12. Scarlett

I'm usedto sleeping anywhere, but tonight it takes a while to drop off. The hard flooring under the blankets and hessian bags I've put together as a bed is extra-uncomfortable with every muscle tense and aching from the brutal training sessions Lyssa has been putting me through. Part of me resents her relentless pace, the way she seems determined to push me to my limits and beyond. But a deeper, quieter voice whispers that I need this—that I have to be strong enough to face whatever awaits us when we finally track down Grandmother.

And to be ready when Lyssa turns on me.

But I fall asleep at last, heavy, dead to the world so that the next thing I'm aware of is Lyssa's voice.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty!"

I roll over and blink up at her, standing over me up here in the hay loft. Then I yawn.

"You gonna nap all damn day, or you wanna wake up and actually get some work done?"

I sit up with a groan, massaging the muscles at the nape of my neck. "Give me a break," I grumble. "I'm exhausted. You've been working me like a dog."

"Nope," she says. "Like a wolf."

That wakes me up.

And then she does what I usually do, avoiding the ladder and just dropping from the edge of the loft to the floor below. "So what's the matter?" her voice carries back up. "The big, bad assassin can't take a little training?"

And that gets me up and moving. I follow her lead, dropping from the edge of the loft to the floor and face off. She's a few feet away, folding her toned arms across her chest. Even dusty and sweat-stained from the road, she looks like she just stepped off the cover of some high-end biker magazine—dark eyes, that wild blonde mane tumbling around her face…

I look away before the flush creeping up my neck can give me away. "I didn't hear you come in, that's all."

"You didn't hear the bike?"

"Obviously not."

"You need to sleep lighter or one day you'll wake up dead."

"I—"

"Whatever." Lyssa pivots on her heel. "So, how are you going on those documents?"

I hurry over to where I've been working on them and beckon her over. "Look at this. I pieced something together the other day and I?—"

"And you've been keeping it from me?" she says sharply, coming over to look over my shoulder.

"I forgot," I correct her. "And you didn't come out yesterday." I have to try really, really hard to sound okay about that, even though I spent all day berating myself for breaking down in front of her. Obviously she stayed away after that. "I just…haven't had a chance to bring it up. But I did mean to mention it as soon as you got here—and now I have."

She studies me for a long beat, those flinty brown eyes missing nothing. When she finally speaks, her tone is clipped and brusque. "Show me."

I hesitate, something in her brusque manner setting me on edge. Is she really that pissed about it? She's the one who was off living her best life yesterday, while I was stuck out here.

Taking up a page of my handwritten transcription of what I've discovered so far, I hold it out to her in silence.

Lyssa snatches it from me, scanning the text with ferocious intensity. I watch her face closely, looking for any flicker of expression, any hint of what she might be thinking. But as always, Lyssa's emotional shields are firmly in place, that gorgeous face a mask.

At last, she shakes her head slowly. "This…" Lyssa glances up at me. "Looks an awful lot like a hit list."

"I thought that was one option. Yes."

"You should have shown me this as soon as you had it," she snaps. "If she knocks off enough heavy hitters in one clean sweep, she'd have the perfect opening to seize control of—everything."

"I knew she had lofty ambitions, but?—"

"You should have told me." A muscle ticks in Lyssa's clenched jaw as she glares at me. "Why didn't you?"

"Because you weren't here," I reiterate, my voice growing louder.

"Are you double-crossing me, here, Scarlett? Playing for Grandmother even now?"

I'm so shocked my mouth falls open and a beat passes before I can find a reply. "Are you fucking crazy? You're the one who took me out here, Lyssa!" She's still looking suspicious, and that's what pushes me into losing my temper. "What the hell more do you want from me, Wolf? I've accepted being left out here for days with no company, I've accepted sleeping on the fucking floor—I've even accepted that there's nothing for me at the end of all this except death, either by you or by Grandmother!"

"You're right," she says quietly. "I'm sorry."

For the second time in a few minutes, I'm shocked into silence. She's…sorry?

"I was out of line," she goes on. "I shouldn't have said—what I said."

"Then why did you?" I ask stiffly.

She sighs. "I'm angry at myself. Not you. I feel shitty for lying to Hadria. And oh my God, Hadria and Suzy are so caught up in each other it's just sickening, and all Suzy can talk about right now is the wedding or interior deco—" She breaks off just as she starts getting into a stream of words. "I'm pissed at me," she says again. "Not you." She holds up the paper again and adds, "Thank you. This is important."

