Page 94 of The Wolf

She bristled and planted her hands on her hips. “No. What of it?”

He held his hands up. “Nothing lass. Just trying to compliment you.’

The man met her eyes, she realized he wasn’t meaning to upset her. There was something feline about his yellow eyes and slitted pupils—something that screamedshifterat her.

A cat?

“So no man in your life?”

“No,” Scarlet said, simply, wondering where the man’s line of questioning was going. She didn’t feel uncomfortable by his presence, after all, and he wasn’t looking at her in any kind of lecherous, desirous way. So why was he asking her if she was mated?She dipped her fingers into the sleeping powder she always kept at her waist.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said, his smile growing wider. Like a cat that ate the canary. “Your mate is, after all, looking for you.”

She stiffened.

And then it hit Scarlet.

She did recognize this man, from the day that she spied on the fox shifter.

He was a friend of Brine’s. A member of the Dark Court.

Bloody hell.

She knew this day would happen. She just hoped it would happen after the babe was born.

Scarlet had no time to waste. Without a second glance at the man, she bolted through the back door of the shop, down the stairs and to the main floor of the pub. As usual, the place was heaving, but the moment she locked eyes with Ari the woman looked at her and, without a word, abandoned her work to hold her friend’s hand. With the utmost tenderness, she kissed her friend goodbye.

“The far left, remember?” she whispered into Scarlet’s ear, when Scarlet embraced her. “On the docks. The far left. And here,” Ari added on, pulling out the bag Scarlet had stowed away beneath the bar, packed and ready for her to leave at a moment’s notice, for months now. “You’ll need this.”

All at once Scarlet’s fragile happiness was shattered into pieces.

It was time to run. Time to start a new life where she’d be safe.

“I love you,” she told Ari, meaning every word of it.

Her friend broke into a grin. “I know. And you’ll still love me on the other side of the world, sogo. And write often. I wish to know what the fire sands are like.”

“I promise.”

And so Scarlet had no choice but to flee the bar, the bag in her hands and the baby in her belly the sum total of everything important she was allowed to take with her, and hope for the best. She didn’t see the cat-eyed shifter on the cobblestone street as she made her way across the pavement and toward the docks, but she had no doubt he would have long since left to alert his friend.

To tell Brine where she was. To get a hold of their baby.

Notourbaby,Scarlet sniffed, blinking back tears as she fought the stitch in her stomach to reach the boat that was her safety and her salvation.My baby. Not his.

She’d have to start anew in the Southern Isles, and hope it lasted longer than four months this time.

FORTY-EIGHT

BRINE

“I found her!”

Brine dropped the tankard of beer in his hands, not caring that it clattered to the floor and splashed its contents across the grubby wooden planks. To his left, a couple of pirates scowled, but one flash of Brine’s wicked curved dagger was all it took to send them on their way.

Brine could do nothing but stare at Chesh as he threaded his way through the crowded pub, out of breath and excited. “You found her?”

It didn’t seem possible. He’d been looking for her for months. His mate was a tricky little vixen. She’d covered her tracks well.

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