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

Her footsteps faltered, stopped.

“Not just to bring Redarys back.” Kiri’s voice snapped on Red’s name. “Not just for revenge against the Wolf. For the restoration of our gods. I begin to worry that you might falter in your work should your sister reappear.”

Would she? Neve didn’t know. But the cold magic coiled in her palms felt like reassurance, like safety and control, and that would be hard to give up. “That won’t happen.”

“I certainly hope not.” A pause, and Kiri’s voice slanted low. “Perhaps we were too hasty, in the making of your reign. In the making of you.”

The words recalled a familiar idea, a dark shape in a dark room Neve kept carefully closed off. It haunted the corners of her mind when she couldn’t sleep, a shadow of a thought that wouldn’t leave her alone.

So Neve didn’t think. Instead, she strode to the priestess. She touched Kiri’s arm and let all that strange, dark power go.

It had been an accident, the first time she did it, touching the back of Arick’s hand to ask him to pass the wine. Cold had sparked between them, like recognizing like. It was enough to make him yelp.

She’d tried to apologize. He’d shaken his head. “Nothing to be sorry for.” His fingers had twitched on the stem of his wineglass. “You’ve taken to this in ways I couldn’t have imagined, Neverah.”

Her cheeks had flushed, inexplicably. Neve turned to her own wine, but she’d felt his eyes on her, glinting with an emotion she couldn’t read.

Now she meant the release of this cold magic to hurt. And the hiss of breath between Kiri’s teeth said it did.

“You didn’t make me.” Neve curled her fingers like claws. Frost crusted her palms, her veins inked black. “Whatever else you’ve done, you didn’t make me.”

Blue eyes narrowed. “I gave you power, Neverah. Don’t forget that.”

“You showed me where it was. I took it myself.” Her grip tightened. “There was no giving, there was only taking.”

She let go of the priestess’s arm. A bluish handprint was left behind, like frostbite.

Kiri covered the mark with her other hand. “Don’t presume to take too much, Your Majesty,” she murmured. “This is bigger than you. Bigger than your sister. And even if she does return, she’ll be tied to the Wilderwood in ways you don’t understand. If you want her back— fully— you need me.”

It worked a shudder through her spine, to know Kiri was right. “We’ll see.” Neve turned sharply on her heel, pulling the hood of her black cloak over her head, and left the High Priestess behind.

The garrison was nearly empty. Half the fighting force was in Floriane, guarding against the eternal threat of uprising, and more were at the border of the Wilderwood, watching for any sign of Red’s return. It was probably foolish to leave the capital so lightly guarded.

Neve flexed her hands. The grass growing through the cracks in the cobblestones browned as frost limned her fingers. Not so lightly guarded after all, perhaps.

Noruscan waited near the door, like always. Neve peered up at him from beneath her hood— a poor attempt at disguise, but enough for the short distance. “Anything?”

“Not today, Majesty.” There was a note of relief in his voice, and it set her teeth on edge. They’d always feared Red, thought her more relic than girl, proof that the world was wider and more terrifying than they’d prefer it to be. A flicker of that same fear twisted to Neve now.

Part of her liked it.

“When she comes,” Neve said, an echo of how she always responded, “bring her to me.”

The commander nodded, just like he always did.

Her errand complete, Neve swept toward her rooms. She hadn’t moved when she became Queen— sleeping in the same place Isla died didn’t sit well with her. Dinner was already waiting on a cart before her desk. When she took meals at all, she took them here.

Someone else waited here, too. Forearms braced on his knees, head bowed.

Raffe.

Neve’s pulse jumped. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Raffe. These days were a blur of bleeding and planning, little food and less sleep. Her hands went to her hair, the hollows of her cheeks— she didn’t spend a great deal of time looking in mirrors these days, but she knew she didn’t look well. She hadn’t thought to care until now.

“Forgive me for intruding,” Raffe said, still looking at his hands.

“You aren’t intruding.” She pressed her back against the door, spine straight against the rush of feeling the sight of him brought. Sorrow, heat, shame.

They stayed like that, anchored in opposite corners. Neither of them knew how to navigate the space between.

Raffe sighed as he stood, a sound deep enough to drown in. His eyes went to her cut palm, then away. “Spending time in the Shrine again?”

Neve closed her hand to a fist. The edges of her cut stung. “Order business.”

Raffe made a low noise in his throat. Tentatively, like he thought she might rebuff him, he took a step closer. When she didn’t object, he closed their distance and took her hand.

He tilted her palm back and forth, even though they both knew he could see nothing in the dim light. This was just an excuse for touch.

“I’m worried for you,” he murmured.

And Neve couldn’t dispute it. Couldn’t tell him not to worry, couldn’t pretend there was nothing to worry about.

So instead, she kissed him, because Kings and shadows damn it, maybe one thing could go the way she wanted it to, if only for a moment.

Raffe never did anything by halves, and kissing was no exception. By the time he pulled away, making space for fears and misgivings to come rushing back, Neve was breathless, hair mussed and lips bruised.

Raffe tilted his forehead against hers. “Whatever you’ve done,” he whispered, “it’s not too late to undo it.”

“I can’t.” Had she thought of undoing it? Maybe, deep in the night, when the darkness