Page 65 of The Hood and his Thief

Her gaze lit on a sleek navy coach with gold accents, hitched to a pair of brown horses whose muscles rippled under shining coats. They would do quite nicely—not that she had time to shop for options.

Already, shouts of pursuit were echoing from the side of the house as people on the ground ran around the manor to stop her. Rhosyn crouched before springing forward. Her heart flew up into her throat as she fell for one extended second. Then, she landed in a crouch on the top of the carriage.

Before she had a chance to catch the breath the impact knocked out of her, the carriage lurched, sending her sprawling, and nearly knocking her off. A sharp whinny told her that her sudden appearance had scared the horses. They took off, and she rolled, not having a good grip, only managing to keep herself from tumbling to the ground by grabbing the edge of the roof before she toppled over it.

The vehicle bumped as it picked up speed, the horses seemingly only spurred on further by the yelling behind them, as Rhosyn’s pursuers commandeered carriages of their own. The clatter of wheels over the cobblestone drive echoed through her skull as she crawled over the roof towards the driver’s seat, remaining flat on her belly lest the bumping knock her loose.

Wind whipped at her unbound hair and stung her eyes as she dragged herself on her elbows, until she at last tipped over the front edge and collapsed onto the driver’s bench.

Her fingers scrambled for the reins, but even as they closed around the worn leather, her heart sank. Any hopes of driving the carriage were a lost cause. She had never handled a horse before, and the shock combined with shouts from behind of “Halt in the name of the crown!” seemed to have whipped them into a frenzy. The horses would gallop until they deemed it appropriate to stop, and Rhosyn was at their mercy.

By now, they had already charged down the long drive leading to the manor and careened through the front gates of the property. The horses followed the road through a sharp bend. Rhosyn’s nails bit into the reins so hard they would leave marks in the supple leather, as the carriage rocked precariously at the suddenness of the turn.

As it righted itself, falling back onto four wheels after skittering on two for a moment, Rhosyn chanced a glance over her shoulder. She had gained considerable distance from her pursuers thanks to the horses’ reckless speed, but she was likely to end up thrown from the carriage with a broken neck if this went on much longer.

Dust rose from the pounding of hooves on the country lane, stinging Rhosyn’s eyes and burning her throat as she fought to think. The rattling wheels drowned out her thoughts, and she gritted her teeth so hard she thought they might crack in an effort to focus.

Her gaze caught on a dense wood off to one side of an upcoming turn in the road. It could provide good cover.

Especially if her pursuers thought she had continued down the road.

The bend approached quickly, as did her opportunity to decide: jump voluntarily from a hurtling carriage or wait until she was either thrown from it or captured and thrown in jail.

Rhosyn always liked to play the odds.

The horses thundered around the corner. As soon as they rounded the bend, hiding the carriage from view for mere seconds, she jumped.

She threw her arms up over her head and tucked herself into a ball as best she could. The ground hit her with all the force of a steam engine, and the world twirled sickeningly as she tumbled through brambles into the ditch. The sharp scratch of thorns against her skin cut through the haze of disorientation as she rolled into the thicket of the forest, and the clattering wheels of her stolen carriage moved away. Hopefully her pursuers thought she continued with it.

As she reached the bottom of the downhill slope away from the road, she threw her hands out, but the trees approached too fast. Her forehead smacked against the base of one, bark cutting into the skin of her temple.

The brown and green of the trees around her swirled together as she tried to grapple onto consciousness, only for it to slip through her fingers like smoke. The last thought before darkness took her was that she hoped Ansel found her before the Royal Police.

Cool fingers stroked her temples. Rhosyn’s eyelashes fluttered in pleasure, the touch soothing enough to counteract the mild throbbing on her forehead. The knot there was not nearly as bad as it could have been for running headfirst into a tree, mostly stinging from the abrasion left by the bark.

At the memory of tumbling into a forested ditch, Rhosyn’s eyes snapped open. Instead of the dappled light of trees at night, or the dingy gray of a prison cell, her gaze focused on concerned green eyes.

“Ansel,” she sighed, her voice a breathy croak.

“Rhosyn.” Ansel’s voice was hardly any better.

Movement beneath her drew attention to the firm thighs cradling her head, flexing as Ansel bent over his lap where she rested. Rhosyn had been knocked out more times than she cared to admit, and all those occasions would have been vastly improved by waking like this. Her instincts pushed her to rise and get back in the fight as soon as possible, but Ansel’s gentle touch pulled her even more insistently to stay right where she was.

Although she wasn’t entirely sure where here was.

“What…”

“We’re back at the safehouse in the lower city,” Ansel explained. His fingers drifted to her hair as he spoke, twisting a ringlet around his finger absently. “After the commotion died down and I put together what had happened, the performers and I started combing the area for you. Once we found you in the ditch, we snuck you into our carriage. We figured you were the least likely to be found out here.”

“You found me,” Rhosyn echoed. Ansel had known she would be wanted for trying to assassinate the king—a treason punishable by death—and he had hidden her among the Foxes anyways. He and his people would be seen as accomplices if she were caught, likely suffering the same punishment, but he had recounted the events like it hadn’t been a choice. As if he hadn’t even considered that it might have been an opportune time to sever their unlikely alliance.

“You could die for helping me,” she croaked, the hoarseness in her voice no longer just from disuse. “Why would a gang leader risk himself for one crooked cop?”

Ansel’s hands drifted down to cup her cheeks, so gentle that Rhosyn thought she might shatter. “I would think it was obvious.”

Rhosyn stared up at him, a bubble of something warm forming in her chest as she waited for him to continue.

“I love you. Isn’t it awful?” He chuckled dryly, with no small amount of affection, as though he couldn’t conceive of how they had possibly ended up in this situation.