Chapter 14: What He Offered

The silver-white wolf came through the torch line in one leap.

Cade let go of my wrist and spun.

He was too slow. Lucan hit him in the chest and threw him across the gravel, and Cade rolled twice and did not get up fast.

Rogues were shouting everywhere. Someone threw a spear.

It went into Lucan's side with a wet sound, and he roared without stopping.

"Lucan!"

I shifted before I thought, and my wolf took the gravel in three bounds.

Drew and Rowan's black wolves poured over the quarry rim behind me, and the rogues broke.

Cade dragged himself up on one arm, looked at me over his shoulder, and ran into the dark with the rest of them.

The Rogue King's tent was empty.

I did not have time to wonder where he was. Lucan had gone down on one knee in the dust, back in his man's body, with both hands pressed to his ribs.

Blood ran between his fingers.

"It is iron," he said. "Not silver. I will live."

"Don't talk."

"You are shouting."

"Don't talk!"

There was a stone barn a quarter mile from the camp, left empty when the quarry closed.

I got his arm over my shoulders and walked him there, with Drew covering the road behind us.

Inside, there was old hay piled in the loft corner and a rusted lantern on a nail.

I lit it. I laid him down on the hay and cut his shirt away with a rogue's knife.

The wound was deep and ugly, but clean. It had missed the lung.

I packed it with strips of my own coat lining and bound it tight, and my hands shook the whole time.

"You came," I said.

"You said ten paces."

"I said ten paces behind. You were on top of Cade."

"I was ten paces behind him."

I laughed, and it turned into something wet.

He lifted his hand, slowly, and wiped my face with his thumb.

"I have something to give you," he said.

He reached into his coat with the other hand. He pulled out a flat oilskin packet.

Inside was a sheet of heavy parchment, folded in thirds, with two signatures at the bottom.

One was Henry Lamont's. One was Lucan's father's.

"That is the king's copy," Lucan said. "It is the only one that matters. The clause is on the second fold."

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