Gilded Locks (Villains of Kassel #2)

Chapter 1

A Bitter Death

The rope seared through Marigold’s frozen fingers as the boat pitched toward the banks. Ice-glazed planks shrieked their protest beneath the storm’s relentless assault.

Each breath carved glass shards through her lungs, the Arctic air so savage it crystallized her exhales before they could escape her lips.

The choppy water pitched her from one side of the boat to the other as terror pressed down on her like gravity.

A frigid blast of ice sprayed forcefully from the waves, followed by a towering surge that rose from the raging surf.

It knocked her off her feet the second it crashed into the boat, washing her back like wasted plankton and throwing her about as if she were as inconsequential as an autumn leaf lost in the wind.

She slammed hard into the boat floor, gasping as salt water flooded her lungs, whacking her shoulder against one of the bench seats.

Bitter cold water drenched her clothes, turning her bones to brittle ice, pinning her weak limbs to the ground with impressive weight as the world turned over and another wave crashed again.

She was going to die.

Gasping and sputtering, she turned and gripped the rail before she was washed overboard.

In the black, obsidian night, beneath the swirl of stars above, she thought she spotted life, but as she desperately tried to wipe the saltwater from her frozen cheeks, she realized the rumors were wrong about the Isles of Kassel. Either that, or she was lost.

This frozen wasteland of jutting obsidian rocks and skeletal trees bore no resemblance to paradise. She must have gone off course.

Her phone died hours ago, around the time her lantern went out and the small craft nearly capsized. She only survived because she held on for dear life, letting the sea swallow the only possessions she had left.

No compass. No map. Not a dry stitch of clothes nor a match to start a fire. Tonight would surely be her last.

She knew death was a possibility when she escaped.

She swore she didn’t care if she lived or died, as long as she escaped the hell she’d been living in.

But in the face of fear, she questioned her devotion, accepting that she’d massively miscalculated the length of this journey and she was much better suited for travel by limousine or jet.

Another bitter cold wave sloshed into the boat, and Marigold screamed in frustration, hoping her rage might warm her bones. Her fingers were numb and useless as she tried to get the water out of her craft. But she was no match for the wild sea.

Fighting back tears of fury, she shook with hypothermic tremors and finally admitted she was not ready to die. She’d suffered so much. This was her chance to break free and live. Why was life so unkind?

Wind whipped against her drenched, sagging clothes, but no matter how she twisted and turned in the wet rags, there was no escaping the painful onslaught of cold death settling in.

“I hate you!” she raged to everyone who contributed to her suffering.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, only to have her voice give out like a hollow whistle, ravaged from the cold and strain on her body.

Kassel was supposed to be a modern-day Eden—lush emerald jungles thick with orchid-perfumed air and humid promises of sanctuary. Not this merciless tundra where death whispered through every gust of wind.

The stolen invitation crinkled inside the frozen pocket of her stolen coat as she wrestled with numb fingers to secure the boat’s line, the false identity she’d stolen tucked against her thundering heart.

She was now Mary Langford.

Thank god she was smart enough not to keep the paperwork in her bag, or it would have gone overboard with the rest of her belongings. Not that it mattered now. She’d likely freeze to death by dawn and wash onto shore with a stolen identity in her pocket. No one would ever know the truth.

Not that it was a pretty truth. Her life had been good once, but after her mother died, everything went to hell.

Clutching her shivering chest, she closed her eyes, fighting back the threat of another anxiety attack. She couldn’t afford emotions now. If she wanted to live, she needed to focus solely on survival. And Marigold would do anything to survive. Anything.

She branded her new identity into her memory during the last hours of daylight. The deeper she traveled into the sea, the more she accepted she was really getting out, and Marigold Calder was gone.

She read the ID, repeating Mary Langford’s information over and over again, each repetition a prayer she soon knew by heart. Marigold Calder was dead—buried beneath layers of deception and desperation. She was now Mary Langford. Innocent. Safe. Free.

She never expected her half-brother’s hatred to go this far or demand this much from her. But every day brought new challenges, and she’d been forced to run harder and think faster than she ever dreamed herself capable of.

