Page 95 of To Hunt A Wolf

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I stare at her.

The flicker of darkness that flashes in her eyes isn’t something I recognize at all.

“How do you know what Levi is hell-bent on doing?”

She scowls.

“Kari.”

My heart pounds.

A slow dread crawls over my skin. It creeps beneath the sheet I’ve wrapped so tightly around me, hooking its claws into my flesh. I know its name even before I find the courage to voice it: suspicion.

Kari doesn’t waver.

Her spine is straight, her gaze sharpened to a razor point.

It’s that directness stabbing straight into my heart that makes me want to weep.

“How do you know what Levi is doing?” I repeat, my voice cracking as my heart begins to break. “And where did you get that bruise, really?”

She starts to answer, another lie clear on the tip of her tongue.

“I gave up my freedom for you,” I whisper, and she finally drops the mask.

Her expression twists.

Gone is the terrified desperation. In its place is cold cruelty far beyond anything I’ve witnessed from Thiago. She stands and, eyes still locked on me, calls over her shoulder, “She’s not going to give him up. I’m done here.”

The door opens.

Thiago reappears, flanked by guards.

I stare, wide-eyed and disbelieving of the realizations threatening to drown me.

Thiago smirks. “I’m nothing compared to him, you know,” he says.

I blink, confused. “You mean Jadick.”

Kari backs toward Thiago, a clear alliance. Even so, I can hardly believe what I’m seeing.

“He’s a monster,” Thiago says. “Why else would we be going to such lengths to stop him. You could help us.”

“No, I think you’re much, much worse,” I say, my voice hoarse.

This can’t be happening.

Levi.

I have to get to Levi.

“You must not have spent much time with him, then,” Thiago says.

It’s a taunt.

He wants me to protest, to argue that I have spent plenty of time with him and know exactly where Jadick is now. I almost give in to it. There’s no reason not to. I owe the man nothing. Less than nothing, in fact, for his abandonment of us. Of his own sister. Though, I wonder if he knew what I didn’t all along.

Still.

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