Page 1 of The Wolf

PROLOGUE

There once was a little girl who

Believed in fairytales.

Who loved a wolf.

She hated red and shared peaches.

But love was not enough.

The monsters invaded.

And her wolf disappeared like smoke

in the night.

She was left to pick up the pieces.

Enslaved and broken.

The little girl grew.

Owned by the devil’s mistress.

Swathed in blood red.

Poison and silence became her weapon.

Until her wolf came to reclaim her.

But she wasn’t the girl he left behind.

She was ruined.

And he would pay.

ONE

SCARLET

There was something about the woods that called to her.

Perhaps it was because it reminded Scarlet of her father, or that she was finally out from beneath the thumb of her horrid stepmother, or maybe just because the forest gave her peace of mind.

Scarlet peered up at the immense pines and inhaled deeply, savoring the crisp, sharp scent of the trees. For a moment, she felt safe, free, and whole.

A branch snapped in the distance, shattering her fantasy world.

Nothing in the province of Betraz was safe or free.

She stiffened as she spotted a red wolf weaving through the trees not forty paces out. Her hand slipped to the poisoned dagger at her hip. She never went anywhere without it. She pushed her blood-red hood from her blond hair and scanned the woods.

It was Tarros.

The shifter had been pushing Scarlet’s boundaries in the recent weeks, getting bolder and bolder with each turn that he didn’t get caught and punished by Old Mother, the alpha and Scarlet’s stepmother.

Scarlet picked up the edge of her long red cloak that marked her as the alpha’s property and began hiking toward the river. The manor was closer, but she’d encounter more wolves along the way, and many would look the other way if Tarros caught her before she made it back home. Scarlet kept a sedate speed so as not to tip off her pursuer of her intentions. There were several huge rocks in the middle of the river that would offer her the refuge she sought. Tarros couldn’t swim. Scarlet would stay there until her stepmother sent Bright, her stepmother’s second in power, for her. She’d be punished severely for being late, but it was better than whatever the red wolf had planned.

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