He grinned. “Of course. I’ll have a couple of horses waiting.”

Relief washed over me and I impulsively threw my arms around him, drawing him in for a hug. Kir laughed softly and tugged me tight against him. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“Worth it just for the hug.”

Later, after I too had had a chance to bathe and both Wolfe and I were fed, Kir apologised before leaving and locking us in the bedroom. Wolfe had claimed the armchair so I lay down on the bed, thinking about Kir, about Wolfe, about the horseshoe brand marring Wolfe’s body.

“I was surprised at your vehement refusal to let Kir sell me to the Markiz,” Wolfe suddenly said. “I thought you wanted me dead.”

“I thought you wanted me dead,” I replied honestly, turning to look at him. His handsome face was a mask of complete shock that soon melted into anger.

“What do you mean you thought I wanted you dead?” He snapped.

I was so tired. So sick and tired of my world turning upside down on me again and again. I wanted wildflowers and summers by the stream. I wanted tobacco in the air and lemonade on the tongue. Fighting tears, I turned my back to him, curling up to sleep.

Why would Kir protect Wolfe? Why was there friendship and trust between them?

Why did Wolfe protect me and look out for me?

“Never mind,” I finally answered. “I’m just starting to realise I don’t know you at all.”

“Yes you do,” came his hoarse response. “You just hate that I’m not what you need me to be.”

Trying desperately to ignore that enigmatic comment, I slammed my eyes shut… and dreamed of my little brother’s laughter.

Chapter Sixteen

Kir’s old bed was not comfortable. But I think my not sleeping had more to do with my awareness of Wolfe. I kept seeing that brand on his stomach, the pain in his eyes when he caught me looking at it, the soul deep look he and Kir shared as Kir asked him if he was alright. There was something I was missing. How could a man so committed to the protection of the crown and the principles of honour and loyalty be a charlatan underneath, waiting for his moment to exact revenge?

Oh right. Because his father had been one.

But Kir wasn’t hateful to Wolfe like I was. In fact, if my instincts were right (and who knew these days) I suspected Kir was protective of Wolfe. Why? Again, what was I missing?

Had Haydyn been right all along? Was I wrong to condemn Wolfe for the actions of his father?

My guilt was compounded by Wolfe’s tossing and turning. My whole body trembled with tension as I listened to his soft groans as he sought some kind of comfort in sleep. The need to offer comfort took me by surprise and I had to curl my fingers into fists to stop myself reaching out to him. When at last his breathing evened out, my body did too, relaxing into the lumpy mattress beneath me. With his fall into slumber, I finally found my own.

Too quickly, I was awoken, someone shaking my shoulder. Having been dreaming of Haydyn as I had been most nights, I automatically assumed in my semi-conscious state that she had come into my bedroom again and had some delicious secret to tell me. Last time she’d awoken me this early it was to tell me she’d fallen in love with Matai and had given her virtue to him the night before.

“What now?” I mumbled, swatting at her with my eyes closed. “You with child?”

“What? Rogan, wake up,” an irritated voice snapped at me.

Wolfe.

I shot up on the bed and cracked my head off of his. “Ow.” I winced, my eyes watering as I pulled back. Wolfe’s face hovered inches before mine, his pale blue eyes narrowed in pain. He rubbed at his forehead, already swollen in the upper corner from the cut he took to it yesterday.

“It’s like waking the dead,” he grouched and pulled back.

I rubbed my cheek sleepily and then cried out at the tender pain that shot up my face. “Wow, that hurts,” I whimpered and watched warily as Wolfe’s face turned black as a thundercloud.

“If I see him again, I’m going to kill him.”

No need to ask who he was talking about. “Is it really that bad looking?” I was afraid of the answer.

Wolfe walked over to me slowly and hunkered down to his knees so we were at eye level. The air whooshed out of my body as he reached up tentatively to touch my bruised cheek, his features etched with concern and some other emotion I couldn’t quite decipher. I had the sudden urge to buss into his touch like Haydyn’s cat, Z, when one of Cook’s cakes was in the vicinity. A hot shivery rush of tingles exploded across the top of my skin as our eyes connected. My stomach lurched. I couldn’t breathe. I needed him away from me.

