Scarlet

Twenty-One

“I’m so sorry if I’ve interrupted you,” Ran said, lingering beneath the forest canopy. “The scent was simply too enticing to pass up.” His eyes were on Wolf as he said this and the twinkle behind them made Scarlet’s toes curl in her shoes. Grasping the handle of her pistol, she dragged it in toward her hip.

“Of course,” Wolf said after a long silence, his voice dark with warning. “We have plenty.”

“Thank you, friend.”

The man walked around the fire, passing by so close to Scarlet that she had to shrink away to keep her elbow from brushing his leg. The hairs stood up on her forearms.

Ran sprawled out opposite the fire from her, lounging as if the shore were his own private beach. After a moment, Wolf settled down between them. Not lounging.

“Wolf, this is Ran,” said Scarlet, flushing from the awkwardness. “I met him on the train.” Wishing she could restructure her emotions into nonchalance, she busied her hands with turning the duck pieces. Wolf inched closer to her, keeping himself as a block between her and Ran even though his face was tinged red from being so close to the flames.

“We had a lovely conversation in the dining car,” said Ran. “About … what was it? ‘Righteous lupine wannabes?’”

Scarlet glared at him. “A topic that never ceases to fascinate me,” she said, tone even as she pulled the duck wings and legs out of the pit. “These are done.”

She took a drumstick for herself and handed the other to Wolf. Ran didn’t complain about the two bony wings, and Scarlet grimaced when he pulled the first apart, cartilage popping loudly at the joints.

“Bon appétit,” said Ran, picking at the meat with his eerily sharp nails, juices dripping down his arms.

Scarlet nibbled at the meat, while her two companions attacked their shares like animals, each keeping a wary eye on the other. She leaned forward. “So, Ran. How did you get away from the train?”

Ran tossed the clean bones of one wing into the lake. “I might ask you the same.”

She pretended that her heart wasn’t pulsating erratically. “We jumped.”

“Risky,” said Ran with a smirk.

Wolf bristled. The relaxation that had graced his features before was gone, replaced by the simmering temper Scarlet had seen at the street fight. The tapping fingers, the jostling foot.

“We’re still a long way from Paris,” said Ran, ignoring Scarlet’s question. “How unfortunate this turn of events has been. For the plague victim, of course.”

Scarlet adjusted the breast meat. “It’s awful. I’m grateful that Wolf was with me or I’d probably still be stuck there.”

“Wolf,” said Ran, enunciating it very carefully. “What an unusual name. Did your parents give it to you?”

“Does it matter?” said Wolf, tossing away his bone.

“I’m only making conversation.”

“I’d prefer silence,” Wolf said, a growl in his tone.

After a moment in which the distrust was palpable between them, Ran faked a gasp. “I’m so sorry,” he said, picking the last bit of meat from the bones. “Have I stumbled upon a honeymoon? What a lucky man you are.” His face taunted as he pushed the shredded meat into his mouth.

Wolf curled his fingers into the sand.

Squinting at the man through the haze of smoke and heat, Scarlet leaned forward. “Is it my imagination, or do you two know each other?”

Neither denied it. Wolf’s focus was pinned to Ran, a twitch away from attacking him.

Suspicion sliced through Scarlet’s thoughts and she gripped the gun. “Roll up your sleeve.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Ran, licking the juices as they dripped down his wrist.

Clambering to her feet, she leveled the barrel at him. “Now.”

He hesitated only a moment. Expression unreadable, he reached for his left wrist and rolled the sleeve past his elbow. LSOP1126 was tattooed across the muscle of his forearm.

Anger boiled up inside Scarlet, every bit as hot as the coals beneath the fire. “Why didn’t you tell me he was one of them?” she hissed without taking her focus or the gun off the tattoo.

For the first time, Ran’s composure stiffened.

“I was hoping to determine why he’s here and why he’d approached you on the train, without alarming you,” said Wolf. “Scarlet, this is Ran Kesley, a Loyal Soldier to the Order of the Pack. Don’t worry, he is only an omega.”

Ran’s nose wrinkled at what Scarlet could tell had been a low insult.

She swapped her attention between the two. “You could smell him on me,” she said. “When I came back to the car, you knew—and you knew he was following us, all this time! How—?” She gaped at Wolf. The unnatural eyes. The uncanny senses. The teeth. The howls. The idea that he’d never had a tomato before. “Who are you people?”

