Page 5 of Lone Wolf

“She shouldn’t be training with us, anyway,” Vanessa agrees, still stung from my comment. “She’s too advanced.”

I’m getting really annoyed now, though I smile when I point out, “The only way we’ll get better is to train with people better than us. You should be grateful to her.”

“Come on, Sunny,” Enzo says, bumping my shoulder in a way that feels far too intimate. “I know you’re a ball of optimism, but even you gotta admit, Graves is one stone-cold bi—” He takes in my face and substitutes, “—lady.Plusshe was working with Grandmother. That alone makes her unreliable. What if she’s still working for her dead boss, like that woman Lyssa and Scarlett brought back from Vegas?”

“Scarlett worked with Grandmother too.” I probably shouldn’t be pushing back so hard, but they’re all starting to piss me off, now. The thing about the Syndicate is, it can get real cliquey. And I don’t like that. Cliques mean information gets bogged down, people don’t pull together when they should, and shit goes south.

“Scarlett’s not a damn machine,” Enzo snorts, “not like Ariadne. Nope. There’s definitely something off about her.”

“What’s off is that none of you assholes ever try to talk to her.” My smile is as tight as my voice now.

Vanessa tosses her hair. “She wouldn’t respond if we did! You love her so much,youtalk to her.”

I take a sip of my coffee and make up my mind. “Well,” I say lightly, “maybe I will.”

Anotherooooohrises, this one excited, eager to watch a show, which just means I won’t give it to them. If I’m going to make forcible friends with Ariadne, I’ll do it without an audience. So I let the conversation pass on to other topics and I just sit there and watch her from across the room.

Elijah and Zach leave the table a few minutes later. None of those three ever say a word to each other, and I don’t really know any of them. But Ariadne’s the one that interests me. I gotta be honest, part of it is because she’s totally hot. She has this smooth, tan skin and short dark blonde hair that sits sleek against her head, and I know it would feel like silk to run my fingers through…

And let’s face it, the Ice Queen thing? Also gets me going. I wonder what itwouldtake to make her melt. Because as much as I defended her to the others, I know why they think the things they do. Sarah Graves—Ariadne suits her better, but I don’t know what she prefers—isa stone-cold soft butch who fights with precision and near-mechanical perfection. But when I look at her now, really look and take notice, I can see a few signs of humanity.

She’s tensed up in the shoulders, for one thing. A tightness that suggests hypervigilance. She eats methodically, stares either straight ahead at nothing or down at her plate. But she notices what’s going on in the room without needing to stare around—I catch the minute shifts in her position that track movement, the way her head tilts slightly to catch conversations.

I know those signs—signs of someone who doesn’t trust the people around her. And why the hell should she? No one’s gone out of their way to make themselves trustworthy to her.

I wonder what it would take to make her react.

Just for fun, I stare hard at her until her gaze flicks to mine, instead of straight ahead. There’s a jolt of electricity when our eyes meet, like touching a live wire.

And she holds it. Doesn’t look away.

I smirk and lift my coffee cup in a greeting, trying to ignore the quickening of my heartbeat. Something about her steadfast gaze makes my skin prickle with awareness.

She blinks once, slow and deliberate, like a cat assessing a potential threat. Then she returns to her meal.

Well. This is going to be a challenge.

And as I watch Sarah robotically putting food in her mouth and chewing, I’m caught by a flicker of memory. I used to eat just like that—like I’d better get the food into my mouth before it was whipped away. And opposite me, a girl who ate the same way, too. But she always pushed more onto my plate when our parents weren’t looking.

A wave of sadness comes over me, and just for a second, my smile slips. But I push the memory away, taking another sip of coffee. This isn’t about the past.

This is about Sarah.

Ariadne.

I looked up the myth about Ariadne in the library a couple of weeks ago. Ariadne held a string for Theseus, some Greek hero, as he went into the labyrinth to slay the Minotaur.

She got dumped on an island back on the way to Athens for her trouble. But then she hooked up with Dionysus, a God—definitely a step up from this Theseus dude—so maybe mythical Ariadne did okay for herself.

The flesh and blood version sitting across the room from me looks like she’s lost herself in a labyrinth somewhere. Maybe she’s waiting for someone to walk in after her, hook her up with a string to lead her out.

Maybe I could do that.

Maybe I could be her thread in the darkness. I could find her, wherever she’s lost, and bring her back to the light.

“You really gonna talk to her?” Enzo asks me, his shoulder bump more friendly than flirty this time. At least I got that settled quick.

I grin back at him, wide and easy. “Talk? Nah.”

---