Scarlet

sitting area and led them toward the door.
    After two more bows apiece, Pearl glided out of the room with lashes fluttering at Kai until her neck could no longer crane toward him, but Adri paused in the doorway. Bowed one more time. “It was such an honor, Your Majesty.”
    He smiled tautly back.
    “I do wonder—not that this matters one little bit, but only as a matter of curiosity— should this lead to any discoveries in the investigation … might I be able to expect any sort of reward for my assistance?”

 
    Twenty-Nine
    Scarlet’s prison cell had begun life as a dressing room. The vague outlines of mirrors and vanities were burned into the walls and the strips of lightbulbs that had surrounded them had been reduced to empty sockets. The carpet had been pulled up, revealing cold stone beneath, and the solid oak door had been taken off its hinges and left abandoned in the corner, replaced instead with welded iron bars and an ID-sensitive lock.
    Scarlet’s fury had kept her pacing and storming about the room, kicking the walls and growling at the bars, for all night and most of the day. At least, it seemed like nearly a full day had passed—it seemed like months had passed—but being trapped in the opera house’s sublevel meant she had no indication of time other than the two meals that had been brought to her. The “soldier” who had made the delivery said nothing when she asked how long they were going to keep her there or demanded to see her grandmother immediately, only smirked at her through the bars in a way that made her skin crawl.
    She had finally collapsed on the blanketless mattress, physically exhausted. She glared at the ceiling. Hating herself. Hating these men that kept her prisoner. Hating Wolf.
    She gnashed her teeth and dug her fingernails into the worn, broken mattress.
    Alpha Kesley.
    If she ever saw him again she would scratch his eyes out. She would throttle him until his lips turned blue. She would—
    “Finally wore yourself out?”
    She jerked upward. One of the men who had first brought her to the cell stood on the other side—Rafe or Troya, she didn’t know which.
    “I’m not hungry,” she spat.
    He sneered. Every last one of them seemed to carry that same humorless smile, like it had been bred into them. “I’m not offering food,” he said, and swiped his wrist past the scanner. Grasping the bars, he lugged the door open. “I’m taking you to see your precious grand-mère.”
    Scarlet scrambled off the mattress, all exhaustion flooding away. “Really?”
    “Those are my orders. Am I going to have to bind you or do you intend to come willingly?”
    “I’ll come. Just take me to her.”
    His gaze dipped over her. Evidently determining she didn’t pose a threat, he stepped back and gestured toward the long, dim corridor. “Then after you.”
    As soon as she stepped into the hallway, he grasped her wrist and lowered his face so that his breath steamed against her neck. “Do anything stupid and I’ll take my displeasure out on the old hag, do you understand?”
    She shuddered.
    Without waiting for a response, he released her and nudged her between her shoulder blades, prodding her down the hallway.
    Her heart raced. She was near delirium with fatigue and the promise of seeing her grandmother, but it didn’t keep her from scoping out her prison. Half a dozen barred doorways lined this basement corridor, all dark. The man urged her around a corner, up a thin stairwell, through a doorway.
    They were backstage. Dusty old props filled the rafters and black curtains hung like phantoms in the darkness. The only light came from runners along the aisles in the audience and Scarlet had to squint as the soldier led her out onto the stage, then down the steps into the empty audience. An entire section of seats had been removed, leaving holes where they’d once been bolted to the sloped floor. Another group of soldiers was standing there, in the shadows, like they’d been having a jovial conversation before Scarlet and her captor had interrupted them. Scarlet kept her eyes firmly glued to the end of the aisle. She didn’t think any of them were Wolf, but she didn’t want to know if she was wrong.
    They reached the back of the theater and Scarlet pushed open one of the huge doors.
    They were on a balcony overlooking the lobby and the grand staircase. Still no sunlight came through the hole in the ceiling—clearly she’d missed the whole day.
    Her captor grabbed her