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But a knot tightened around my heart, like a fist gripping it, tighter and tighter with every step I ran away. Nightmare controlled me right now, I knew she did. She’d sent these horrifying riders, like Nazgul dispatched to find the one ring, and she was in control of my body, tugging me towards them like gravity to the ground.
“You can run,” one of the riders taunted, gravely and rough, and I flinched, catching the toe of my shoe on the ground. On the flat, poreless tarmac. Had Nightmare made me trip, too, or was I going mad? “We love to chase.”
“Tor,” someone hissed—smooth, elegant, and cold enough to send chills skittering down my spine.
I ran faster, staggering along the curving road, each breath dragging a panicked whimper from my throat. My eyes blurred with panicked tears. Legs turned to jelly. And that fist squeezed tighter around my heart until I wasn’t sure blood flowed.
Nightmare wanted me to stop running, to turn back, to embrace the hellish riders with open arms. Since I didn’t have a death wish, I kept fighting, kept my weak legs stumbling forward.
Maybe I could run down to the village and plead for help. But hooves pounded so loud, so close, and I knew I wouldn’t reach it in time. I wouldn’t get anywhere remotely close to Ford’s End. Heat kissed the back of my neck from the dark horses, the cloaked, helmed riders, the—
I screamed when hands grasped my shoulders, and I was suddenly airborne. Tears of fear streamed from my eyes, my whole body locked and frozen until I—slammed into place on the back of an enormous horse that wasn’t entirely solid under me.
“Nightmare is following you,” a warm voice said against my nape, the words brushing my skin, stirring my hair until I shuddered hard. “But she can’t have you. You’re ours, little bride.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CAT
Little bride. The words rang in my head, slicing through soft brain matter until they were all I could hear. All I felt was warmth and solid muscle against my back, the violent rocking of the horse under me, and the press of arms on either side of me, keeping me from falling off. My entire body shook.
Little bride. So Nightmare had sent them to kill me, or to do something worse. I couldn’t think what that something worse might be right now—other than the obvious worse three men could to do a woman alone and vulnerable—but my mind was flitting from ideas of torture and threats to dismemberment and—
“You’re not breathing,” the rider said, his voice masculine and gentle. I flinched despite its softness.
Little Bride. I was trapped. If I threw myself off the horse’s back, the fall could break my arm. Or my neck. So I froze, and shook, and waited to see what they’d do.
“Breathe, little bride,” that warm voice commanded, coloured by worry as if he cared about me, as if we weren’t complete strangers and he hadn’t been sent by Nightmare to kill me. “Now.”
His hand met my stomach and pressed, forcing my mouth open on a desperate gasp. I took an involuntary breath and started to shake. The numbness and shock was waning, and in its place was truth. I’d been kidnapped.
“Please don’t—don’t hurt me,” I rasped even though it was pointless. Either they would or wouldn’t and nothing I said would change it. I shook harder, gasping air, the purple moors blurring past as the horse rode feverishly fast, the other two riders pressing closer on either side.
I froze when pressure brushed my head, then my shoulder, and I was so wild with panic that I didn’t realise at first what they were. Kisses. Nightmare’s rider had kissed my head and my shoulder, and if he was doing that—
“Peace,” the rider with the gravelly voice spoke beside us, loud enough to make me flinch. “We’re not going to hurt you. I can feel your torment and fear. It’s unnecessary.”
“Thanks, that helps so much, I’m definitely calm now,” I snapped breathlessly.
A laugh stirred my hair. Glad I was so amusing to them.
The third rider gasped sharply. “She’s here. She’s hunting the bride.”
My blood turned arctic, and I forgot how to breathe again. “I thought you were hunting me.”
“Rescuing you,” the rider who held me disagreed, making my head spin when he placed another kiss in my hair. “Tighten your legs around Mort, and here, hold onto the reins.”
I was like a doll as he placed my hands where he wanted them, soft leather meeting my palms, my fingers curling numbly around the reins.
“Rescuing me,” I echoed, my temperature somehow dropping lower. I shuddered, and could have sworn the fog rolling over the moors stretched towards us like ghostly hands.
“We’re not Nightmare’s mindless followers,” the one with the gravelly voice said, as if I’d asked a question. “We’re her sworn fucking enemies, so anyone she wants dead or hurt is our ally.”
“Tor,” the rider holding me warned softly. It was a softness full of threat, somehow more dangerous than a shout. I stiffened, grasping the reins in white-knuckled fists as the horse leapt faster under us. Fog and shadow kicked up under its hooves. Mort’s hooves?
A soft hand swept the fog-damp strands of hair away from my neck, and my breathing stopped as a careful kiss found my throat. Warm breath feathered over my skin, and somehow I was a thousand times more sensitive, goosebumps rippling down my neck and across my chest.
“You’re going to be very afraid,” he said, “but you’re safe with us. Close your eyes, my bride.”
