Page 59 of The Wolf

Scarlet’s attention dropped to Brine’s claws. He clutched clumps of hair in different shades and textures.

Trophies from his kills.

Once more her stomach lurched; Scarlet held a hand over her mouth to stop herself from retching and slipped into the woods. She couldn’t watch anymore, but nor could she bear heading back to the manor where she would have to face all the servants who would be equally as happy that Brine had just killed ten wolves.

Ten of his kin.

It was too much death. Too much blood. She wanted out.

Scarlet ran.

She ran until she was exhausted, even though she’d startedoutexhausted, tired of the never-ending ache in her body from unending punishments from her stepmother, and from the pain of people dying on her watch, and from the reality of just plain existing. She ran until her lungs were filled with needles, her skin shiny with sweat just like Brine’s had been.

Scarlet ran until she stumbled over the trunk of a felled tree, cursed, and fell flat on her face. She didn’t get back up. She didn’t have the energy.

Her heavy cloak seemed to pin her in place. It held the weight of her sins.

She frowned as she heard the rumble of conversation.

“…never knew he was so efficient,” a low voice grumbled, somewhere to Scarlet’s right, behind the trunk she had tripped over. And even though she wished she could close her eyes, sink into the leafy underbrush and never get back up, Scarlet forced herself to listen.

Another voice replied, “I told you. Brine is one of the best. If you want to incapacitate someone without killing them, he’s your man.”

“He always struck me as the kind who went forinstantdeath.”

The other man chuckled. “He certainly gives that impression. But he’s a softy, deep down. He’d kill you if you knew that, though, so keep it to yourself.”

As quietly as she could muster, Scarlet dragged herself to her knees and peeked over the fallen trunk. It was clear even in their human forms that the two strangers conversing in the distance were shifters. One had a pair of red fox ears peeking out from beneath the brim of a top hat. He was handsome in a more elegant, refined way than Brine. The other shifter was handsome too, and absolutely gargantuan. For a moment Scarlet thought he might be a bear, but then she noticed the faintly green, iridescent sheen of his skin—she’d dismissed this as an effect of the trees around him at first—and realized with a barely suppressed gasp that he was a dragon.

A dragon shifter, in Betraz? Was it the same one as before?

If only she could see their faces.

The two shifters were dragging away the bodies of three wolves—both alive, groaning from wounds sustained to their faces but not dead.

What the devil?

Quickly, Scarlet pieced together this information with what she’d just heard the two shifters saying: Brine had not killed the wolves in his trial. He had merely knocked them unconscious. And the two men were … hiding the evidence?

She leaned a little closer for a better look when a twig snapped beneath her knee. A whispered curse fell from her lips.

The fox’s ears perked up and he turned to face Scarlet’s direction. The dragon located her immediately. It took Scarlet a second to understand what was going on. This was the dragon who had saved her life, in his human skin. The dragon who had maimed Tarros beyond almost all recognition. His inhuman eyes locked on Scarlet’s, and she found herself helpless to do anything but stand up, amble over the tree trunk, and join them.

There was no point in running.

Her best bet was to talk her way out of this mess.

She almost felt as if she were a puppet on strings and someone else was controlling her movements, though Scarlet knew she had been in charge of each and every one of them.

Perhaps that was simply the way she’d always felt.

“Well, if it isn’t the little lady Red.” The dragon smiled, pleased by her presence. “I think it’s time I call on that debt you owe me.”

Shedidowe him a debt.

He’d saved her life.

Memories of that day crashed over her and she almost fell to her knees, overwhelmed by her own horrific experiences. But she forced herself to hold herself together and nodded slowly. “What would you have me do?”

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