Page 33 of Thrown to the Wolves

I whirl around, my temper flaring. “You’ve murdered so often it’s all become a blur?” Lyssa lets me rage, her face impassive as I continues to hurl accusations and insults. She waits until I’ve exhausted myself, until the anger has burned itself out, leaving only emptiness in its wake.

“I don’t remember names,” Lyssa says calmly, as if I’d never lost my temper at all, “but I remember every kill. And this? This isn’t me.” She throws the phone down on the bed. “Which means Grandmother is manipulating you, Scarlett. And it’s up to you to decide what you want to do about it.”

I stare at her, my mind reeling. “I want justice for my brother,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.

Lyssa cocks her head, a curious look on her face. “Justice? Or vengeance? Because those are two very different things. But either way…I’m prepared to help you get it.”

I blink, shock coursing through me. “Why? Why would you help me when I…” When I’ve killed her compatriots.

Her friends.

Lyssa sighs, running a hand through her hair and then automatically re-tightening her ponytail. “Because in part, it’s my fault. If I’d killed Grandmother when I had the chance, you wouldn’t be in this mess. And because…”

She trails off, something unreadable in her eyes.

But I don’t have the time or the inclination to decipher it, because the weight of everything I’ve lost, everything I’ve sacrificed in the name of revenge, is pressing down on me. The brother I’ll never see again, the life I’ll never have.

The sheer, crushing unfairness of it all.

Something breaks inside me, a dam bursting under the pressure of too much grief, too much pain. And for the first time since Adam died, I begin to cry.

Great, wracking sobs that shake my entire body, tears streaming down my face in an unstoppable flood. I’m dimly aware of Lyssa moving towards me, of strong arms wrapping around me in an awkward embrace.

I collapse to the floor and she goes with me, holding me as I weep, saying nothing. I’m so grateful for her silence that I only turn into her and hug her harder. There’s nothing to say, after all. Nothing can possibly be said to make things better. And when my tears finally subside, when I’m left hollow and aching in their wake…

I look up into her face, and I kiss her.

CHAPTER 16

Scarlett

It’s a kiss born out of my desperation and need, a clash of lips and teeth and tongues—but Lyssa is just as frantic as I am, and that surprises me more than anything.

She wants me.

She really wants, me, devouring me so completely that when I let my head fall back and gasp for air, she keeps on kissing down my neck, her hands sliding up my body, over my ribs?—

And then she stops.

“Fuck. Scar, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t?—”

“What are you talking about?” I pant out, pulling her mouth back to my neck. “Keep going. Please.”

She brushes her lips over my throat, back up to my ear. “You sure?”

“Please,” I beg again, and then I force myself to pause, to take the time to convince her. “That time we—in the shower—it’s the first time in five years that my brain finally shut up. It felt good, Lyssa. So good. I want you to make me feel good again. Help me feel…something other than the rage.”

Her dark eyes search mine for any trace of uncertainty. I hold her gaze. I’m not backing down now. Then, as if finally deciding, she hums low in her throat and puts her lips back against mine, soft and subtle, so that I lose myself in the press of her lips and the skill of her tongue, trying to go after her when she pulls away.

“I wanna take my time with you,” she tells me. “If we’re doing this, Scar, we’re doing it right. So get up—” She pulls me up with her, and we stumble over to the bed, where she rolls me onto my back and mounts me gently, sitting up with her thighs spread wide over mine. “You want to stop any time, you tell me,” she says, as she reaches for the button on my jeans.

“Take your top off,” is all I say. She gets my jeans open and then she complies, yanking off her top, pulling off the tank-bra she’s got on underneath, so that her breasts bounce free. She lets me fondle them while she works her fingers into my panties, watching my face as she explores. It’s tight, because my jeans are only half off, and she gets frustrated after a second, tugs them my jeans more?—

“That’s better,” she murmurs, sliding those long, skilled fingers right down between my legs. I bite back a moan as she teases me, circling my clit with her index finger and then further down, dipping inside me to see how wet I am for her.

Her eyes darken with satisfaction when she pulls it back out, my juices shining on her fingertips. “Oh, Scar,” she sighs, licking her fingers clean. “You’re so wet for me already.”

Before I can respond, she’s leaning over to push up my top to expose my bra, gathering my tits in her hands, kneading and squeezing them still in their bra cups, bending forward to let her tongue trace the valley between my breasts. She teethes through the lace at my already-hard nipples in a way that sends bolts of need straight down to where I’m already throbbing for her. And when she fishes them out completely and takes my right nipple into her mouth, sucking hard, it’s enough to make me arch off the bed and moan aloud.

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