Another searing jolt of pain rips through me, and I press my hand against my side. Warmth gushes between my fingers, slick and dark. My breath catches, a sharp intake that’s half sob, half gasp. It’s blood.Myblood. But this can’t be real.
The rider feels my shift, his hold tightening, his body adjusting to support mine more fully.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask, my voice quivering with the layer of freezing rain pelting my bare legs and soaking through my dress, rumpled and torn and bunched up around my waist so my thighs can grip the saddle.
His exhales are even and smooth, his chest a welcome warmth pressed firmly to my back. “Away.” The word is a rumble against my body that joins the vibrations from the steady drum of hooves on the wet dirt road.
An owl cries, and I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere so quiet. I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with air as crisp and clean as fresh snow. There’s a peace out here that people would pay good money for, but each time I close my eyes, I see the glint of a sword and men dropping to the cobblestones like rain.
“Where are you taking me?” I repeat. Pain sparks in my side as I squirm against the steel strap of his arm across my chest to look up at him.
The hood of his cloak half shrouds his face, but the dull filter of moonlight through the clouds reveals the grim line of his mouth, the sharp cut of his jaw, and the dark lashes that frame his onyx eyes. It’s him. The man from the elevator, the man from the bedroom with its velvet walls and gilded furniture. The man who wouldn’t let me go. My abductor. Rescuer. Captor.
“How many of you are there?”
He scoffs, his dark gaze meeting mine. “I am the one and only.”
I blink away the rain dripping into my eyes, my mind reeling as it searches for solid ground amid flashes of this man pulling me from the bloodthirsty mob, saving me, but holding me now, taking me…where?
Holy shit. I’m being kidnapped. Again!
My thoughts comb through my browser history, a million open tabs, a million half-read articles to prepare for a situation just like this, but I can’t fight him here—on a horse charging into the forest.
Think, Hannah! Think.
I shiver, the chill of the night and the panic of my abduction seeping into my bones.
Don’t let them take you to a second location.
But that time has long passed. And there are no taillights to kick out, no 911 calls to make, no first responders to rely on—only the woody scent of wet earth, the swaying boughs of nearby pines, the distant screech of hunting owls, and the captor firm as a rock behind me.
“Listen, you should know that I have people who care about me. I have a family and a boyfriend and a—a cat.” The lies come out in a jumble as I try to humanize myself, each word forming a house of cards that falls before it’s even built. “What I mean is that I’m Hannah, and I really, really want to go home. I wasn’t even supposed to be at Chad’s apartment building tonight. I should have been at Giovanni’s celebrating a deal. My deal. I mean…it was my deal, but fucking Stephanie—”
“Are you ever quiet?” he cuts in with a harsh whisper.
“I’m being kidnapped!”
His chuckle thrums against my back, and his grip around me tightens. “If I wanted a woman, I wouldn’t have to take one.”
Something about his tone and the roughness of his skin against mine makes me want to believe him, but the fear bubbling through me makes that impossible.
“I’m…I’m a good person, okay?” I whisper. “I volunteer on weekends…” Not true. “And—and my mom, she’s waiting for me to…” To call for the first time in six months instead of sending short texts? Wow, this is seriously depressing and definitely not the way I thought I’d reevaluate my life.
A wave of dizziness presses against me. He holds me closer; his arm is an iron band around my chest, the only thing keeping me from tumbling into the shadows. Moonlight catches on my dress, and I peer down at the fabric saturated with a liquid too warm and dark and thick to be rain. Blood, so much blood, trickles down my leg and over the saddle.
“Am I dying?” The words are breathy against mycold lips as I watch the dark river trail down my thigh, my knee, wrapping around my calf like a snake.
Against my back, he softens, barely, only for an instant before he returns to steel. His breath clouds the cold air, the steady beat of his heart the only thing keeping me from shattering.
“Not if I can help it. Nowbe quiet,” he commands.
And this time, I obey.
* * *
I close my eyes, holding back tears, and focus on the horse’s steady gallop as my head lolls back against his shoulder, and I swim in a sea of dizziness and blood loss. I shiver, my teeth chattering, goose bumps cresting on my skin with cold and fear.
The horse slows, and my eyelids flutter open as we descend into a wooded valley, the trees so thick, they blot out the sky.
