Chapter 4
Death was not kind to me. It spat me back out, wanting me to suffer for all the ways I had failed.
Pain daggered through my skull. Every thump against my head seared into me, dragging me from oblivion. My head pulsed with pressure, wanting to combust, ringing through my ears.
Crunch. Thump. Crunch-crunch. Thump-thump.
“Keep to the trees, they can easily spot us.” An accented voice drew me further out of murkiness, my stomach knotting, telling me there was something wrong. My peace from sleep was an illusion. A thin sheet of ice about to crack.
Crunch. Thump. Crunch-crunch.
I heard feet moving through deep snow. My skin stung from the chilly temperatures, yet some of my body was so deliciously warm, I wanted to curl into the heat and drift back to sleep, turn away from the warning in my belly.
“Fuck this place and the sun,” another man snarled out. “We have to make it. I won’t become a prisoner again.”
“We won’t.”
“Knowing Brynn, she probably has the group camping at the border since we left, waiting for our return.”
Thump. Thump.
My head tapped against something hard in an abrasive rhythm, spiking the ache through my head down to my toes.
Crunch. Thump. Crunch-crunch. Thump-thump.
Faraway shouts broke through my hazy dream, tunneling the shard deeper into my subconscious. There was a need to disregard it, if I opened my eyes again, awareness lay on the other side, waiting to be let in.
“Fy faen. They must have found the dead maid . . . realized she is gone!” the man not holding me exclaimed.
“Fuck! Go!” The rough tone resonated against me.
Thump-crunch-thump-thump-crunch-thump. My face struck fabric and I could feel the hard rippling muscles under the cloth.
My frame jostled painfully, the warmth of a hand sinking through my dress, gripping my ass to keep me in place as I hung upside down over a man’s shoulder, my arms uncomfortably pinned behind my back.
The haziness cracked like ice across my memory, flooding my senses with fear. Everything that had happened up until now popped my lids open with a gasp. The sharp agony of Sarina’s demise came flashing into my head, her lifeless stare branded across my mind.
A blurry view of snow and a man’s backside came into view as I bounced against his spine, carrying me like he did the dead swine.
Light hovered just above the horizon, the lowest it ever got, glinting across the snow in pre-dawn glow.
I tried screaming but my tongue jabbed into a piece of cloth wrapped around my mouth.
I was being kidnapped.
It was the exact fear the king drilled into me daily, why he had taken such militant precautions.
Lifting my head, I could see we were close to the horse barn. The stalls where I had lost my virginity, where the other night Henrik, Sarina, Thomas, and I had been drinking mead and fooling around.
Acknowledging she was dead was unfathomable. Maybe she was still alive, maybe someone found her and was tending to her now? Maybe by some miracle she had been saved?
I knew the truth: There was no miracle, no magic anymore that could save her.
I pictured her laugh, her arm looping in mine while we strolled around the market, flirting and buying produce from every young man. She was so full of life and mischievousness. Every good memory I had was attached to her.
And they took it away.
Lying limply against my abductor, a sob cinched my chest, ripping away my oxygen.
The panic was instant, the embedded need to survive, my lungs grasping for air.
I had struggled most of my life with anxiety attacks.
The pressure of my position, the weight put on my shoulders.
Yanric had instructed me how to relax, to visualize flying through the sky, feeling the air against my face.
“A calm mind is strength in battle,” Yanric’s soothing voice had said to me many times. “But forbearance is how you win.”
Biting down on my gag, I stayed quiet.
My father’s white hounds bayed from the castle, their excited yips echoing down to us. My kidnapper jerked, his muscles tightening under his tunic. Dogs could track their scent, find me before I left the grounds.
“I thought you drugged them?” the one holding me snapped at his friend, his deep raspy voice hitting each time like lightning.
“I did! I swear.”
Not bothering with a response, my captor darted into the horse barn, the familiar scent of hay and muck filling my nose.
Normally Emil, the crown’s equerry, a big sturdy man who had been serving my father all my life, would be here.
My betrothal celebration took everyone up to the castle, leaving the stalls quiet, except for his apprentice, Hans.
“Hey!” the thin leggy juvenile jumped up from the chair he had dozed off on, his sleepy voice squawking in alarm. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here!”
Not able to see from my position over the Night Raven’s shoulder, I could only hear the gasp of fear from Hans, the gurgling scream as the blade cut through human flesh. His body dropping onto the creaky wood floor, padded by damp straw.
