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“Wait…y-you’re letting me go?” I blinked in shock.
He checked we were too far away to be overheard before saying tightly, “I’m proving to you that there’s nowhere to run to. You’re far from home and have no one to save you.” He bent over me, his height pressing me into the landing strip with painful domination. “You’re aware I’m your only friend, and the deal between us still stands, even if it is complicated. But…I can’t promise I’ll be able to stop whatever they’ll do to you, and the awful fucking truth is, I’m the reason you were targeted. It’s your fault I’m going to end up as destroyed as you. Your fault I’m struggling. But it’s also my fault that I’ve dragged you down with me, so…if it will erase any ideas you have that you could’ve gotten free tonight and if it will ease my guilt over what I will have to do to you, then…so be it.”
Stepping even closer, he sent a wash of electricity down my back. “If I’m honest, I hope you do escape. But we both know I’ll catch you. And when I do, I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself.”
I tripped backward.
Victor tapped his patent shoes in the lush grass. He eyed both of us before a grin stretched his lips. “Playing a game of cat and mouse already? It’s a bit early, but be my guest.” Holding up his hand, he closed his fist and shouted, “Hold fire. Let’s see how this plays out.”
My pulse skyrocketed. My skin itched with terror.
Henri groaned as if he truly didn’t trust himself.
Light broke through the stone wall as a drawbridge cracked open, dropping silently on well-oiled chains, forming a wooden road over the lake-sized moat ringing the battlement.
“I’ll give you twenty seconds,” Henri muttered. “That’s more than fair.” He glanced at an old-fashioned watch with a cloudy glass screen hidden beneath his perfectly tailored cuff. The two things didn’t match. One spoke of truth, the other hid with lies.
Who the hell is this man?
“Twenty seconds is nothing.” I backed away.
“I could give you twenty minutes, and I’d still find you.”
I winced.
The tension in his voice, the aching black promise in those words.
They shouldn’t affect me, but they did. My stomach fluttered. My heart skipped. And Henri destroyed my world by whispering, “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”
“Wait, no, I—”
“If you’re going to run. I suggest you go. Now.” He glowered beneath his brows. “Seventeen, sixteen…”
I bolted.
I ran as if wolves sprang from the castle and snapped at my heels.
My hands fisted as I forced my legs to race faster than they ever had before. I ran and ran, charging down the airstrip, needing to peer around the corner of the walled castle.
Maybe there was a village behind it.
An entire town with normal people. Citizens who had no idea what went on in the fortress by the sea.
“Thirteen, twelve.” Henri’s voice boomed behind me, chasing me, nipping me, hunting me. “Eleven, ten…”
Go.
Fucking run, Ily!
Wind gusted past my ears as I threw everything I had into escaping. I ran for days; I ran for years, yet the size of the castle walls never shrank. My heels sank into the soft grass. My skirt flounced around my legs. My braless breasts bounced and hurt.
I forced myself to ignore every pain and shut down every terror.
I flew.
“Five, four!”
Go.
