Scarlet

She shook her head, baffled. “But if you had a good home life, why did you even join them in the first place?”

“I wasn’t given a choice.” He scratched behind his ear. “My brother wasn’t given one either when they came for him, a few years after they took me, but that never seemed to bother him like it bothered me…” He trailed off, tossing a stone into the water. “It’s complicated. And it doesn’t matter anymore.”

She frowned. It was unfathomable to her that you wouldn’t have a choice to live that lifestyle, to leave your home and family, to join a violent gang—but before she could press him further, Wolf’s attention swiveled back toward the train tracks and he leaped to his feet.

Scarlet turned, her heart landing in her throat.

The man from the dining car crept out of the shadows, quiet as a cat. He was still smiling, but it was nothing like that teasing, flirtatious grin she’d seen on him before.

It took her a slow, blank moment to recall his name. Ran.

Tipping his head back, Ran sniffed longingly at the air.

“Lovely,” he said. “It seems I’m just in time for supper.”

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.