The Northerner stepped past him, allowing me to see the boy.
On his side, his hand at his throat, blood gurgling out with foaming bubbles.
His scared eyes found mine as he choked on his own blood.
“Mistress,” he choked at seeing me, his fear for me overriding his own.
“Help!” He tried to cry out for assistance, sound failing at his lips.
We both knew his pleas were worthless. And so were mine.
Bound and gagged, I was no more the savior than he was.
He gurgled and jerked, and like Sarina’s, his eyes glazed over. Another death in my name.
The other Northerner went straight for the white steed, Bodil, my father’s stallion, while we went into the stall of my horse, Asta, her silver coat the same color as my hair. She neighed, flicking her head, sensing the danger, the sinister man holding me.
“Whoa.” He used a deep, calming voice, stepping closer to her. His grip on me changed, and I understood this was my chance.
He started to slide me down his body. My knee rammed into his groin with force, squirming in his grasp.
“Ahhhh!” The Northerner bellowed and let go of me, dropping to his knees in agony, gripping his crotch. “Fuuuuuck!”
Run! I screamed to myself. My head spun with pain, my legs wobbly as I lurched out of the stall, my pinned arms making it hard to get my balance. A scream for help drove up my throat, my tongue pushing at the cloth. The barks from the hounds were so close. I could feel freedom. Taste it on my skin.
An enraged growl seethed behind me, boots hitting the wood floor, an arm hooking around my waist.
“Nooooo!” I wailed against my gag, my stomach twisting with fear. Pooling all my body weight, I pitched forward, trying to unbalance him. But it did nothing, he easily yanked me back into him, his massive body eclipsing mine.
“Stop!” Anger blistered off him, his growl dragging across my neck.
I would never stop.
Screaming again, I kicked and fought his embrace.
“Dammit!” he hissed. Sliding his arm under my legs, he picked me up, carrying me back.
“Can you not handle an insignificant brat?” The other man quickly harnessed the horses, mounting Bodil. The horse pranced and kicked with irritation. He wasn’t an agreeable horse to many besides the king or Emil, but he was fast.
“You deal with her then!” the Northerner shot back at his friend. Roughly grabbing me, he tossed me up on my horse’s back, causing Asta to stomp her hoof, soaking in my anxiety. The thrall moved with speed, swinging onto the horse behind me, his arms caging around me.
The crunch of snow heralded the approach of dozens of guards, Iskald’s and Runa’s barks leading them straight to me.
“Go!” The other man prodded Bodil, the horse sprinting out of the barn with a snort. The one thing that horse loved more than anything was running.
Clutching Asta’s reins, my abductor kicked his heels into her flanks.
Neighing, she took off after Bodil, racing to catch up, the lack of a saddle leaving us without purchase on her bare back.
The male held me firmly, the smell of his heady sweat and warm breath on my neck opposing the cool air against my front.
From the ridge just above the barn, the sun rose higher like a torch through the wispy clouds. Iskald’s and Runa’s cries bayed chillingly through the air, the shouts of men turning their attention to our fleeing figures.
A grunt came from behind me, his boots tapping harder into Asta’s flanks. He snapped the reins and her speed smoothed into a steady gallop. With every stretch of her legs, the dense forest inched closer. Entering it would make it harder for the dogs and guards to track us. My window was closing.
Twisting suddenly in his arms, I tried to break his hold.
“Faen,” he ground out. Gripping the reins with one hand, he curled the other around me, sliding over my midsection, holding me tightly in place.
“Argh!” I rammed my head back into his collarbone, hitting the tender spot but barely doing anything to him.
My head swam with pain, throbbing where I had been struck, making me nauseous and faint, but I understood I had to continue fighting.
The farther away they took me, the worse my chances were.
Bodil galloped a dozen yards in front of us, flying for the forest, only feet away from slipping into the canopy of protection.
The dogs howled, getting closer to Asta’s heels, causing her ears to twitch with agitation. Many times, riding with Father, the hounds were at our sides, baying for the hunt. It never bothered Asta before, but she sensed the fear, felt the danger, had heard what I hadn’t yet.
The whoosh of a single arrow sang in the air, whistling across my vision. The sound of a cry. The Northerner riding Bodil jerked. His form slid off the horse, crashing into the icy terrain, puffing up a mist of white. Bodil charged on without pause into the woods.