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Was this what her bond was like with her fox? Some sort of a sense of where she is, what she needs?
The dense leaf cover swallowed her up, hoof beats and all.
Damn it.
I scanned the forest for any sign of her. Up ahead, near ground level, I spotted a clump of ferns swaying, and not with the breeze.
Gotcha. I drove my heels in hard, and my horse shot forward into a full gallop.
But no sooner had he taken off running than he skidded to a halt and reared, nearly throwing me off. Like the ground had dropped out from under me, I found myself half-way airborne. He landed hard and wheeled around in a panicked circle as I tried to get control of him.
“What the fuck,” I muttered, trying to calm him down.
But then I saw it, too.
It was Rosie, running back toward us, wild-eyed and terrified…with an empty saddle on her back.
CHAPTER 4
Maksim
She’d been ambushed by highwaymen. My rage at seeing her in danger was so overpowering that it damn near fucking blinded me completely. Staying low, I looped the horses’ reins over a branch to keep them hidden. I assessed what we were up against. Fucking highwaymen. More of them. I couldn’t help but cast my mind back to that note the jailer read to me, and wonder if Thatcher was right after all. They were parasites of the forest. Perhaps they did deserve no more mercy than a quick drop with a sudden stop.
Four of them had ambushed her. One of them she’d killed herself already, with a kill-shot to the heart. The second lay moaning, clutching his belly, trying to stifle the blood seeping from a wide gash. The knife wound was plenty bad enough to keep him off his feet, and it would kill him, but it wasn’t deep and it would be a slow death. It would take days of shit, pus, agony and fear out here in the forest for him to find the grave, most likely finished off by wolves or a bear.
Not fucking slow enough, I thought, as I cracked my knuckles, and sized up the other two, grudgingly impressed by the fact they hadn’t fled at the first sign their chosen quarry might fight back.
They were both armed, one with a dagger and the other with an ax. Anika’s fox was nipping at their ankles, chattering and squealing, trying to get them away from her. But he was more of an annoyance than an opponent. They may not have understood his presence, but they didn’t fear it either. The ax wielder had her from behind, either with her hands bound or her thin wrists clasped in one of his huge hands, I couldn’t tell. The one with the knife searched her pockets, feeling her up, looking for coin or valuables.
As he slid his hand between her legs, he froze. “Now what do we have here?”
Fucking fuck. I needed to do something, but right now I was at a disadvantage. If I came out into the open and startled them, they might kill her by accident. I couldn’t allow that to happen.
I glanced around for any way to get the upper hand, but I was trapped. I waited the few seconds necessary for my opening.
“You’re no lad, now are you?” He ripped off her hat and her long, beautiful hair spilled down her shoulders like a copper waterfall.
Now that she was revealed, she let loose a primal, ear-splitting scream, and kicked wildly at both of them, even sinking her teeth into the big one’s arm, pulling her hands free and swinging at the air.
But he was as stupid as he was big. Like a brain damaged hog. If the bite bothered him, he gave no signal. Just the opposite.
“I like my women with a little fight in them,” he said, drunk and sloppy and mealy-mouthed. “But not too much fight.”
With a horny grin on his face, he reached into his pocket, produced a thin blade, and placed it to her throat.
Anika froze. So did I. For a long second, it was as if everything in the forest held perfectly still. Even Falroy stopped dead in his tracks, either sensing the danger or warned to hold back by Anika. The only thing that moved was her trembling fingers as she slowly raised her hands in surrender.
The smaller of the two grabbed her wrists and bound them behind her back with rope. From the way the two of them worked, I could tell they’d done this before. Motherfuckers.
“Please! Please don’t hurt me. Please… I’m… I can… I’m actually…”
Don’t you fucking dare tell them who you really are, I told her, willing the words into her mind from my own. It will only excite them more.
I could see her swallow hard and I tensed. I needed to be sure they wouldn’t hurt her in the process of what came next.
