92. In The Court of Wolves

[MAGNUS]

Every single pair of eyes in the council room is fixed on me. This isn’t the first time I’ve been a subject of their collective gazes, but this is clearly the first time I’ve cowered under it.

I keep my head bowed low, projecting the emotion I feel — heartbreak for Ruelle’s betrayal and disappointment in my inability to find her. But this won’t support my claim — the claim I’ve put forward in front of the council.

“They were attacked in the woods, and Ruelle was taken away.”

I should be angry, aggravated, thrashing anything and everything in my way. I should be making statements of how I’ll make those who took her suffer. Anything to make my words more believable. Anything for Eldric to believe that Ruelle didn’t run away to escape her marriage.

But I fail.

I fail to grasp control of my own actions, of my movements. The mate bond pulls strongly at me, and I grit my teeth, holding back the pain Elara is suffering that I now experience too.

The questions that trickle into m