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

The Wolf raised an eyebrow. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath narrow, amber-colored eyes. “I’ll take your silence as a yes.” The scarred hand on his knee tremored slightly as he turned away from her, picked up his pen, and resumed his scribbling.

Red didn’t realize her mouth hung open until she snapped it shut, teeth clicking together. The tale of the Wolf bringing Gaya’s body to the edge of the forest detailed only how she looked, making no mention of his own appearance. Everyone knew the Wilderwood had made him different, something not quite human, though no one knew the specifics. But the Wolf’s story was one of mythic beasts, and as it was told through the centuries, he became one, too.

These scarred hands, this overlong hair, this face too hard-edged to be handsome— she’d thought she was prepared for anything, but she wasn’t prepared for this. The Wolf was a man before he was a monster, and the figure before her didn’t fit neatly into either category.

“You’re welcome to stay in the library,” the Wolf said, turning back around in his chair with welcome nowhere to be found in his tone, “but I’d prefer it if you didn’t lurk behind me while I’m working.”

The dream-like unreality of seeing the Wolf and the Wolf looking mostly like a man made her tongue loose, made her latch onto the only part of this that might still align with what she’d been told. “Will you let the Kings go now?”

That made him face her. His eyes flickered over her leaf-tangled hair, her shredded skirts. They paused a moment on the slice across her cheekbone, briefly widened.

Red had nearly forgotten it. She reached up, touched the cut. Her fingertips slicked— still bleeding, then.

His assessment ended, the Wolf turned back to his work. “The Kings aren’t here.”

It was the answer she’d expected, faithless as she was. Still, it landed like a punch, and the sigh she pulled in shook a little.

His shoulders stiffened. He’d heard. The Wolf eyed her over his shoulder, angular face shadowed. “They’re still on about that, then? The . . . the Order, was it?”

“The Order of the Five Kings.” The answer came mechanically. Red felt like a child’s toy, wound up and set spinning with no clear direction. “And yes.”

“Subtle.” One scarred hand ran over his face. “Sorry to disappoint you, Second Daughter, but the Kings are gone. They aren’t something you’d want returned, anyway.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t summon anything more.

The Wolf sighed. “Well. You came. Your part in this is fulfilled.”

He gestured toward the door. “I’ll count us even. I’ll get someone to lead you out, and you can go back the way you—”

“No, I can’t.” She could’ve laughed at the ridiculousness of it, if her throat hadn’t felt like she’d swallowed a forest’s worth of splinters. “I came to you, and we can’t leave after we come to you. This is it. I have to stay.”

His hand froze, surprise on his rough-featured face. “You don’t,” he said quietly, with a vehemence that would’ve startled her had she still felt capable of being startled. “You truly don’t.”

“Those are the rules.” Her mouth felt like it was moving of its own accord, her head clamorous though her words came matter-of-fact. “Once we come to you, we can’t leave. The forest won’t let us.”

The Wolf’s fingers gripped the back of his chair, hard enough that Red absently thought it might snap. “The forest will let you leave if I make it.” Nearly a growl.

Red clutched the ragged edges of her torn cloak. “I’m staying.”

Something almost fearful flashed in his eyes. “Fine, then.” He faced away from her again, muttering a curse. “Shadows damn me.”

“This doesn’t make sense.” Another swallow, like working her throat might free up words from the maelstrom in her head. “If you don’t want me here, if you were just going to send me back, why did you demand we come in the first—”

“I’ll stop you right there.” The Wolf stood, unfolding from his chair with his pen held like a dagger. He loomed a head and a half taller than her, broad-shouldered and knife-eyed. “I didn’t demand anything.”

“Yes, you did. You brought Gaya to the edge of the forest, you told them to send the next one, you—”

“None of that was me.” He advanced a step, voice matching hers in intensity. “Whatever you think you know is clearly wrong.”

He spat the word as he stalked toward her, and the dark shadow of the Wolf and the flash of his teeth were enough to finally send fear spearing through the numb fugue her mind had become. Red crossed her arms over her chest, hunched into them like she could make herself smaller.

The Wolf paused, stepping back with his hand half raised in something like surrender. Anger bled out of his face, another emotion flickering there. Guilt.

“I . . .” He looked away, ran a tired hand over his face. Sighed. “I had no more part in this arrangement than you did, Second Daughter.”

Confusion made a snare of her thoughts, tangled as roots in dirt. Again, she found herself latching onto the simplest pieces, the things she could understand and fix in the face of all she couldn’t. “My name isn’t Second Daughter. It’s Redarys.”

“Redarys.” It sounded strange in his mouth. Soft, somehow fragile.

“And you’re Ci—”

“Eammon.” He turned, dropping back into his chair.

Red’s brow creased. “Eammon?”

Scarred fingers picked up his pen, his tone now clipped and business-like, all that vulnerability gone in an instant. “Ciaran and Gaya were my parents.”

Silence. Red shook her head, mouth forming words that broke apart before they became sentences. “So you . . . you didn’t . . .”

“No.” Expressionless, though tension carved the curve of his shoulders beneath his plain, dark shirt. “No, I didn’t bring my mother’s body to the edge of the Wilderwood. No, I didn’t tell anyone to send the next Second Daughter.” A long, deep breath, rattling in and out of