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

When she reached the tower, shivering in the morning chill, Eammon leaned against a carved windowsill with a mug in one hand and a book in the other. He didn’t acknowledge her, other than flicking his eyes up from the book, but his grip on the mug tightened.

He’d poured her a cup, even added cream. Red lifted it to her lips as she slid into the chair. A lone tree branch sat in the middle of the table, twigs curled like claws. Bands of silver paint had been hastily drawn where the twigs split off from the limb’s main shaft. “Art project?”

His book snapped closed; Eammon tucked it beneath his arm. “Not quite.” When he lifted his cup to his mouth, his shirt rode up, exposing a line of pale, scarred skin.

Red took a gulp of coffee too quickly and burned her throat.

Eammon sat his now-empty cup next to the branch and jerked a thumb toward the painted silver bands. “The paint is there so we can see how much the branch grows. A benchmark for your progress.”

“That can’t grow.” Red took another sip, more carefully this time. “It’s dead.”

“So was that thornbush yesterday,” Eammon countered.

The mention of yesterday made their eyes dart away from each other.

She’d thought they could ignore it. She’d thought if they pretended it didn’t happen, it would fade into the background, a moment of weakness they’d grow beyond.

Foolish of her.

“I saw the thicket,” Eammon said, his voice steady even as the tips of his ears burned. He strode to the mantel and shelved his book, keeping his back to her. “We passed it right before we saw the missing sentinel. It was dead, dried out, and it obeyed you anyway.” The muscles in his shoulders moved as he crossed his arms. “Even in death, things stay tied to the Wilderwood.”

His voice was low, roughened with emotion she couldn’t parse with his face hidden. Tentatively, she touched the branch, nearly expecting it to spider-crawl over the table, but it remained still.

The silence tugged at her until she raised her narrowed eyes to his still-turned back. “Some direction would be welcome here, Eammon.”

She hadn’t meant to say his name. Even in irritation, it felt like too much in her mouth, too intimate after what they’d shared and the way he’d pulled away from it.

Kings, she wanted to kiss him again.

He turned, finally, something molten flickering in his eyes, halfway between anger and fevered heat. “You did well enough on your own yesterday.”

He had to stop mentioning yesterday, damn him. He said it like a challenge.

Red leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. “I told you. It works better when we’re close.”

“Exactly how close do you need me, Redarys?”

It stopped her for a moment, mouth parted, possible answers roaring through her head like flames with fresh kindling. She settled for “Closer than that.”

They stared at each other across the room, the air between them warm and waiting. With a ragged sigh, Eammon moved closer, until he stood just out of reach. “Better?”

She wanted to say no. She remembered him yesterday in the forest, kissing her like she was warmth in winter before pushing her away, and by all the Kings and all the shadows, that was the closeness she wanted.

But she nodded and turned to the tree limb.

Her power wouldn’t cooperate. Trying to grasp it felt like trying to hold hands with water. Red couldn’t make it bloom, couldn’t do anything but chase it fruitlessly. With a frustrated growl, she opened her eyes to the still-dead branch, fingers curling on the wood of the table. “It’s not working.”

“It worked just fine before.”

“You were closer before.”

She clenched her teeth shut as soon as she’d said it, but it hung like an ax and couldn’t be taken back. Eammon said nothing, though she could hear his breath, the rattle of it in and out of root-tangled lungs.

“Is it emotional?” The attempt at brusqueness fell flat and made his voice only rougher, stoking the heat in her stomach. “The closeness you need, I mean. Or . . . or physical?”

“Both.” Red closed her eyes, knowing this was giving in, knowing she didn’t care. “Both seem to help.”

Her eyes stayed closed, but the atmosphere around her shifted as he moved forward, warm and charged as the air before a thunderstorm. A breath of hesitation before he brushed away her loose hair, put his warm hand on the nape of her neck.

“I won’t be there.” He said it like an apology. “I can’t always be there, Red.”

She knew it. He was tied to this damn wood, mired in it. The sentinels trapped him as well as any shadow-creature, any wicked king, and he wouldn’t be there in Valleyda to calm her chaos with his closeness. The more Red practiced control, the more she might be able to re-create it without him, but that wasn’t what this was about, and they both knew it.

This was about stalling. About taking the closeness they could get.

“Being here now is enough,” Red murmured.

The tips of his fingers curled against the roots of her hair.

The power in her center gathered and steadied, like this was what it wanted all along. It was simple to grasp it now, simple to turn it to her will.

The branch on the table had a muted golden glow when she opened her mind to the Wilderwood, stars behind clouds. Just enough for her piece of it, that thin thread winding through her, to connect to and command. As she arched her fingers, she saw it grow, the twigs stretching past their painted beginnings.

When her eyes opened, the branch was somewhat bigger, though not by much. Maybe an inch of space had appeared between the silver bands and the main bough.

Eammon moved abruptly away, taking his fingers from her neck, striding toward the window. He ran one hand through his unbound hair before shoving them both in his pockets. “There,” he said, almost in a rush. “It’s done.”

Red bit her