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I could have.
The truth felt like my heart was ripping from my chest, and before I knew it, I’d spun and was striding back toward the sound of her voice. I failed her, yes. Undoubtedly hurt her too by losing my temper and lashing out at her today. With all of that, I didn’t know what I’d do when I reached her. Not really.
Except… I did know.
I’d tell her I was sorry. I’d beg her to forgive me for how I treated her and how I failed. And if she did, then by all the gods, I’d tie her down with every vine in this forest, kiss her breathless because I needed her lips on mine, and make love to her until she screamed from pleasure at being with me. I may not have been as skilled a lover as the others—and, gods, I was only a regular mortal man, not a demon or beast—but right now, I desperately needed to fill her, to feel her, and to remind every part of my body that I hadn’t lost her today, no matter what horrible secrets anyone held.
And then I’d ask her why in the hell she never told me about these things she?—
The ground suddenly shifted, ripping away from the forest floor and yanking me upward. I tumbled to the side, one hand catching on a rough rope while the other shot out into the open air.
Finding nothing.
“Well, isn’t that a treat?” A cruel voice came from below me. I twisted, trying to find its source.
A burly man strolled into view from behind a tree, and he had a long stick with a hook on the end in his grasp. His face was a mottled mess of pockmarks and discolored skin, like an old peach that had been tossed around too many times. Contempt showed in his cold gaze, and his nose was bulbous above his sneering mouth. A smaller guy followed him, skinny with a weasel-like look to his pale face and no trace of emotion in his eyes. A pair of manacles hung from the smaller man’s belt, the metal lashed tightly to him so it made no sound when he moved, and he gripped a strange tubelike device in his fist.
But both wore chest plates and helmets that glinted in the dappled light of the forest.
My blood went cold at the symbol embossed above their hearts on the metal. Aneirans. Aneiran soldiers, moreover. But what they were doing in the middle of nowhere or how they’d gotten this close without me knowing, I had no?—
Horror stole my breath as the truth hit me.
Nature was saying nothing about them. Nor did it reflect any trace of the net in which I was trapped. To the natural world around me, there was no reason at all I should be dangling a dozen feet up like a caught fish in midair. No, as far as everything I could feel was concerned, the forest nearby was empty save for ordinary woodland creatures too small to do any good.
Chuckling to themselves, a dozen more soldiers sauntered out from behind the trees. Most held spears while a few had crossbows.
And not a single one of them made an impression on the world around me.
This wasn’t possible.
“Looks like we got ourselves a baby stoneskin here.” The first man jabbed at me with the hooked stick, and I flinched. “Or…” He cocked his head as if curious. “Damn thing looks like a grown man.”
“Charms don’t work on humans,” the smaller man sniped, affront in his voice. “Nets don’t trigger for ‘em either. It’s a giant. Doesn’t matter what it looks like.”
I stretched my free hand down toward the forest floor. The net was spinning slowly in place, propelled by his jabs, and the ground itself was easily a dozen feet below me, but that didn’t matter. My power could still reach it.
Except it didn’t. Nothing responded. Not a vine or a branch or a single weed. I could feel them down there, but for the first time in my life, they weren’t reacting to me at all.
The first guy chuckled. “Oh, yeah, look at him. He’s acting like a stoneskin, all right.”
Heart pounding, I abandoned my efforts and turned my attention to the forest, straining to feel where Gwyneira and the others might be. I couldn’t just shout for help, though. She might come running alone. No, I needed to know that Dex and the others were in the forest first, because the princess had been the only one I’d heard, and if I called out and she rushed to me…
My gut twisted. The Aneirans still thought Gwyneira was an assassin. If these soldiers caught her, there was every chance they would try to hurt her.
Or worse.
“Fucking animals,” another soldier muttered, jabbing his spear at me. ”You think they’re forcing humans to make them half-breeds now?”
The first soldier made a contemptuous noise. “Wouldn’t put it past them.” He jerked his chin at his shorter companion.
In the distance, nature whispered that Roan was in the forest now. He still felt strange. So odd in a way that made my head hurt.
But gods damn me, my options were a nightmare, and he was better than these Aneirans.
I opened my mouth to shout.
Something struck my neck. I flinched back, trying to smack it away, only to see the smaller man grin at me. He lowered the tube device from his lips.
