Chapter 21 Ahnna
Ahnna
Instinct took over and Ahnna flung herself off James, uncertain whether the arrival of the Amaridians was her salvation or her damnation.
Only to freeze as a sword blade rested against her throat.
“Now, now, Princess,” the Amaridian man said. “Drop the knife. Mother said you are to be kept alive, which will be far easier if we are friends, no?”
Realization burned like acid through her veins, and Ahnna rolled her eyes up to look at the man who could only be Prince Carlo of Amarid.
He gave her a toothy smile, but his gray eyes held no amusement.
Held nothing at all beyond predatory interest. All the horror stories she’d heard about the Beast filled her head, and fear turned her heart staccato in her chest.
Carlo’s gaze flicked to James. “This is a pleasant surprise, James. It is said that Harendellians are terrible lovers—staid, boring, and uptight—but it seems your Cardiffian blood gave you more than amber eyes.” He huffed out an amused breath.
“James Ashford likes rough sex.” His gaze drifted down to James’s crotch, and Ahnna blinked as she saw the hard ridge of his cock through his undergarments. “Likes it a lot, I see.”
Rather than correcting the misinterpretation of the situation, James said, “Envious, Carlo?” His tone was mocking and Ahnna silently cursed him, because this was not the time for male posturing. “You’re not the man you used to be.”
A low growl exited the prince’s lips, and he lifted his sword from Ahnna’s neck.
She rolled, coming up with her knife, which she threw at the soldier just beyond the threshold. It sank into his throat and he staggered back, clawing at it. Ahnna pursued, yanking out her blade and readying to fight the next opponent.
Only to fall still.
Carlo hadn’t come into Harendell’s side of the mountains with a small band of men. He’d come with a goddamned army, and enough arrows were leveled at her chest to turn her into a pincushion.
The soldiers swarmed her and forced Ahnna down to the cold snow, more of them pouring inside.
At Carlo’s call, they dragged her back into the cabin and threw her to the floor, binding her wrists with rough rope.
James was pinned to the ground by four of the men, a fresh wound bleeding on his shoulder.
“This is not how friends treat each other, Ahnna.” Carlo grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back so hard, her neck felt on the verge of breaking.
“I suggest you improve your behavior, else our journey to Riomar will not be pleasurable. For you and James, at least. Mother only said you needed to be alive, not that you needed to be…whole.”
His sword blade moved down the length of her torso. Then he angled the blade beneath her left breast.
Ahnna hissed as it cut into the sensitive skin, trying to pull away, but Carlo’s hand closed over the back of her neck, holding her in place.
“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you!” James roared, flinging one of the men holding him across the cabin, the other three struggling to contain him.
“James, my old nemesis,” Carlo murmured. “Be still, or I will maim her.”
Blood ran in steady trickles down her side, and Ahnna took only shallow breaths, for any motion risked the blade slicing deeper.
James went still, his chest heaving.
“Good, good,” Carlo murmured. “Ensure he is bound securely, comrades. His Highness is twice the man of any of you, and I fear what might happen should he get loose. Mother will not take it well if we do not give her what she wants.”
Ignoring the sharp pain beneath her breast, Ahnna racked her brain for a way free of this situation, but came up empty. There were just too many of them, and Carlo was an experienced soldier who would not underestimate either of them.
His breath brushed her ear. “That’s right, Princess. There is no way out.”
Her skin crawled, every instinct in her body screaming that there was something wrong with this man. That he did not play by the same rules as she did. Did not think like she did. Would not act like she did. “What do you want?”
“He’s bound, sir,” one of the soldiers said, but Ahnna did not fail to notice that all three of them maintained a tight grip on James, holding him back.
“Perfect.” Carlo’s voice was like the sound of a snake slithering over dead leaves. He lowered his sword and set it aside. Then he let go of Ahnna’s neck. Instead of easing its frantic throb, Ahnna’s heart raced even faster in her chest. She braced herself.
Carlo’s hands were hot as he took hold of her forearm. “You’re a dangerous woman,” he whispered. “More dangerous, I think, than James, and that must be tempered, Princess.”
Then he jerked his hands.
Snap.
The breaking bone sent pain lancing through her body. Ahnna clamped her teeth down on a scream, because her instincts told her that screams were what Carlo wanted. That he enjoyed seeing others suffer.
Yet as Carlo laughed, she realized it wasn’t her pain that he cared about. It was James’s. These two had an old history, and a bad one, and she was now in the middle of it.
“What do you want, Carlo?” Ahnna asked between her teeth.
“I want you to tell James he was wrong to question my virility.” Carlo pulled on her bound wrists, sending knifing pain up her arm, then pressed her hands to the crotch of his trousers.
Against the hardness beneath.
Ahnna gagged, swallowing the sourness that rose in her throat. “He was wrong.”
“Louder.”
She locked gazes with James, the fury in his amber eyes making the breath catch in her throat. “You were wrong about his virility.”
“I’ll be sure to remedy that.” James’s voice was murderously cold.
Carlo snorted and shoved her away. “Get clothes on them and take their horses. James has many faults, but taste in horseflesh is not one of them. The princess will ride with me. His Highness can walk.”
Then he left the cabin.
If the Amaridian soldiers were disturbed by their prince’s behavior, none showed it. Ahnna’s arm was splinted, then she and James were shoved into their clothes and dragged outside.
The ropes binding James were attached to one soldier’s saddle so that he’d be forced to walk behind. But Ahnna was led to where Carlo sat astride a horse.
Her horse.
Dippy turned his head to regard her and whickered softly, but Ahnna allowed none of her dismay to show on her face. If Carlo knew she cared about the horse, he’d only hurt Dippy to make her suffer.
The soldiers lifted her onto the saddle in front of their prince, then tied a loose rope under Dippy’s chest to bind her ankles so she couldn’t kick.
Carlo pulled her against him, enveloping Ahnna in the thick folds of his fur coat before giving her several rapid kisses on the forehead as if she were a small child. “Such a good girl.”
It was more horrifying than having her arm broken.
“Mount up,” Carlo called out, and the Amaridians all slid into the saddles of their shaggy mountain horses. “Mother is waiting.”
He wrapped an arm around Ahnna’s waist and heeled Dippy into a fast trot, the speed making her sick because James would have to run to keep up.
“Why don’t you just kill us and be done with it?” she asked. “Why keep us alive?”
Carlo chuckled. “Tempting, and it is what Alexandra wanted us to do. You know too much, Princess, and James…Well, Alexandra hates James almost as much as I do. But Mother thinks that we are best served keeping you alive. I’m sure you appreciate what the Harendellians are like, and Mother does not like risk. Mother likes insurance.”
So the years-long alliance between Katarina and Alexandra was not without rifts. Ahnna quietly stored that fact away. “Do you always do what Mother tells you to, Carlo?”
“Oh, yes.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “And soon, sweet Princess, you will understand why.”