Page 47 of The Wolf

Bright’s expression didn’t waver, a trick she’d taught him herself. “There are no leads.”

“Not a single person has laid claim to this act?” Usually, men loved to brag about their deeds.

“No. There’s not a bloody whisper about who orchestrated it all.”

It was an inconvenience that would surely end in bloodshed, but it intrigued Arwen. She loved a game of cat and mouse. And it had been a long time since someone had tried to match their wits against hers.

“I do have a bit of good news.”

“Oh?” she said, eyeing Bright.

He lifted his chin and met her gaze for the first time. “We managed to procure another ship to replace the one we lost.”

“Pirates, I presume?”

“No.” Bright shifted his feet, the first sign of any feeling on the matter. “Someone we know.”

“Out with it,” she barked, hating how long this conversation was taking.

“It’s Brine’s.”

Arwen blinked slowly. Brine. What a surprise. She’d anticipated dragging him back into the fold by his tail. “And what does he want for such an offer?” Everything had strings attached.

“It is an act of goodwill so that he may come home.”

She grinned. No one left the pack for good. They always came home. It had only been a matter of time before her wayward grandson came back where he belonged. He’d dallied with the Dark Court for long enough. While she appreciated his endeavors of building something on his own, he belonged here among his own kind.

“Well then, we should welcome him home with open arms, should we not?”

TWENTY-TWO

SCARLET

The beating had been worth it.

It had been the worst beating Scarlet had ever experienced. The longest. The bloodiest. The most public. But she had gotten away with saving the half-shifter boy, and had even witnessed her stepmother’s ship being blown to smithereens.

A smile pulled at her split bottom lip.

That was something she’d never forget.

At least, no one had figured out she’d been in Callmai or that she’d been the one to free Moses.

The beating she had been given as punishment for failing to dispatch Lady Marianne was something Scarlet could definitely take.

She sighed, her knuckles cracking as she scrubbed the floors of the manor. That as only a nuisance. With each movement, pain radiated from her hands and knees that it was all Scarlet could do to inch, millimeter by millimeter, across the varnished wooden surface to perform her daily chores.

Her gaze flicked around the room once. No guards were watching her. That was something.

She was working at a snail’s pace; by the time she finished work today—if she managed to finish at all—it would be time to start cleaning the floors all over again come morning.

With a sigh, Scarlet pulled herself up into a sitting position, though the sigh turned into a gasp of agony as the fresh wounds on her back from the whipping cracked open, aching and bleeding anew. She grimaced as the linen of her dress stuck to her back.

The back of her neck prickled and she wiped all expression from her face. A group of wolves were travelling by on their way to the grand reception hall. Scarlet forced herself to hold their gazes and not cower away from them, though they leered and laughed at her in obvious delight.

This was also part of her stepmother’s plan to punish her, to humiliate her: to ensure she knew her place. Yes, they all knew she performed each and every one of Old Mother’s dark and dirty jobs, but she was not infallible. She could fail just like the rest of them and, just like the rest of them, Scarlet was also punished.

Worse than everyone else.

---