Page 187 of Dance of Deception

My hands ball into fists.

“I won’t apologize for what I am, Lyra,” Arkadi growls. “I am a wolf. As are you.”

“I amnothinglike you!” I scream, my voice ripping through the trees.

Arkadi’s laugh is low, guttural. “You might not be my blood,” he murmurs, his footsteps getting closer. “But I raised you. Iamyou.”

“How did my mother die?!”

The rustling stops.

I hold my breath, my pulse pounding against my ribs.

Then, Arkadi’s voice slices through the night.

“With my fingers around her throat, and a pathetic cry for mercy on her lips.”

Something inside me snaps and breaks.

My hand closes around a thick fallen branch, bark splintering beneath my grip. I press myself against a tree, my fingers tightening around the wood, hefting it experimentally.

Waiting.

“Don’t mourn a woman you literally never knew!” Arkadi roars.

He’s close now.

I grip the broken tree branch tighter.

“And don’t cling to a future you were forced into! You could be so much more than?—”

I steel myself as Arkadi stalks past the tree I’m hiding behind. Then, with a roar, I swing the branch with every ounce of strength I have left.

It slams into his stomach, making him double over with a vicious grunt.

Before he can recover, I swing again, this time catching him in the face. His head whips to the side, blood spurting from his mouth as he collapses into the dead leaves.

I turn, and I run.

The sound of footsteps pounding right behind me sends ice up my spine. I push faster, legs pumping, blood roaring, skin burning with adrenaline and fear as I burst into a clearing.

Then all I know is pain.

He slams into me from behind, tackling me face-first into the ground. The force knocks the wind out of me, and suddenly, he’s rolling me onto my back and straddling me, his weight crushing my ribs as I look up into his manic, twisted face in the moonlight.

His hands clamp around my throat.

“Join me,” he snarls. “I can teach you to be like me.”

His grip tightens. My eyes bulge and my vision blurs.

“Or you can die like your insignificant mother.”

I thrash, clawing at his grip. But my body is fading.

No.

No, no,no.

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