Page 127 of The Hunted

Eryx shook his head. “She is far more to me.”

Mattue hesitated as he turned to leave, ready to exit out a back door. Over his shoulder, he said to Eryx, “Everything you’ve taken from me, I’ve now returned for it. All you had to do was give me the crown, Prince.”

“I would have!”

“Not fast enough.”

The flames jumped higher and Eryx pulled his arm up to cover his face from the embers dancing off the heat. By the time he dropped his arm, Mattue had already exited from the rear of the stables. The beat of hooves against wet ground was the last thing he heard before he turned and ran for the other exit.

An echo started in his heart.

The mantra for his soul …

Arelle, Arelle, Arelle.

Eryx ran through the rain, uncaring how the wind bit at his skin and the droplets fell hard enough to leave welts on his skin. He burst through the rear door he’d used to leave the house to check the stables, only to find it as dark and quiet as he’d left it.

That only had his heart racing faster. The blood in his body seemed to thicken, and everything slowed as his long strides carried him through the house. The closer he came to the bedchambers where he’d left Arelle still naked in his bed, the darker his mind became.

Twisted with hate.

Scarred with worry.

Aching with all the what ifs.

Surely, nothing could feel worse than this. If they’d taken her from him, he would burn this kingdom down. House by house. Name by name. He would ruin them.

Eryx’s walk and his violent thoughts came to a halt when he found a servant standing in front of the open door that belonged to his bedchambers. The woman—Mara; the only one who Arelle really seemed to have taken a liking to—passed him a tearful glance.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” she whispered. “I tried. I did.”

He’d been wrong.

That was the moment everything blackened.

His thoughts.

The heart in his chest.

Every breath leaving his lungs.

They would regret this.

All of them.

And when he tore apart the room in his rage, that rage only calmed enough to make him hesitate when he found the journal resting under his pillow. Exactly where Arelle promised she would leave it. Just like that, everything changed. He turned to stone. But it was long enough for him to know he didn’t have time to waste.

So, he opened the journal; he read the next year’s entry from his mother.

And began to plan.

• • •

Arelle

The carriage rocked as the man sitting at the front with water dripping from the rim of his hat snapped the reins hard against the two horses. The animals slowed their trot at his order. “Easy, boys, the road is washing out.”

As the curtains had been pulled, Arelle couldn’t see where they were, but they had been traveling for what felt like hours. Surely, the night had already passed and it was morning. The problem was, with a storm raging down on them, one couldn’t tell the difference with a black sky.