Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,104
while Sylas is distracted.
Instead, he’s hugging me to him so tightly you’d think he’s afraid to let me go.
“There,” he says. “That’s better.”
Is it? I twist my head to see as much of his face as I can. “Why are you protecting me?” I say, my voice still wobbly. “Shouldn’t you be telling me to get going?”
He gazes down at me as if it’s taking him a moment to remember who I am. Then he makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a huff. “It’s become clear I owe better to my brothers.”
He’s looking after me for their benefit? That makes even less sense. “You said they’d be better off if I left.”
His head lists to one side. He’s definitely not totally sober. “They refused to accept as much. And perhaps, having now experienced your absence, I’ve drawn new conclusions.”
“I kind of wish you’d figured that out before I nearly got mauled,” I can’t help saying.
Whitt snorts. “My apologies,” he says, in a tone that’s not apologetic at all. He pauses, and his arms adjust around me, his nose grazing the top of my head. When he speaks again, his voice has softened. “I am sorry for the way I talked to you. And not just because of the distress it caused those two. I was… I was mistaken. We all gain something from your presence. Please, stay.”
As if I could go anywhere right now while I’m gathered in his embrace. But there’s an actual pleading note to those last two words, like he really means them, for himself as well as his brothers. I don’t know what to make of that, and before I need to, he’s straightening up, helping me stand with him.
Sylas and August are tramping over to join us, back in human-esque form. Blood seeps along Sylas’s jaw from a thin scratch mark, and teeth marks stand out against August’s forearm, but those appear to be their worst injuries.
“Are you all right?” Sylas asks the moment our eyes meet.
“Just shaken up,” I say. “She hadn’t managed to actually hurt me yet, just scare me.”
He glances over my head to Whitt as if needing secondary confirmation, and his shoulders relax incrementally. “That’s one relief. She can’t know what you are—what powers you hold—if she hasn’t drawn your blood to smell or taste it.”
“Are you saying you let her get away?” Whitt says, so incredulous it’s as much a compliment to their skill as a complaint.
August grimaces. “She was fast, I’ll give her that. Tristan wouldn’t have picked wimps for cadre, would he?”
“We had to moderate ourselves so as not to damage her more than could be seen as warranted in trying to force a yield,” Sylas adds. “She could obviously tell the odds weren’t in her favor. The first chance she got, she was off like a shot.”
“Does it matter if she didn’t yield as long as she’s gone?” I ask.
Sylas swipes his hand across his jaw and eyes the streak of blood on his palm as if it’s no more concerning than a smear of paint. “If she’d yielded, I could have required that she not speak of you or what went on here again. I could have formally banned her from our domain. As it is, she’s faced no consequences, and she can tell her lord whatever she likes.” His eyes fix on me again. “Did she say anything to you before she attacked?”
I grope to remember what happened before the real chaos began. “She wanted to know where I was going—whether you’d sent me out here.” My muscles tense up again at the thought of just how far I’ve gone against what Sylas would have wanted, and I hurry onward. “And she thought it was strange that my hair was dyed and that she hadn’t seen me when they visited. I didn’t say much to her. I don’t think I mentioned anything that would have given the truth away. That was why she attacked me—because I wasn’t cooperating as much as she wanted.”
“Then she’s only left with whatever suspicions she and Tristan must already have had for him to have tasked her with patrolling our domain.” Sylas frowns. “I still don’t like that she was here at all or that she encountered you.” He peers down at me, his gaze abruptly twice as intent. “Why are you out here? How did you even get out of the keep?”
Behind me, his hand still resting against my back, Whitt stiffens. I hesitate. I could say