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Melanie was quick behind me. “You mean Raven?”
I stopped on the second landing and looked at her over my shoulder.
Her face turned white like the snow at the camp.
I kept going, taking the stairs two at a time to get to the bottom floor as quickly as possible.
“Fender! Wait!” Melanie came after me, tripping at the bottom, but Gilbert caught her. “Please!”
I was at the front door.
“Please!” Her sobs were so loud they echoed in the foyer, like a storm on the roof that shook the entire house.
Time was of the essence, and I didn’t have it to waste. I didn’t want to console her. But instead of stepping over the threshold and into the pouring rain, I turned to face her again.
She got to her feet with Gilbert’s assistance then came to me, barefoot, teardrops on the floor like muddy tracks from the rain. “Don’t kill her. Please…please don’t. I’m begging you.” Her pupils were bloodshot red, her eyes puffy, her cheeks wet and black from the rivers of makeup that traversed down to her chin. “You were going to remove her from the camp anyway, so just—”
“No.”
Her chest started to rise and fall harder, her breathing becoming labored with terror. “I would never forgive you—”
“I don’t need you to.” I’d give this woman anything she wanted, but not this. “She humiliated me—again.”
“She’s just trying to survive—”
“My answer won’t change. Not this time.”
Her hands covered her mouth to muffle her sobs, and her entire body shook with uncontrollable tremors. She slowly moved to her knees in front of me, her face in her hands, her cries like wails.
“I will find her. And she’ll face the Red Snow.” I left her there on the floor and stepped into the rain where my car waited. But her tears came with me, a cacophony inside my mind, a sound that would haunt me forever.
I made the trip in record time.
I pushed the car through the damp streets, rode my horse through the snow, and arrived at the camp close to noon.
My reins were tossed to a guard, and I landed in the snow, my eyes scanning the area for signs of activity. The camp was as quiet as ever, the girls in the clearing, like there hadn’t been an escape overnight.
I marched deeper into the camp until Magnus caught me.
He pushed his hood back and regarded me since the girls couldn’t see him. His eyes were bloodshot, like he’d taken that pipe pretty hard to his head, but other than that, he looked fine.
“Where is she?”
Magnus squinted his eyes as the sun shone on his face. “Haven’t found her.”
Heavy heartbeats passed, thudding in my chest like hooves from a horse. “How is that possible?”
“Hounds followed her tracks close to the river then lost the scent. The storm hid her horse tracks—”
“She’s on horseback?” My voice rose, spit flew from my mouth, my vocal cords nearly popped in half. “How the fuck did she get into the stables?”
“I don’t know. The bolt was cut—”
“Cut?” I asked incredulously. “What the fuck did she cut it with?”
“I don’t know.” He continued to give the same meaningless answer, his eyes staying on mine even though the sun made them water.
“You don’t know?” I stepped closer to him, forcing him to step back. “I’m sick of that answer, Magnus. You’re supposed to be in charge while I’m away, but the second I leave, all hell breaks loose.” Bartholomew’s voice came back to me, telling me to cut my brother out and replace him with someone far more suitable…or kill him. I pushed the thought away as quickly as it entered my mind.
His arms hung up by sides, bloodstains on the fabric from the wound at the back of his head. “We’ll find her. The men and hounds are still looking—”
“If they can’t track her, that means she crossed the river.”
Magnus gave a subtle reaction, a quick blink. “She and the horse won’t survive if that’s true.”
“Unless she crossed at the perfect spot.” My eyes drilled into his face, looking for a trace of a lie. I refused to believe that Magnus would betray me for a woman, let alone a woman who looked like a hag compared to Melanie, but now I wasn’t so sure. It was the second time she’d escaped, this time with a horse, and now she couldn’t be tracked. “Magnus.”
He held my gaze, confident in his stare, like he had nothing to hide. “No.”
His loyalty to me was far greater than the obsession he had for this woman, so I accepted it without a second thought. “She would never know where to cross in the dark, so if she crossed in any other way, she was swept downriver. The men will continue the search for three days. If she doesn’t pop up, we’ll assume her body is irretrievable. Whether she’s dead out there or dead in here, makes no fucking difference to me.”
