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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.