Hurt flinched across Wolf’s face, but it was Ran who spoke. “What exactly have you told her, brother?”

Wolf stood, forcing Ran to tilt back his head to hold his stare. “She knows I’m no longer a brother to you,” he said. “And she knows that no one with that mark can be trusted.”

Ran smiled at the irony. “Is that all?”

“I know you have my grandmother!” she yelled, startling a flock of swallows out of the nearest tree. Once their flapping had gone quiet, the woods settled into a thick hush, Scarlet’s words still ringing. Her hand started to shake and she forced it to be still, though Ran continued to sit sprawled and at ease on the shore.

“You have my grandmother,” she said, more slowly this time. “Don’t you?”

“Well. Not with me…”

White sparks flashed across Scarlet’s vision, and it took all her willpower not to pull the trigger and erase his smugness. “Why are you following us?” she said when the throbbing rage had become a manageable simmer.

She could see him calculating his response. Planting his palm on the rocky shore, Ran pushed himself to standing and brushed the dirt from his hands. “I’ve been sent to retrieve my brother,” he said, as casually as if he’d been sent to the store for milk and bread. “Perhaps he did not tell you that he and I are part of an elite pack given a special assignment. That assignment has been canceled, and Master Jael wants us to return. All of us.”

Scarlet’s stomach tightened at Ran’s meaningful look, but Wolf’s expression was filled with more distrust and shadows than it had ever been.

“I’m not coming back,” he said. “Jael no longer controls me.”

Ran sniffed. “I doubt that. And you know as well as anyone that we don’t allow our brothers to leave us.” He rolled his sleeve down over the tattoo. “Though I confess, I haven’t missed having one less alpha around.”

The wind shifted, sending sparks from the fire into Scarlet’s face and she stumbled back, blinking them away.

“Did you really think it wise to come here, without Jael to protect you?” said Wolf.

“I don’t need Jael’s protection.”

“That would be a first.”

With a snarl, Ran leaped forward, but Wolf danced out of his reach and retaliated with a fist aimed at Ran’s jaw. Ran blocked, grasping Wolf’s fist and using the momentum to spin Wolf around and lock his elbow around Wolf’s neck. Wolf reached back, grasped Ran’s shoulder, and flipped Ran over his head. Ran landed with a solid grunt, his feet smacking the water.

He was up again in a blink.

Scarlet’s hand trembled, the gun dancing between the two, her pulse galloping. Ran was shaking with smothered rage, while Wolf was carved from rock, shrewd and calculating.

“I really do think it’s time for you to return, brother,” Ran said through clenched teeth.

Wolf shook his head, damp spikes of hair flopping onto his forehead. “You never were a match for me.”

“I think you’ll find me somewhat improved, Alpha.”

Wolf snorted and Scarlet sensed he didn’t believe Ran could ever be a genuine opponent. “Is this why you followed us? You saw your chance to improve your rank—to defeat me away from the pack?”

“I told you why I’m here. Jael sent for you. The assignment is canceled. When he finds out about this rebellion of yours—”

Wolf launched at Ran, knocking him onto his back. Ran’s head landed in the water and Scarlet heard a sickening crunch as it collided with the hard stones beneath the surface. She screamed and ran toward them, digging her nails into Wolf’s arm.

“No, stop! He might be able to tell us something!”

Wolf’s sharp canines were bared as he pulled a fist back and landed a punch to Ran’s face.

“WOLF! Stop it! My grandmother! He knows about—Wolf, let him go!”

When he didn’t relent, Scarlet fired a warning shot into the air. The echo filled the clearing—but Wolf was unfazed. Ran’s arms stopped flailing, slipped weakly down Wolf’s forearms, and dropped into the water.

“You’re going to kill him!” she shrieked. “Wolf! WOLF!”

As a last burst of bubbles rose up from Ran’s mouth, Scarlet stepped back, let out a breath, and pulled the trigger again.

Wolf hissed and fell onto his side. He clasped his hand over his left arm, where blood was already seeping into the cloth of his sleeve. But it wasn’t a deep wound. The bullet had barely grazed him.

He blinked up at Scarlet. “Did you just shoot me?”

