Page 88 of The Wolf

He wiggled his brows and glanced around the area. “No one here to help you now,” he taunted, circling around Scarlet slowly, deliberately. He heaved in a breath. “Why do I want you so? Even now? It sickens me.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

She felt his mood change.

Tarros threw himself at her, so quickly that Scarlet tumbled beneath him before she could stab at his stomach with her dagger.

The red wolf grabbed at her fist, smashing it against the ground until Scarlet’s grip on the blade slackened. He tossed it carelessly away. With no weapon, Scarlet resorted to scratching at Tarros’s eyes, punching his chest, wriggling beneath him with all the strength she could muster. But Tarros’s hand flew to Scarlet’s throat and tightened.

“You should have let me have you,” he snarled, licking the full length of his tongue across Scarlet’s face. “You should have given me what I wanted. Then you wouldn’t have to die.”

“I’d rather—I’dratherdie,” Scarlet sputtered between coughs. But was this really how she was going to go? She couldn’t believe it.

Down to her marrow, Scarlet did not want this to be her fate.

“Maybe I’ll take my fill of you and then kill you.”

Over my dead body.

She got her left leg beneath her and kicked Tarros in the stomach. But he yanked on her ankle, loosening her shoe until it fell from her foot, and dug his nails into the flesh of her calf. Scarlet cried out in pain. She turned her head and bit down on his forearm until she tasted blood.

Tarros howled and tried to shake her off to no avail. He leaned closer and growled. “You’re so beautiful, Red,” he crooned, almost lovingly, “without your poisons and your cloak and your grandmother to protect you. I always knew you’d like it rough.”

He headbutted her and Scarlet released his forearm with a moan.

“I like the way that sounds,” he purred as she struggled against him. “Give me more of those sweet sounds.”

“Bite me,” she screamed, snapping her teeth at him.

“With pleasure.” He pulled and tore the corner of her top away and frowned at Brine’s mark. “Such a shame he did that. I guess I’ll just have to cover it with my own.”

Her stomach rebelled and she vomited violently, splattering his chest and her own.

Tarros snarled, his upper lip curled back as he got in her face. “Do you think your weak little human reactions will save you?” She turned her head to the side, eyes narrowing on his ear. “You are mine. Now be a good girl and—”

She jerked up and bit down on his ear as hard as she could. He jerked away and she spat out a small chunk of his ear, simultaneously feeling proud and ill.

“You little witch. I’ll kill you for this.” He wrapped his hand around her neck and squeezed brutally.

Scarlet braced herself.

Don’t black out. Keep fighting.

An arrow whistled through the air, lodging itself firmly in Tarros’s back and protruded from his chest. Then another, and another for good measure. In an instant his eyes glazed over. There hadn’t even been enough time for Tarros to realize he had died, his expression still one of vicious, bloody triumph.

His body toppled against her and his hand slackened around Scarlet’s throat. She yelped and clawed at it as she pulled in a desperate, life-affirming breath.

“Get off me, get off me, get off me,” she cried, attempting to wiggle out from beneath him. But he was too heavy.

Calm down and breathe.

Her hands shook and she gulped air, tears tracking down her cheeks as she sobbed. Tarros was finally gone. He couldn’t hurt her anymore and yet… she was shaken to the core.

A few seconds later a pair of hands hauled Tarros off.

Scarlet scuttled backward on her hands and furiously blinked away her tears. Her vision cleared and she couldn’t believe who’d saved her.

Standing above her was the Lady Marianne. The duchess of Merjeri, dressed as…

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