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

Eammon sat at his desk, clothed now and mostly scrubbed of blood and sap, though a streak of green-threaded burgundy still slashed behind one ear. He’d bound his hair, messily, and was fully absorbed in an open book. Red craned her neck to see what he was reading, but she didn’t recognize the language.

“It’s rude to read over someone’s shoulder,” he muttered as he turned a page.

She tried to quip, but he was close enough to reach out and touch, and that fact filled her mind like fog in a jar. Instead she took a piece of bread and placed it on the page. He gave an affronted snort before picking it up, taking a bite with his eyes still tracking over words.

Red sat on the bed and watched him, cataloging his movements. His finger brushed back and forth over the corner of the page while he read it, then dipped behind to turn. His foot bounced beneath the desk. Hair fell over his forehead, and he pushed it back, only for it to fall again.

“I’m leaving today,” she whispered.

The line of his shoulders went rigid.

Her chest was a cage for things she couldn’t trap into language. The only words that seemed right were too vast, too heavy. A frailty would be wrought by them, and Red couldn’t afford to be frail now.

So instead, she repeated herself. “I’m coming back.”

He took a shuddering breath, closed his book. “Think about it, Red. You don’t—”

“Stop.” Red stood, went to stand in the tiny gap between him and the desk. “We aren’t having this discussion again. I’ll stop Neve, get her to reverse whatever damage she’s done. And then I will be right back here, Wolf, and you’d better be prepared to tell me what I have to do to save you from these damn woods.”

He finally looked at her, their eyes almost level, heat in the green and amber. His sigh was ragged.

“Eammon?” Fife’s voice, calling up the stairs. “Lyra’s back. Another one is gone.”

It froze him, turned all that heat in his eyes to something cold and resigned. Eammon’s hands clenched his knees, gaze shifting away from hers to the middle distance beyond. He spoke without moving. “When do you leave?”

“Now.” No use putting it off. No use hoping he’d touch her. He held himself carefully away, even after everything, after two kisses and three skulls and countless words they locked behind their teeth.

Eammon nodded. “I won’t keep you, then.” He stood and walked toward the stairs, leaving her alone.

Lyra and Fife were as skeptical of her plan as Eammon was.

“Your sister is the reason the sentinels are disappearing? She’s hell-bent on killing the Wilderwood, so you’re just going to go present yourself to her?” Fife’s brow arched. “And I’m the only one who thinks this sounds like a bad idea?”

“What she’s doing is for me. I have to find out what it is, a way to stop it. She’s trying to bring me home.”

“It would appear she’s been successful.”

“I’m not staying.” It came out almost a hiss, and it took Fife aback— his crossed arms slackened, and a line drew between his brows.

Red closed her eyes, took a breath. “I’m coming back, Fife.”

His reddish hair caught the dim light as his incredulous gaze swung from Red to Eammon. “And you’re fine with this?”

“It isn’t my decision.” Eammon leaned against the staircase, feigning nonchalance, but his spine was rigid.

Fife’s sigh deflated his shoulders. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” His eyes slid from Eammon to Red. “Both of you.”

“Fife.” Lyra’s tone was warning, though worry lived in the downward curve of her mouth. Her eyes flickered to Red’s. “I can take you as far as the border. Make sure you don’t get lost.”

“Give me a moment.” Red hurried up the stairs. “I forgot something.”

When she reached their room, Red was out of breath. Her bridal cloak spread across the floor where she’d slept beneath it, the same colors as the fire in the grate. The embroidery glinted as she picked it up.

A pen lay on the desk, next to a haphazard stack of papers and books in languages she couldn’t read. She tested the sharp end with her finger before dipping it in the inkwell.

Three days, she scrawled. And then I want the bed back.

Eammon’s eyes slipped cursorily over the cloak when she came back down the stairs, settling on her face. He said nothing. Red pressed her lips together, hitched her bag on her shoulder.

Lyra glanced quickly between them before turning to the door. “At the gate, when you’re ready.”

Fife’s mouth opened, but he closed it on silence. Lifting one hand in an awkward wave, he passed through the broken arch into the dining room.

Then she and the Wolf were alone.

Eammon was silent. He still half believed this would be forever— she could see it in the way his hands tightened on his arms, the work of his swallowing throat.

So many words caught between them, and goodbye was the only one he would say.

She didn’t let him. “Three days.” Red turned, pulled up her scarlet hood, and slipped through the door, leaving the Wolf in the shadows.

The tor glinted on Lyra’s back like a sickle moon. She wove deftly through the Wilderwood, Red following close behind.

They walked a few minutes in silence before Red heard it. A slight but unmistakable boom, reverberating through the forest.

Another breach, opening.

“Shit.” Lyra unsheathed her tor, pulled a vial of blood from the bag at her waist with a practiced motion. “We’ll keep moving, but keep a close eye on the ground.”

Red nodded, hands curled to claws. The thread of magic in her chest spiraled, ready for use.

They crept forward. Finally, the dark edge of a hole where a sentinel should have been stretched from a pool of fog.

At the edge of the pit, a tiny cyclone of leaves and twigs swirled. Lyra unstoppered the vial of blood and poured it out over the twisting column. With a whine, it