I decide not to push it. "Will you show Hadria?"

"Yeah. It won't come as news to her—there are a whole lot of people who want her dead—but she's the one who needs to decide if we share it around."

I tilt my head to the side. "You don't think this is something others should know?"

"It's Hades' decision," she says mulishly, and then sighs. "Of course they should know. And Hadria will tell them." She looks a little uncertain, though. But then she shakes off her mood. "We'll handle it," she tells me. "But right now, how about we get started so you wake up a little?"

It's a challenge, plain and simple. That familiar competitive spark is back, dancing in the depths of her gaze. And even battered and hollowed-out as I am from our brutal sessions, I can't resist rising to meet it.

"You're on," I tell her, stretching out my arms and rolling my shoulders.

"Let's see what you've got."

We move in unison, sinking into fighting stances. Lyssa makes the first strike, an arcing roundhouse kick meant to take my head off. A few weeks earlier it might have surprised me, coming as her first move, but I'm better these days, less trusting. I duck low and spin away.

And then our sparring match begins in earnest, bodies twisting and whirling and coming alive.

It's exhilarating. Freeing. For this brief window of time, I can let everything else fall away—my grief, my fear, my rage. There's only the singular focus of combat, the ebb and flow of attack and defense.

Until it shifts.

We've been going at it for a while, both of us streaked with sweat and heaving for breath. Lyssa's eyes are blazing, and I love seeing her like this the most: savage and powerful and utterly unrestrained.

The thought sends a hot need flooding through me, and suddenly, I'm not fighting to win anymore. I'm fighting for another reason entirely—just to feel her body up against mine.

Lyssa senses the change too, if the way her pupils blow wide is any indication. When she aims a lazy jab at my ribs, I dodge it with ease, grabbing her wrist and using her own forward momentum to spin us both around. We collide against the rough barn wall with a dull thud, my body pinning hers against the wall like a trapped butterfly.

She's so close I can feel her breath brushing over my lips, smell the clean scent of her sweat. This is the first time I've bested her.

But I'm pretty sure she let me.

Her eyes drop to my lips and all at once I know it for sure: she wants this as much as I do.

"Scarlett?" Her voice is a hoarse rasp, cracking with barely leashed need. "You sure about this? Because you know there's only one way this will end…"

For a heartbeat, her words penetrate the haze fogging up my brain. She's right. At the end of all this, one of us is going to die.

But in this moment right now, with the heat of her body searing into mine, need for her coursing through my veins…I don't care. I'm so sick of being afraid, of constantly bracing for the next blow that life is going to deal me. More than anything, I just want to feel alive again.

"Are you sure?" I challenge her back.

She gives a nod. A small, reluctant, but firm nod.

"Then I'm sure, too," I breathe against her parted lips, and then I kiss her.

Lyssa's mouth opens, allowing me to plunge in deeper. Her tongue meets mine with a fervor that I wasn't expecting, making my head spin. I feel the thud of my heart in my chest, beating against hers. The barn wall creaks ominously as I lean into her, our bodies sliding together like two pieces of a puzzle that fit perfectly.

She turns me, flipping us so that I'm the one with my back to the wall. My hands roam all over her, feeling every inch of her muscle and skin, tracing the thin straps of her shirt that threaten to slip off her shoulder. Her hands slide lower down to cup my ass cheeks possessively. I suck in a sharp breath at the touch, practically climb onto her, rubbing against her hard thigh—but we're both off balance, stumbling back, before our lip crash together once more.

It's a whole new fight. One we can both win.

"You know what?" she asks, shoving me away from her.

"What?" I ask, breathing hard.

She gives a sharp smirk. "I want to eat you all up."

"Then stop talking about it and do it."

The Wolf practically pounces on me, just like her namesake, tackling me to the floor—but it's a soft landing, because I know how to fall by now. And then her hands are all over me, mouth trailing hungrily down my neck, and I'm panting, reduced to incoherent moans and whimpers as she works her way down with purpose.

