Fear of Fire and Shadow (The Fade #1) - Samantha Young Page 0,54
the night.”
Even though I didn’t fancy a night in a barn, I was grateful for her kindness. “That sounds perfect.” I smiled gratefully as she put a bowl of stew and a cup of ale before me. I shared a happy look with Wolfe and we broke bread, scooping the stew as if we hadn’t had a decent meal in ages. And to be honest, we hadn’t. The old widow was almost as good a cook as Cook.
“This is delicious,” I said between mouthfuls.
She smiled cheerily, watching us scoff it down, seeming happy to have someone to feed.
Once our bellies were full, we sat with her awhile, engaging her in conversation about herself. Finally, seeing her eyelids droop, I suggested we get some sleep. After handing over some blankets and an oil lamp, the widow drowsily wished us a good night and turned to ascend the stairs to her bed.
Wolfe and I strolled outside to the barn. It wasn’t huge, and when we climbed up into the hayloft, we shared a wary look. It was certainly cozy. I flushed at the thought of being in such close quarters with him.
We spread the blankets and then tentatively sat down next to one another. I could feel the heat from his skin inches from mine, the scent of him tickling my senses.
After a while, I couldn’t take the silence. “So, you’re quite a powerful Glava?”
Wolfe tensed. I wondered if he was going to go back on his word and not tell me all I wanted to know.
“Well?”
He exhaled. I almost felt bad for pressing him about it.
But not badly enough to stop.
“Wolfe?” I placed a hand on his arm.
He looked down at it, his eyebrows raised in surprise. When he lifted his eyes to meet mine, I flushed at the intensity I found there.
I jerked my hand away, breaking the connection.
“I hid it,” he offered.
“But why?”
He shrugged, staring off into the dark rafters, his jaw taut with suppressed emotion. “Because … because I was afraid the magic would mean I was like my father.”
The vulnerable honesty in his answer hit me with an impact I had not expected. It was as though he’d reached out to take me by the shoulders to shake me from a dream.
A sick feeling swam in my gut.
Guilt.
How could I have been so wrong?
“Kir … Kir said you were as much a victim as we were. What did he mean?”
Wolfe’s eyes slanted toward me, dark pain and fury fencing in his gaze. I knew he didn’t want to tell me, that I was using his sense of honor against him. If I were a better person, I would have allowed him to keep his secrets. However, my selfish need to discover the real Wolfe held my good conscience hostage.
“My father …” His voice cracked. “He didn’t treat me and my mother very well. As you know, he was a cruel man.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Mostly manipulative mind games played to make us feel inferior, subordinate. But when Haydyn’s father died … well the situation worsened. Not just for everyone else, but for my mother and I as well.”
Shock robbed me of my voice. In truth, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what Syracen had done to Wolfe. It was one thing for a man to abuse strangers, but to hurt his own flesh and blood …
“He, uh … he horsewhipped my mother. Many times over the years.”
Bile rose in my throat as I remembered the agony Kir endured when I witnessed it happening to him.
To do that to your own wife. My goodness.
“And that scar … the horseshoe?”
A bitter, twisted little chuckle escaped Wolfe, and he shook his head. “I made the mistake of attacking my father a time he took the whip to my mother. Kir helped me because my mother was kind to him. My father beat Kir … but me … he took a hot horseshoe and branded me with it. He told me I was his son, not hers. Like horseflesh, I belonged solely to him and as such, he expected me to obey him as my master.”
I couldn’t comprehend what he was confiding. My chest flared with sharp, needling pain. Hot tears stung my eyes and I couldn’t speak. My throat closed with the enormity of emotions I felt for him. Including my remorse. All these years I had been horrible to him, painting him with the same brush as I’d painted his father. I had been so sure he