Clearing my throat, I knocked his hand away and stood up, brushing past him, almost knocking him on his ass. There was a mirror above the fireplace, dirty and broken, but it had enough of a reflection to show the red and purple swelling on my right cheek. Beautiful.

I sighed and caught Wolfe’s eyes in the reflection. “Is it almost time?”

He nodded, frowning, and then he broke our gaze. A strange tension sprung up between us. If I were honest with myself it had been there since we’d been taken by the Iavii. For someone who had spent the last eight years arguing with and bitching at Wolfe I had never once felt this horrible, ill-at-ease way around him. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. I was so afraid of what it meant, so afraid of disappointing my family’s memory.

“I-”

I don’t know what I was going to say but it didn’t matter because the key turned in the lock in the door and suddenly Kir was there, smiling at me and befuddling me even more.

“You ready?” He asked, shutting the door and striding in, every inch the confident rookery gang leader.

I didn’t look at Wolfe. “Yes.”

“Great-” Kir cursed under his breath as he reached me, his hand cupping my chin. “That looks sore this morning.”

Feeling Wolfe’s burning gaze, I gently tugged out of his hold. “I’ve had worse.”

Kir grew serious. “I remember.”

Not really strong enough to take a trip down nightmare lane with him, I put my hands on my hips, trying to exude the strength I wasn’t feeling. “Alright, so now what?”

“Now you make your escape. Remember,” his gaze switched between Wolfe and I, “To get out, you take a left, a right, and the back door is at the top of the hall. I left it unlocked.” Now he just stared at Wolfe. “When you attack me you have to make it look real.”

Wolfe’s face tightened.

Kir sighed heavily, his lip curling up almost condescendingly. “I mean it, Wolfe.”

I wasn’t surprised when Wolfe made no response. Clearly, he didn’t want Kir to get hurt.

Coming to the same conclusion I had drawn, Kir pulled back his shoulders, his own expression determined. There was a dark, mischievousness in his eyes, I didn’t trust. “Fine.” He shook his head, throwing Wolfe a warning look. “Then I guess I’ll just have to make you want to.”

When his long arm came out and caught me around the waist I squawked in undignified surprise and instinctively pushed against his hard chest as he crushed me to him, his other hand winding into my hair to bring my lips against his in a hard, punishing kiss. The hand on my waist slid down my back and squeezed my bottom. I yelled into his mouth, trying to get away. Quite abruptly that muffled exclamation was given free reign as his body was wrenched from mine, soaring across the room and straight through the door. That’s right. Straight through the door. Not the doorway. The door. I gaped in befuddlement at Kir collapsed around the wooden splinters of the door in the hall, groaning as he drew himself up into a sitting position.

“Come on.” I blinked down at the large familiar hand wrapped around my wrist and then up at its owner. Wolfe. A really angry Wolfe.

I was dragged out through the fragments of the doorway and into the hall, only to be pushed behind Wolfe at the sound of yelling to the right of us. Jesper came hurrying down the hallway with Nalia at his back. Wolfe stared them down in concentration. I felt the heat of his energy as the two thugs were thrown back up the corridor from whence they came, their bodies crashing sickeningly against the back wall before crumpling in an unconscious heap.

Another groan caught my attention and I gasped as Kir wiped at a large gash on his arm. “Are you alright?” I made to rush towards him but Wolfe had turned back, grabbing my arm again to wrench me in the opposite direction. “Hey!” I growled at him, whipping back around to check on Kir.

“I’m fine, Rogan,” he assured me, wincing as he pushed a large chunk of door off of him. “Go. Just go.”

We shared a long look as Wolfe continued to haul me up the narrow corridor, and just as we turned left, I mouthed ‘thank you’, unexpected tears threatening to brim over. He gave me a knowing nod just as I disappeared.

“You have telekinesis too?” I hissed at Wolfe as we hurried along this next hall.

“Shut up, Rogan.”