“You didn’t leave me much choice.” With ringing ears, Scarlet fell to her knees and heaved Ran up by his shoulders, laying him back down at an awkward angle on the shore. He rolled onto his side, left eye already swelling shut and watered-down blood dripping down his nose and jaw. With a rattling cough, more blood and water spilled out of his mouth, puddling onto the sand.

Releasing a strangled breath, Scarlet glanced back up at Wolf. He hadn’t moved, but his expression had shed the maniacal anger for something akin to admiration.

“When you greeted me with a gun on your doorstep,” he said, “it’s nice to know you meant it.”

Scarlet scowled at him. “Honestly, Wolf. What are you thinking? He could tell us something. He could help get my grandma back!”

His half smile softened, and for a moment he looked sorry. For her. “He won’t talk.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“That’s not a good enough answer!”

“Watch your gun.”

“Wha—” She dropped her gaze to the shore beside her, just in time to see Ran wrap his fingers around the gun’s handle. She grasped the barrel and snatched it away from him.

An exhausted chuckle brought more bloodied spittle to Ran’s lips. “I will kill you one day, brother. If Jael doesn’t first.”

“Stop provoking him!” Scarlet yelled. Climbing to her feet, out of Ran’s reach, she reset the safety and shoved the gun back into the waist of her jeans. “You’re not exactly in any position to be making threats right now, anyway.”

Ran said nothing. His eyes had closed, his lips left hanging open with a smear of blood on his cheek, taking in slow, rattling breaths.

Disgusted, she turned back to Wolf, watching as he peeled his hand away from his wound and stared with surprise at the blood coating his palm. He leaned over on his elbow and swished his hand around in the water to get the stain off.

With a sigh, she scrambled to her forgotten bag and pulled out a small first-aid kit. Wolf didn’t argue as she ripped open the tear in his sleeve caused by the bullet and took over the job of washing and bandaging the wound. The bullet had just grazed his bicep.

“I’m sorry I shot you,” she said, “but you were going to kill him.”

“I still might,” Wolf said, watching her hands.

She shook her head, taping off the bandage. “He’s not your real brother, is he? That’s just a gang thing, isn’t it?”

Wolf grunted. Said nothing.

“Wolf?”

“I never said we got along.”

Scarlet peered up at the wild contempt filling Wolf’s face. His green eyes were burning, staring at Ran’s prone body behind her.

“Good.”

The ferocity in her voice startled away some of his hatred and Wolf turned his attention back to her.

“You must know his weaknesses. You’ll know how best to question him.”

That sympathetic look again. “We’re trained to withstand questioning. He won’t help us.”

“But he already gave us some information.” Packing up the remains of the kit, she tossed it toward her bag. It missed the opening and slid down to the ground. “He obviously knew something when I asked about my grandma. And then this assignment that was canceled—what’s that about? Does it have something to do with her?”

Wolf shook his head, but she detected a clouding in his eyes. “He told us what he wanted us—me—to know. Or to believe. I wouldn’t put stock in any of it.”

“How can you be sure?”

His fingers started up again—clench, release, clench. “I know Ran. He would do anything to improve his standing. By tracking me down and forcing me to return—or even showing proof that he’d fought me and won—he hoped to do just that. As for the assignment I’d been a part of when I left … they wouldn’t cancel it. It was too important to them.”

“What about my grandmother?”

He shook off a troubled frown. “Right. We should keep moving.” He tested the strength in his injured arm before using it to push himself to his feet. The fire had burned down to smoldering coals and soon he had stamped them out, ignoring the duck breast that had shriveled up into a chunk of coal.

“That’s not what I meant,” said Scarlet, staying put on the shore. “Shouldn’t we at least try to question him?”

“Scarlet, listen to me. Does he know something that would help? Yes, probably. But he won’t give it to us. Unless you plan on torturing it out of him, and even then there’s nothing you could do that would frighten him more than what the pack will do if he talks. We already know where your grandmother is. Dealing with him is a waste of time.”

“What if we brought him with us and offered him as a trade?” she suggested, watching as Wolf reloaded their bag.

Wolf laughed. “A trade? For an omega?” He gestured at Ran. “He’s worth nothing.” Though his temper could be heard just beneath the surface, Scarlet was glad that the temporary insanity was gone from his eyes.

“He’ll go back to them,” she said, “and tell them you’re with me.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Slinging the pack over his shoulder, Wolf spared a final scornful look at his brother. “We’ll get there before he does.”