She kneels up a little between my spread legs, hands at my waistband. I raise my hips for her, and she yanks my sweatpants, underwear and sneakers off in one go, making me gasp and laugh at the same time. But the laughter dies when Lyssa looks down at me, those dark eyes alight with hunger. And then she leans in to the crease between my belly and my thigh, inhaling deeply through her nose and then sighing in pleasure. "That's what I keep smelling. Drives me fucking crazy every time we train. You smell so damn good, Scarlett. Sweet and salty—and all mine." Lyssa's voice is a low growl as she dips her head, brushing her lips against my inner thigh before nipping the tender skin just below my hipbone.

I moan again, my hips twisting involuntarily against the hay-strewn floor, desperate for more. My clit is pounding in tandem with my heartbeat, a needy, insistent drum. But her fingers and tongue trace feather-light over my folds, teasing, dragging it out until I spit out a curse.

"Fucking do it."

A slow, wicked smile pulls at her lips when I glare down at her between my legs, and I recognize the look in her eyes: the predator zeroing in on her prey. But right now, with my heart pounding and my body on fire for her touch, I don't care. I don't care about the danger or the consequences or anything else except for this: her mouth on me, her tongue sinking into my wet cunt and lapping as though she's dying of thirst. As if I alone could sustain her.

I arch my hips higher into the delicious torture of her tongue as it flicks rapidly over my clit, no teasing now. She's driving me right to a peak, no detours, straight along that path until I get to?—

And then she stops.

"Fuck," I spit, and she laughs, snickers really, and she sounds so joyful and pleased with herself that I laugh, too. But it cuts off fast as first one finger, and then another, slips inside me, massaging me gently as she goes back to devouring me like I'm the most delicious thing she's ever tasted. I reach down, grab her head, press her harder against me as I buck wildly against her tongue and fingers.

Stars rocket through every nerve ending in my whole body as she hits that sweet spot deep within. "I'm gonna?—"

It's too late for words, and I give in to the supernova of sensation. Lyssa's mouth is demanding, pushing me into a protracted, almost painful orgasm that leaves me shaking and gasping for air.

She sits up, wiping her mouth, and I'm reminded once more of a wild animal when she looks at me, a wild animal not yet sated from the hunt.

I reach out to her, motion her up onto my face. I want to drown in her, to give her the same mind-blowing experience she just gave me. She pauses for a second, silently making sure I mean what I'm silently saying, and I yank at her insistently. She scrambles up eagerly, shedding her clothes in record time, and then I finally get what I want: Lyssa's velvet-soft pussy descending onto my face.

I let out a moan to echo hers as I bury my tongue into her. Her tangy, musky scent floods my mouth. Delicious. I feel her thighs tremble and I let private satisfaction wash over me with the faint tremors of a sympathetic ghost orgasm.

I bet no one ever made the Wolf's thighs tremble before.

Lyssa's breath is loud and harsh as she rides me. I do exactly what she did to me, focusing fast attention on her swollen clit, flicking at it and around it in quick circles with my tongue. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to; her flavor is addictive, and I want more of it—all of it?—

Her hips stutter as she hits the edge, sliding slow and firm as her climax hits, and she lets out a harsh, choked-off cry. I don't let up, working her through it just like she worked me, showing her that I learn fast, learn good, can be exactly what she needs…

"Jesus fuck," she pants at last, wriggling away from my still-clutching hands. "Scar, you are…" She breaks off, huffing out a laugh. "You are really fucking good at that."

"You're not so bad yourself." I give her a lazy grin, and she reaches out to push my bangs, wet with sweat and everything else, back from my forehead in a tender move that makes me catch my breath.

She slings an arm over me and we both drift for a while, boneless and sated.

There's a strange sort of peace in this liminal space between waking and dreaming. A tranquil pocket of existence where I don't have to think about the heavy burdens weighing on both of us.

About how this forbidden moment of connection came with an impossibly high price.

But for now, in this quiet, secret place, I can simply be.

Be with her.

And then we both hear it: the buzz of a text on her silenced phone. She stays there another moment until the second insistent buzz comes through, and then, with a groan, she rolls over and rises to her feet, walking over to her jacket, fishing out her phone.

A few seconds later, she says, "I have to go."

"What? Why?" I hate myself for sounding the way I do. Whiny. Like some jealous lover…

But Lyssa's next words make me forget all that.

"Johnny the Gentleman finally came through on that helicopter path," she says. "He wants to meet. Tonight."