They tracked her across Europe, proving the nightmare would never end. But even on the days when her body ached and her fear reached unmanageable points, her survival instincts were still stronger.

Wind slammed into her with the force of a freight train, nearly hurling her sideways into the churning black water below.

Her discarded designer heels—so laughably wrong for this hellscape, but all she’d possessed when terror drove her from London—skittered across the ice-glazed boat deck.

The cashmere coat, so luxurious in its former life, clung to her frame like an icy shroud, useless against nature’s fury.

Through the driving sleet, she squinted into the hostile landscape, amber eyes burning as they searched for salvation. There. Her breath hitched as a flicker of golden warmth pierced the darkness, barely visible through the storm’s veil.

Her heart tripped into overdrive, chipping away the ice that lined the inner walls of her lungs. Light meant shelter. Light meant survival.

Plunging her hands into the black, icy water that sloshed over the floor, she searched for the tattered rope. Her frozen fingers locked down the moment she grazed its frayed edge, and she yanked hard, angling the rudder to steer her towards what looked like a jetty protruding from a black coast.

The sails were gone, and she wasn’t sure how much of the rudder remained. The waves curled and crashed, pulling her in, but away from the light.

Gone. The light was gone.

All she could see was rain and sleet and endless ocean. Had she imagined it?

“No! I saw it!” She searched the endless black and screamed, “Help me!”

Panic welled up inside of her until she thought she might drown from the desperation spewing out of her in growling profanities, but then she caught sight of salvation again.

“I see it!” She steered the rudder, fighting the urge to squint or blink.

Minutes wore like eons. There was no guarantee she would make it to shore. All she had was a distant light in the endless black to guide her. The horizon didn’t exist. Everything was black. Just bitter cold, endless black.

“Come on!” she snarled, hauling the rope with all of her weight, fighting the current, and willing what was left of this wreckage to take her to shore.

She needed to stand on dry land again. Even if it wasn’t the lavish Isles of Kassel, anything was better than dying at sea on this godforsaken craft.

She hurled her shoes and any other weight overboard, desperately trying to lighten the load.

Drifting toward the light, she’d suddenly waft back with the current, so close yet so powerless.

If she jumped in, she’d only have minutes before hyperthermia killed her or she drowned. Maybe that was her best hope.

Gray clouds blocked out the stars, hiding the moon and its guiding light. Looming waves gaped like wide yawns on massive inhalations. The ocean was a greedy pig that swallowed any earthly morsel whole, and she was no exception.

The closer she came to the light—to what had to be shore—the choppier the water became.

Eyes wide, she saw the power of the black sea as it towered over her, building to terrifying heights, and the choice was made.

Thrown overboard, the wave forced her down with little air in her lungs, pummeling her into the sea.

A thousand icy blades stabbed into her spine as her air cut off and she swam wildly, too disoriented by the wake to know what direction was up.

Her lungs burned as panic left with her last breath of air. Churning bubbles tickled her frozen face as she kicked wildly toward what she hoped was the surface, and then…oxygen.

She gasped, her airways so tiny she could only sneak a scant breath past the fear clogging her throat. Her legs kicked as the churning waves blinded her. Choppy whitecaps forced her back down as her clothing tangled about her legs, tripping her on nothing.

In that moment, she knew the ocean was alive and it wanted to kill her. Its determination was nothing short of personal, and she nearly surrendered, thinking there might be some peace in giving up, but then her toe hit something hard and solid.

Slippery moss made it impossible to grip, and as another wave crashed over her, plunging her down into the jetties of rock and seaweed, her head bashed on something sharp, and the roaring wash of the sea silenced into a muffled hollow of nothing.

Gasping, she broke the surface as the copper taste of blood mixed with the briny water rusing into her mouth.

Sharp jetty smashed into her with bruising force as the relentless waves beat her against the black shores.

Breakers tumbled her hard, and she stopped fighting, needing a few seconds to simply breathe.

Drifting, gasping, savoring what were likely her last breaths, a calm washed over her. Perhaps she passed out for a second or a day. Time lost meaning in those last few seconds of life, until true salvation smacked into her.