Chapter 33
The one and only time Kaden had ever wanted Maggie to be slightly bigger than she was was when he was forced to follow her through the forest.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t track the hoofprints on his own, but he was worried about leaving her behind and what might happen to her. Her tiny legs were working overtime to try and stay ahead of his horse and lead them where they needed to go.
He worried that her wee heart was going to give out. He worried that they were traveling at too slow a pace. Yet, the two times he had attempted to pick her back up so that they could move a little bit faster, she had tried to bite his hand off. Which wasn’t something he was eager to try again.
He had no choice but to move slightly ahead of her, leaving Peter behind to help her follow the trail so that they would all end up in the same place, but the worry in his gut would only allow him to stall for so long.
He rode long and hard until he came upon a small clearing, where he worried that he had lost her trail, because the tracks turned around and left once more.
He dismounted, checking the ground to see if both tracks turned around, but he did see a set of footprints and what appeared to be drag marks.
All the worry in his gut gave way to pure, unadulterated anger that somebody might have dragged Emily into the cabin up there against her will.
He wanted to rush forward and go to her. He wanted to call out to her to hear her voice and make sure that she was all right. But he knew better than to risk her safety; it was too important.
She must be in there.
He drew his dirk and started to move slowly to the cabin, only to hear a too-familiar voice behind him.
“Ye shouldnae be here,” the man trilled, sounding very smugly pleased with himself. “But boy am I glad that ye are.”
Impossible.
It couldn’t be. There was no way that this monster had Emily.
Kaden had been planning and plotting for this moment for four years, and now that it was finally here, he felt horribly off kilter.
His grip tightened on his dirk, and he turned around slowly to face the man whose voice so often plagued his nightmares.
Emily’s wrists felt like they were about to break. The skin on her arms was raw and irritated, but she didn’t think that it was bleeding. Not yet, at least.
She couldn’t stop. Every wriggle and twist was loosening her bonds. She knew that struggling as much as possible would benefit her. Her throat burned, her limbs ached, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
She didn’t know how long it took, and she didn’t know how long Graham was going to be gone for, but she wouldn’t have much time. He never did like letting her out of his sight for very long.
It felt like hours had passed before she managed to work one arm free, but the pressure on her torso loosened immediately.
She was able to take deeper breaths, to move just a little bit more.
The first thing she did was rip the gag out of her mouth and toss it to the floor, where it landed with a plume of dust.
She struggled and pushed until she got her other arm free, her panic growing with every passing minute.
She wished that she had brought a knife—just another thing that her father had prevented her from carrying on her person anymore.
It was a habit that she had meant to pick back up, but she hadn’t thought to ask Kaden for one.
It had been a huge mistake, looking back on it.
It would be only too easy to stand here and curse herself for all the things she wished she had done.
One of those things was not killing Graham with an arrow through the throat while he slept.
She couldn’t go back with him, no matter what happened. That wasn’t going to be an option for her. She would rather die. If she could just wrench herself free, then she would run off into the forest.
She was confident that she would be able to cover her tracks if she tried. She could even hide in the trees. With his build and age, it would be far more difficult for him to climb as high as she could. She was fairly certain of that.
She knew that her horse was likely long gone, and that she was on her own here. She would just have to make it work and hope that the rest of her skills hadn’t deteriorated along with her strength.
If she made it out of this alive, she was going to start training with Kaden every morning for the rest of their lives, whether he liked it or not.
She found the knot and started working at it with her swollen fingers. Everything hurt.
She couldn’t think about it now, or she was going to cry, and then where would she be? Graham was here. She was trapped. Her hands started to tremble and then shake so hard that she couldn’t pull on the ropes.
No.
She exhaled slowly, balled her hands into fists, and then counted to three in her head.
She opened them slowly and tried to undo the knot once more, but the shaking wouldn’t stop.
She tried to shove the ropes down past her hips and then up to her chest, but it was not working. There wasn’t enough room for either.
Somewhere outside the cabin, she could have sworn that she heard a puppy bark.
Graham wasn’t kind to animals. Other than his hunting dogs, he didn’t tolerate anything else in his castle. She could only imagine what he would do if he caught sight of Maggie, even worse if he realized that Maggie belonged to her.
The yipping was growing closer… and then it stopped.
Dread filled the last few parts of her that had been holding out hope.
The knot was undone, and her fingers felt numb as she finally freed herself. Was she too late? She must be, for she couldn’t hear anything.
She rushed to the door, then started looking around for anything that she could use to break the lock or pry it open. She dropped to her knees to peer through the keyhole and could only see Graham’s figure advancing toward somebody with a knife, but she couldn’t see the other person.
Had the priest arrived already?
That must mean they were close to a village or a town. If she could only get out of this cabin, then she would be able to make it somewhere she could find help. She could climb one of the taller trees, get her bearings, and then gauge what was possible.
Yes, that was the only option. There was no time for fear.
At least, not until she realized that the man Graham was advancing toward was Kaden.