CHAPTER FORTY #3
We fought against one another, her attempting to pull me deeper into the thicket, and my clawing at the air to remain by the trail.
“Let me go!” I screamed, but her arm looped around my center, lifted me clear off the ground, and then we were running to a fallen tree that would obstruct us from the trail.
Fortunately, I’d slowed her down just enough that the oncoming riders spotted us.
But the moment the cloaked men spoke, I realized they had not merely been on the same path heading towards the Threshold.
They were looking for us.
“There!”
“I see them!”
“Careful of the Videa,” a man on a black horse called, his rough voice summoning goose pimples along my arms. “She bites.”
“Don’t mind a bit of biting myself,” another said. I didn’t miss the sinister smile that peeked from beneath his hood. That toothy, hungered expression struck me with a deep knowing that I would be better off with Vayen than with them.
There were more than half a dozen riders, all with horses that paled in comparison to Rummy. For the first time in my life, I wished desperately to be on a horse instead of the forest floor, but Rummy was too large to weave through the trees in this part of the wood.
Their horses, however, were not.
Our goals now aligned, Vayen set me down, grabbed my bound hands, and began to sprint.
I followed in step, casting only a wayward glance back when a scream split through the air.
Rummy had kicked one of the men off his horse and was trampling him into the ground.
The sight sent my heart into my throat. Rummy had been nothing but docile since our meeting—if he was ready to kill, I had no doubt our lives were very much in danger.
“Faster,” Vayen demanded, pulling my wrists too hard.
“I’m trying!” I cried, hopping over a fallen branch with only Vayen’s unyielding grip to keep me steady.
But there was no hope. The bandits were on horses, and even despite the overgrowth of the thicket, they were gaining on us. I wasn’t helping matters much, practically stumbling forward without the use of my hands.
Suddenly, Vayen whirled around and ran her palm over a glyph on my bindings, causing the rope to grow slack before disappearing to the ground. She pulled me close, brows low and eyes darkening as she held onto my upper arms with enough strength to bruise.
The single syllable that escaped her mouth was nearly a growl. “Run.”
There was something in her expression, in her tone of voice, that compelled me to move faster than I’d ever thought possible.
Her jacket, which had only been resting on my shoulders, fell to the forest floor.
But I had no time to think about the forest’s chill, or my throbbing wrists, or how grateful I was to be untied, or whether this might mean I’d escaped the Threshold entirely.
The forest in my periphery became little more than a blur as I weaved through the trees, my limited Sentinel’s training resurfacing as I focused only on sprinting forward.
More screams echoed behind me, so uninhibited they sounded more animal than human.
I was grateful it wasn’t Vayen. But could she really handle all of those men by herself?
I had to believe she could. No matter what thoughts had consumed me earlier, I didn’t want her to die.
But I also didn’t want to be her—or anyone else’s—captive, either.
This is good, I tried to convince myself as I raced through the forest, chilled wind nipping at my cheeks. Vayen will handle the men, and by the time she’s finished, I’ll be long gone.
The sun’s ascent would warm the wood just enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about losing my fingers or toes until nightfall, so all I had to do was find a trail, or stumble upon a cabin, or—
I heard only the faintest whistle before searing pain sliced through my right thigh.
I bit back the scream that threatened to loose, staggering forward and gripping my leg.
I collapsed against a nearby ironbark, chest heaving as I grimaced through the fire now racing through my torn flesh.
I increased pressure in response to the blood trickling down my thigh, but I didn’t look down.
Instead I scoured the trees around me, stifling my own cries, until my attention found the man on horseback nearing my position, bow in hand.
Despite the searing pain igniting each step, I hobbled forward, forcing myself to move. It didn’t matter that he was on a horse, or that there was no measurable hope of escaping him. I had to keep moving. I had to try.
“Slippery little bitch, ain’t ya?” the man called out through a grin.
Hoofbeats sounded near, propelling me forward even faster.
At one point, I released my wound, only for blood to flow more freely down my leg, dampening my skirts and pooling into my boot.
I didn’t know how bad my injury was. Depths, I didn’t even know if it was survivable without a physician.
But I did know, at my very core, that death by this wound would be preferable to whatever that man had planned if he caught me.