I raised my eyebrow at his tone. I could either argue with him or get out of here. Mind made up, I yanked my arm free from him and picked up my skirts. As I ran, Wolfe ran with me, and we burst out through the back door…

…Only to be confronted with two of Kir’s thugs, smoking tobacco and staring in confusion at the two horses tethered to a drain pipe on the next building.

Their roll ups dropped to the sodden wet ground as their mouths fell open at the shock of seeing us. Wolfe didn’t even say anything, he just flicked his hand and the two of them went soaring past us. At the sounds of flesh hitting brick (I thought I might have heard some bones cracking too) I decided now was not the time to question Wolfe about his abilities. Instead we moved in tandem, hurrying to untie the two horses Kir had managed to procure for us. With me at Wolfe’s back we hurried off into the streets of the rookery, the horse’s hooves echoing against the buildings in frightening volume. Amazingly, the horses worked against the slickness of the cobbles with more proficiency than I could have expected, and we were heading out of the rookery, past the glass works, and into the green of the Vasterya I remembered, at harried speed.

As we galloped down the muddy trade road, past farm country, Wolfe slowed a little until my horse was abreast his.

“Rogan.” He sighed, licking rain from his upper lip, seeming afraid to meet my eye. “We need to get somewhere safe. I know you don’t want me to ever use your magic, but…”

Understanding that he wanted permission to use my magic to find a safe place to stop, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to get some answers. “If I let you… will you tell me everything?”

He was scowling at me now, his eyes so blue against the stark dullness of the day. “What do you mean?”

“You!” I gestured to him, anger flaring out from my chest to batter against him in the rain. “Tell me why you hid whatever magic you have? I want to know about you and Kir. I want to know about the horseshoe.”

“That’s none of your business, Rogan!” Wolfe shouted back to be heard over the weather and the horses. I could have sworn he looked frightened.

He was right. It was none of my business. But not knowing was driving me crazy and I needed to stay focused on Haydyn. This distraction had to be dealt with. “I’m making it my business.”

“If we don’t find a safe place to stay that’s on you!”

“No.” I shook my head. “That’s on you. What’s so important you can’t trade this?!”

“It’s private, Rogan. You know private, as in none of your business, as in you don’t need to know!”

“Yes, I do!”

“Why?!”

For a moment I couldn’t meet his eyes, my stomach lurching again, my brother’s laughter taunting my guilt. I clenched my teeth, hoping somehow it would hold me together. Finally I met Wolfe’s curious, frustrated gaze. “I don’t know why.”

I don’t know what Wolfe saw in my eyes, but he searched long enough to find it and finally nodded. “Fine.”

“You’ll trade?” I asked in surprise.

“I’ll trade.”

“Then ask away.”

“Rogan, I need you to find us someplace safe to stay and get us there by a safe route.”

My magic washed over me in a warm wave and I was almost sorry when it was over and my skin turned cold again in the downpour. I felt the pull of the little farm over the border into Daeronia. I grinned wearily, glad at the thought of the danger free journey I felt ahead of us. “Follow me.”

Chapter Seventeen

Being a mage came in handy. It took us a few days but we crossed the border into Daeronia with little problem (except hunger and exhaustion) and soon our olfactory senses were bombarded by the sweet yeasty smell of the large brewery to the west of us as we headed towards Caera. It would take another half day or so to ride onto Caera, so I took us off the main trade road and into the fields towards a tiny farm owned by an elderly widow my magic told me would help us.

She was surprisingly wily, peppering us with questions. Since my magic told us it was safe, Wolfe thought it was alright to tell her he was one of the Guard and we had gotten into some trouble at the rookery in Vasterya.

“Oh, I heard about all that trouble at the border.” She nodded, leading us past her little sitting room and into a larger farm kitchen. The smell of home-cooked stew caused my stomach to rumble and I clutched it in embarrassment. The widow threw me a sympathetic smile and gestured to the table for us to take seats. “Sounds like the two of you were lucky to get away.”

“Yes, ma’am, we were,” Wolfe agreed. “We really appreciate you helping us.”