Page 81 of The Wolf

Ari laughed lightly, a sincere and trusting sound. “When have I never taken care of the refugees, Scarlet?”

Under normal circumstances, she would have fired a quip back at her friend. But, considering what she had lost, Scarlet pressed her lips together and said nothing. She hadn’t even had it in her to whisper reassurances to the people she was sending off, choosing instead to escape into the pub proper to drown her sorrows in a pint of ale and the anonymous murmuring of the crowd. It was in this way that Scarlet found herself sitting at the bar, cradling a cup of spirits and wondering why it tasted bitter in her mouth.

Barely five minutes had passed by before Scarlet caught an oddly familiar sight out of the corner of her eye.

A flash of copper hair. A pair of fox ears.

The fox shifter who had been helping clear the bodies after Brine’s trial.

What is he doing here?

She picked up her ale, expertly weaving her way through the pub until she was within hearing of the shifter’s table. He was sat with an oddly feline man, who had a rakish kind of countenance which Scarlet almost felt like she should punch. She assumed he was a cat shifter.

Scarlet sipped on her drink, careful to appear as nameless and faceless as the rest of the crowd. Which wasn’t hard; she had been training all her life to appear invisible. At first the two men talked about nothing of importance, laughing about the feline’s latest bedroom conquest—Scarlet was not surprised—and the latest guards in Merjeri the fox had evaded—again, not something that came as a surprise.

But then Scarlet heard Brine’s name mentioned, and she leaned forward intently. “Things are all going on schedule in Betraz,” the fox murmured. “Once Brine has gotten rid of his grandmother and taken over her territory, the Dark Court will…”

The loud banging of the front door granting entrance to a pair of brawny sailors cut off the rest of the conversation, but Scarlet had heard enough. The ale that she’d drunk twisted in her stomach as if it had fermented badly. She thought she might be sick on the spot. Abandoning her drink, Scarlet escaped the pub without bidding goodbye to Ari, gulping down fresh, salty sea air as if she had never breathed before.

All this time Scarlet had thought Brine had come back to Betraz to help. To save the people of the province. To dismantle all the harm that Arwen had caused.

Instead, he was going to pick up where his grandmother had left off.

For the Dark Court.

Scarlet didn’t bother to stop the tears from falling as she made her way home. What was the point? She had been a fool. She had let her guard fall around the wolf shifter she cared far too much for and shown herself broken and vulnerable in the process.

She’d entrusted her heart to someone who was just as corrupt as her stepmother.

FORTY-ONE

BRINE

That night, Scarlet was behaving oddly. Well … odder than usual. The last couple of days the two of them had eagerly gotten lost in each other. They’d stayed up late into the night, naked and embracing and talking about nothing at all until the sun came up. They made an effort to return from their daily duties early, and skipped dinner in the manor just so they could spend more time together.

Brine was grateful for it, despite how their sudden closeness had come about.

Of course he knew what Scarlet had been doing that day—ensuring that the rest of her friends could escape unscathed—so he figured that had something to do with the way she was currently acting. Awkward. Quiet. Avoiding Brine’s touch and his conversation. She didn’t even eat when he offered her supper in the cottage.

When night fell, and they got ready for bed, Scarlet could not look Brine in the eye. She did not ask Brine about his day and, when he asked about hers, she gave him curt, one worded answers.

Something wasn’t right.

Lying in bed, it seemed as if Scarlet hardly dared to touch him.

No cuddling. No caresses or kisses.

“What’s wrong, Scarlet?” Brine asked, no longer able to take the awkwardness stretching between them. He’d never minded silence but hers put him on edge. Plus, he had never been all that patient. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Scarlet said primly, which was at once both frustrating and also the longest answer Scarlet had given Brine all day. But it told him nothing.

“Just tell me what’s wrong,” he insisted. “Maybe if you tell me about it, I’ll be able to help.”

“I don’t think so, no.”

Brine reached out for Scarlet’s blond hair, but she pulled it over her shoulder and turned away from him. He scowled, running a hand over his face and then through his own hair in exasperation. He thought they were past these evasive answers that told each other nothing.

“Why won’t you just tell me?” Brine asked again, sitting up despite the chill from the evening air. “Can’t you be honest with me about this?”

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