The Gilded Wolves

“The Eye of Horus,” breathed Enrique.

Envy flashed through Zofia.

“How…” she said. “How did you see that?”

“The same way you saw numbers in lines,” said Enrique smugly. “You’re impressed. Admit it.”

Zofia crossed her arms. “No.”

“I dazzle you with my intelligence.”

Zofia turned to Laila. “Make him stop.”

“Well,” he said finally. “At least it wasn’t like Nisyros Island.”

“Are you serious?” croaked Enrique. He trudged after his friend to the door. “It’ll be ‘like dreaming,’ you said. As ‘easy as sleep’!”

“Nightmares are part of sleeping.”

“Is that a joke?” demanded Enrique. “You do realize your hand is mangled.”

“I am aware.”

“You almost got eaten by a bear.”

“Not a real one.”

“The dismemberment would’ve been real enough.”

Séverin only grinned. “See you in a bit,” he said, and slipped out the door.

“Oh … you’re still mad?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Would giving you a present make you less mad?”

Laila lifted her chin. “Depends on the present. But first, say it.”

Tristan shifted on his feet. “I am sorry.”

“For?”

“For putting Goliath on your dressing table.”

“Where does Goliath belong? And for that matter, where do all your pet insects and whatnot belong?”

Tristan looked wide-eyed. “Not in your room?”

“Close enough.”

A party invitation sounded like a poor consolation prize for getting knocked unconscious, but this was different

“Are you breathing?” whispered Enrique. “I’m definitely not.”

“Not helping,” growled Séverin.

Now he was up to his elbow. The bear was rigid. It didn’t even blink.

“You hid me in a minotaur? Why couldn’t Tristan make a hiding dimension in a handsome Greek god?”

“His affinity is for liquid matter. Stone is difficult for him,” said Séverin, pocketing the knife. “So it was either the minotaur or an Etruscan vase decorated with bull testicles.”

Enrique shuddered. “Honestly. Who looks at a vase covered in bull testicles and says, ‘You. I must have you.’?”

“The bored, the rich, and the enigmatic.”

Enrique sighed. “All my life aspirations.”

he wondered whether he was beginning to lose his mind. Impossibly, he thought he could smell Laila. Sugar in the air. A faint aroma of rosewater. She was haunting him.

This was what a kiss that meant nothing supposedly felt like. As if he could not touch her enough, taste her enough, as if this movement alone would leave his body riddled as an addict’s.

Séverin’s hands gripped her waist, as if she were an anchor. As if he were drowning. And maybe he was.

He remembered how he reached for her instead of Tristan, how he shielded her against one he’d sworn to protect.