’t.”

Her lips pressed together, closing the confession behind them.

They stood silent. Eammon’s jaw trembled with the effort of keeping it clenched. Finally, he pushed back his hair with his bandaged fingers. “Tell me what happened.”

It sent everything careening back, all the emotion she’d cried out as she rode here on a stolen horse. Red’s breath shook, a tremor that started in her voice and traveled down her hands. “They have Neve. They have my sister, and now I can’t get to her, and I chose it and I wanted it but shit they have her, and I—”

“Shhh.” His bandaged palms cradled her face, all the ways he held himself apart coming undone at the sight of her crying. “We’ll figure something out, Red, I promise you. We’ll find a way.”

Slowly, she quieted, under the run of his fingers through her hair and the library scent of him in each breath. She felt the moment he stiffened again, when his touch fell away from her and he took a small step back.

But he kept holding her hand. And that gave her enough stability to take a deep lungful of Wilderwood air, and start from the beginning.

Eammon stayed still and quiet through her story, until she recounted Kiri cutting her. Then his teeth ground hard enough for her to hear it over the flames in the grate.

Her voice faltered when she reached the dungeon. “Can you feel it when a new breach happens?”

Confusion knit his brows. “Used to, back when I’d first become the Wolf. Not anymore.”

“Arick . . . Arick made a breach. More than a breach. He bled on a sentinel, opened the Shadowlands.” A pause. “He bargained with Solmir.”

Silence. Even the fire seemed to deaden its crackle. Eammon’s breath scraped harsh, every muscle tensed, new blood staining the bandage on his hand holding hers.

Haltingly, Red told the story. Arick and his terrible bargain, his blood waking the sentinel branches in the Shrine and pulling them away from the Wilderwood, Solmir taking his place. Eammon barely moved. He didn’t speak. It was more unsettling than if he’d raged.

“He thought I hadn’t taken the roots because I didn’t want them.” Red darted a look at Eammon, unable to stop the angry tightening of her lips. “He thought you’d told me everything.”

The snarl on his face faded to something softer, sadder. “I was afraid if I told you everything, you would take them. You’d try to help me.” He snorted at the floor, eyes hidden behind his unbound hair. “I was right.”

“Of course you were.” He knew her well, her Wolf. “Eammon . . .” She faltered, remembering how he’d reacted when she almost said it before. “I chose this. I chose you.”

“You shouldn’t have.” His voice was a whisper. “I wasn’t strong enough to save them, Red. Even after the Wilderwood had them, I tried to hold the worst of it back, to keep the full weight of it away. It still drained them, every time.” A shuddering breath. “What if I can’t save you?”

“That’s what you don’t understand. I’m saving you.” Tentatively, the hand he wasn’t holding reached up to cup his cheek. “Let me.”

Eammon had held himself tense the whole time she talked, but when she touched his face, all the rigidity faded. His mouth parted, his amber eyes glowed. “Kings.” He cursed like one might call for mercy, and his eyes closed as her thumb brushed his bottom lip. “Kings and shadows, Redarys.”

“You didn’t let me finish, earlier, and this feels important to say.” Her fingers hooked on his jaw, fierce in their gripping. She said it almost stern, almost like a challenge,