Page 37 of Thrown to the Wolves

Neither can Lyssa, judging from the way she looks at me when she thinks I won’t notice.

We’re seated opposite each other with a table in between, but I’m pretty sure she has a handgun secured to the underside.

I would.

As it is, I have a new stiletto switchblade hidden in my sleeve, and a garrote in my back pocket. Just in case.

Between us, Lyssa has printed out stills from the video, and I’m forcing myself to look at them, although I keep getting distracted. Across the table, Lyssa’s features are still coolly beautiful in the low light of the room, her smooth brow furrowed as she studies the photographs scattered before us. The muted glow of the laptop screen to the left, where the video is on pause, lends a flickering glow as my brother’s murder plays on a continuous loop.

My eyes go back and forth from the video to Lyssa, trying to figure it out. Is it her? Is she just playing the cruelest of games, and trying to win my trust?

Even if it’s not her, whoever is behind this is toying with me, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that seems designed to lure me further into the forest rather than out. Part of me even wonders if this is all some sadistic test crafted by Grandmother, a fresh torment designed to further corrupt what fragile shreds of innocence still cling to my soul.

Lyssa’s eyes meet mine, those eyes that have witnessed so much death and brutality, and I stare back defiantly. Let her read my face if she wants. There’s an edge to her stare, a predatory sharpness that sends pure animal instincts ricocheting down my spine.

I’m being studied, assessed as potential prey by a powerful apex hunter.

Run. Run.

My heart beats out the command, but I ignore it.

It should terrify me, this brush with the monster. But it seems to awaken something else, something primal and forbidden that makes my belly flutter and my thighs squeeze together. The intoxicating fantasy of witnessing the beast unrestrained, of having that feral intensity focused solely on me in the throes of...

No. Nope. No way, not again.

“Ariadne,” she says thoughtfully. “Who is she?”

“She’s…well, she’s one of us. Of Grandmother’s, I mean. She’s been with Grandmother since her teens. She’s around your age now, I guess. Early thirties.”

Only now does it hit me that—yeah. It really could be Ariadne. Her hair was long the first time I saw her at my brother’s funeral, driving the town car. She’d cut it short not long after, by the time I first came to Grandmother’s house. With her long hair in a ponytail like the woman in the video, add a mask, and…

My hand clutches hard around the photo, crumpling the corner.

Lyssa sees it, but ignores it. “So let’s say it’s her. On Grandmother’s orders, maybe? If Grandmother had her eye on you, wanted you as a recruit, well—” She indicates the video again. “She might have figured out this would be a way to bring you into the flock.”

A bitter laugh escapes me. “Maybe. And to be honest, Ariadne would love nothing more than to hurt me. She hates me, and I don’t really know why.” The words tumble out before I can rein them in: “She hates me maybe even more than she hates you.”

Every time Ariadne mentions Lyssa, I’ve noticed that fierce hatred. I just never really thought about it until now, because the Wolf was supposed to be my trophy.

So it didn’t really matter one way or another what Ariadne felt.

To my surprise, Lyssa’s lips curve into a slow, wry smile. “She hates me? Bitch doesn’t even know me! But I guess Grandmother filled her head with all sorts of tales about the Big Bad Wolf—just like she did with you.”

I shift in my seat again at the sound of her self-appointed moniker, at the hint of dark promise it carries. I try to envision the formidable woman across from me—the infamous Wolf of the Styx Syndicate—undergoing the same tortures I have. Grandmother’s most accomplished student, turned against her.

“How did you get so good so fast? You said you’d only been in Grandmother’s house for a few years?”

Lyssa’s question catches me off guard, its curiosity at odds with the hard-edged tone that has colored most of our dealings up to this point. I blink slowly, but I heard her right.

She thinks I’m good.

“I...trained, from childhood. Not with Grandmother, I mean—” I break off with a sigh. “I was into martial arts.” My gaze strays from Lyssa’s, drifting inward as memories of simpler times rise up. “My brother, Adam, he took classes first. But I insisted on tagging along, wouldn’t take no for an answer. Didn’t give my parents much choice in the matter—or him, poor guy. No twelve year old wants their baby sister tagging along.” A sad, wistful smile tugs at the corners of my mouth as I recall the brash determination of my younger self, so stubbornly fixated on keeping pace with Adam.

I worshipped him. He was my whole world.

Lyssa nods slowly. “But it’s more than that. You’re a natural, Scarlett. The way you move—it takes me years to beat those instincts into Syndicate recruits.”

“Beat?” I ask sharply.

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