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

a scream from his throat. Shadow hissed out of the cut on his arm.

The half-man, half-monster creature collapsed on the roots, twitching, crying. She’d healed the breach, but not him, not completely.

Red turned away.

“We can take it from here.” The man who’d caught her when she and Fife first careened into the clearing stepped from the cover of trees. His hair was snowy blond, braided elaborately over his shoulder and into his long beard, paler than his white skin. Silver rings glinted in its length, a style Red had seen only in history books. The others stepped from the shadows, all dressed in the same greens and grays.

The man looked to Red, face inscrutable. “Thank you.”

Red managed a nod. Without the distraction of rushing forest and saving Eammon, the sight of other humans in the Wilderwood was enough to shock her to silence.

Now that the breach was safely closed, Fife joined the rest as they gathered sticks from between the trees, lashing them together to make a rough sling. One of them pulled a roll of bandages from his pack. “Careful not to touch the cut,” Fife cautioned. “It needs to be bound.”

Eammon stood on unsteady feet. “I’ll do it.”

His brow arched at Eammon’s wounds, but Fife offered him the bandages. Slowly, like every step was pained, Eammon approached the man on the roots. He swallowed hard before kneeling to wrap his shadow-infected arm.

Sling made, Fife stepped back to Red, still seated on the ground. Blood seeped through the scrap of Eammon’s shirt wrapped around her palm. I keep ruining his clothes, she thought distantly.

“These are the villagers?” Her voice was hoarse as she pushed up, standing on numb legs. “From the Edge?”

Fife nodded, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

“And they’re the descendants of the explorers who went beyond the Wilderwood. Before it closed up and wouldn’t let anyone but a Second Daughter pass.” She shook her head. “The official records say the explorers all died. None ever sent word.”

“They couldn’t.” Fife shrugged. “Once the Wilderwood closed up, they were stuck behind it, with no way to return or contact the outside world. They grew old, had children, who in turn grew old and had children. Now there’s a whole country of them back there, providing entirely for themselves.”

She eyed the people ringed around the clearing, all watching Eammon with anxious faces, all dressed like they’d stepped out of the past. “And you said they were looking for a weak spot? What does that mean?”

“A place the Wilderwood would let them pass through.”

Red snorted weakly. “It would appear they found one.”

“They usually do,” Fife said. “The Wilderwood is more relaxed about the northern border. Has less to guard from, I guess. Eammon, Lyra, and I can even leave the forest from that side, though we can’t go far, and it’s not exactly pleasant.” His jaw clenched. “But the Valleydan side is locked tight, and that’s the one that matters.”

The villagers loaded the wounded man into the sling. He moaned softly, still caught between human and monster. Eammon gave him one long look before turning to the man with the rings in his hair, presumably the leader. “Send word when you can.” Despite the wounds in Eammon’s middle, his voice was steady. “Do you have somewhere to keep him?”

“Tavern basement has worked in the past. It’s built strong.” The man shook his head, silver rings clinking. “Bormain helped build it. Damn, Bormain was drinking in it two days ago.”

“Was this a planned expedition?” Eammon’s question was cold.

The man rubbed a hand over his mouth, looking away from the Wolf. With a sigh, he nodded, once.

“It’s pointless, Valdrek.” There was anger in Eammon’s tone, but it was thin, like he didn’t have the energy for it. “Even if it lets you in on the northern side, you can’t get all the way through.”

“Why exactly is the forest still so weak? It should be strengthening, beginning to open its borders again, not closing them up in case the monsters rattle their cage.” Valdrek jerked his head at Red. “Isn’t that the point of you getting your new blood?”

“It’s Lady Wolf.” Eammon’s eyes could cut. “Not new blood.”

Pin-drop quiet. “I see.” Valdrek’s gaze darted from Eammon to Red. “Well. That’s new. Congratulations, Wolf.”

Next to her, Fife’s brow furrowed, then rose. “Oh.”

Red’s cheeks burned. She didn’t realize a title came along with her new marriage.

Eammon walked toward them, tall and straight, but Red saw the white line of effort his mouth became, the way his hand kept twitching to his side.

“That doesn’t look good,” Fife observed.

“It looks worse than it feels.” It was almost certainly a lie, but Eammon’s tone didn’t invite argument. When Red looked to Fife, he gave a slight shake of his head. Prying would be pointless.

“I’ll go on ahead, then. Tell Lyra everything is taken care of.” Fife jogged toward the tree line, muttering unintelligibly, but Red caught the phrase self-martyring bastard in there somewhere.

Pain laced Eammon’s features. The ragged hem of his shirt showed a stripe of blood-muddied skin. He opened his mouth, closed it again, throat working an empty swallow. Red, with nothing to feed into the waiting silence, just pressed her lips together.

Behind them, the shadow-infected man muttered nonsense under his breath. Red looked back over her shoulder, and his blind, milky eyes stared right at them.

“Solmir says hello, Wolf,” Bormain murmured.

Chapter Fourteen

E ammon stood frozen, staring wide-eyed across the churn of dirt and forest debris the clearing had become with a look halfway between terror and rage. Then his hand locked around Red’s elbow, vise-like, and he led her into the trees, so fast she almost stumbled.

Solmir. It took Red a moment to place the name, to find its meaning among the mental images it conjured of candles and stone. When she did, her steps stuttered.

Valchior, Byriand, Malchrosite, Calryes, Solmir. The Five Kings.

Her mouth opened to ask Eammon why in all the shadows Bormain would’ve mentioned one of the Five Kings, but her