When he caught me, my own thoughts amended.
The man hollered a war cry as he hopped off his still-moving horse, landing almost directly on top of me and crumpling my body to the ground.
I breathed too quickly for my chest, mud and leaves smearing against my face, shallow gasps unable to fill my lungs as the man crushed me from above.
My yelp was strangled against the weight of him.
I clawed at a nearby root, trying to break free, but he situated himself atop me with ease.
He grabbed my shoulders forcefully, slamming me onto my back as he straddled my hips.
At some point during the commotion, his hood had fallen back, but I didn’t recognize the man or his origins.
His light features, dark blonde hair, and light brown eyes transformed the moment his mouth curled into a menacing smile that threatened to break me.
I didn’t know how, for it shouldn’t have been possible, but that deep, perceptive part of my heart—the part that was privy to the unknowable aspects of my being—saw my future as though it were a play I’d rehearsed since childhood.
As though I’d experienced all of this before.
As though this were, from the very beginning of time, my fate.
That bit of truth existed in direct opposition to my mouth and my limbs, both fighting with everything they had to get him off of me. I screamed, my cries echoing into the cloudless blue sky fractured by bald tree branches.
I hadn’t been allowed in them for as long as I could remember, but the moment I’d crossed over Lunamor’s wall, that was the first place I’d gone.
Into the trees. I had always been safe in the woods.
But I could see it plainly on this man’s face, as he struggled to press my welted wrists above my head, that he intended to ensure I would never feel safe again.
“Bit of a fighter, are we?” he barked out through a laugh.
I bucked my hips, writhing fruitlessly, trying with all my might to shift his balance.
But he was a large man. He managed to subdue my aching wrists with one hand, the other reaching for the dagger on his belt.
It unsheathed with a hissing noise that instinctively silenced my cries, prompting a sinister smile to widen his mouth.
“There we go,” he cooed, dancing the blade in front of my eyes. “That’s it. Behave, and I won’t have to slice you open any more than I already intend to.”
My stomach turned sour with the urge to vomit. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to control my breathing as frightened pants escaped me. I hadn’t realized I’d been crying, but a breeze whipped past us, rustling the fallen leaves and cooling the salty streams on my cheeks.
“Please,” I whispered, the pathetic register of my voice breaking my heart. “Please—whatever you’re about to do—”
His grin only grew; he seemed to take pleasure in my fear. Just as Rowland had.
This. This was the very thing I had tried to escape.
Perhaps that was my punishment; I’d forfeited my destiny, breaking a treaty that had protected my kingdom for generations.
If being some sort of Goddess Vessel was an alternate destiny—a consolation prize for the birthright I’d cast aside—I’d rejected that, too.
I had attempted to outrun both of the fates that chased me.
To no avail, it would seem. No matter what direction I turned, suffering followed.
I had managed to evade Rowland, but now, beneath this large man and his rather obvious desire pressing into my stomach as he leaned forward to position the dagger on my cheek, I was about to endure more of the same, and I didn’t have the strength to defend myself.
“Let’s take a look,” he said slowly, pinning me under his leering gaze. He slipped the dagger beneath the top of my dress, blade angled up, and sliced through both my bodice and shift with ease.
Cold air descended on my breasts, and my stomach roiled in response. I fought harder, wanting desperately to cover myself from his hungry, half-lidded gaze, but he crushed my wrists with no regard for the bones shifting uncomfortably beneath his grasp.
“So the tales hold truth after all,” he said with a smug expression. “Your skin is little more than spilled milk. I can see each and every vein…”
“Fuck you,” I ground out, thrashing beneath him.
“Tsk tsk, you’ve got quite a mouth on you, Princess.”
I stilled, a new breed of panic coursing through my veins. I couldn’t control my wavering voice when it cracked, “You k-know who I am?”
“‘Course we do,” he said, positioning the tip of his blade over my heart. “Fortunately for me, we were only told to bring you back alive. No other stipulations were made as to your condition.”
Stars above. He was going to rape me, and then he was going to hand me over to my father, where I’d undoubtedly endure worse—first at his hands, then at Rowland’s.
I would rather die.