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A thick clot of bloody bile came up into my throat and I spat it onto the forest floor. How did he know? I stayed silent, I wasn’t going to confirm what could be a bluff.
“Surprised?” He smiled. “I have many favors owed to me, brother. Many little birds that bring me information. Fear and need make for loyalty. The stone walls are not as solid as you may think.”
I clenched my jaw. He’d turned our home into his own playground and I vowed once I stood by my father, I would restore order and real loyalty to our once proud manor.
Petre grabbed the reins of his horse and turned it around so that I had a view of her head. Her long hair dangled down, nearly dusting the dirt-scuffed snow. Petre crouched down in front of Valeria, pinching her unconscious cheeks.
“Annoying when they pass out. But nothing a nice daily dose of foxglove extract won’t cure.”
If I could’ve killed him right then and there, I would have. But his hounds kept me on the ground. He turned to me, looking satisfied and more dangerous than ever. He gathered up a handful of her hair and yanked it up, to make it look like she had turned to face him.
“But since I know you like being fucked by whatever man happens to be nearby, I’ll make sure to pass you around all the time, until that little cunt of yours aches every time you move. How does that sound, Princess?”
By way of response, he made her nod and then let her head drop. Then, in one swift movement, he shoved Valeria’s limp body to the front of the saddle and mounted behind her. He jammed his German stirrups hard into his stallion’s belly, and the horse took off instantly, barreling into the forest with clumps of snow flying. He didn’t look back even once, and with every passing half-second the distance between me and her grew by a length or more.
“Valeria!” I roared. “Valeria!”
Petre’s remaining hounds stayed behind, each of them coming at me from a different direction. I met punch with punch, unsure of which one I was hitting, but feeling the satisfying crunch of bone and blood on my quickly swelling knuckles. If I could hold them off long enough, I knew that I wouldn’t be alone. Daniel would arrive and he wouldn’t hesitate to step in. Even drugged as they were, they wouldn’t stay standing after he sliced their throats. But until then, I had to fight like my life depended on it.
Because it very well might.
CHAPTER 25
Valeria
As I came around, the organ inside the Coronation Cathedral bellowed through the cold air, telling me where we were long before I could see the cathedral itself. I struggled to get my bearings, but I was hog-tied to the back of Petre’s stallion and every pounding gallop made my head throb so painfully that it made me lose my sense of direction.
Every muscle in my body ached and I had to keep my eyes shut tight to stop the snow and dirt from blinding me as we tore through the forest. Craning my neck, I got a glimpse of the road that led to the cathedral up ahead, but Petre veered off fast before we reached it in order to approach the cathedral from the rear.
He pushed his stallion hard, whipping his flanks until bright red bloody lash marks appeared on the haunch nearest my face. I felt the stallion ready for a jump, and then we were airborne. A crumbling low stone wall passed beneath us, and I braced for the impact of the landing, which winded me in spite of my best efforts to hold my breath.
Petre pulled up sharply, making his stallion rear, and sent me tumbling brutally onto the ground. I curled up in an agonized ball on the frozen ground while he circled me, huge bone-crushing hooves mere inches from my head and body.
Though I was exhausted and in pain, I willed myself into focused alertness. Now was no time to give up. Now was no time to give in.
Rolling onto my back, I glanced to the side to try and figure out where we were. Time-worn gravestones stared back at me, crooked and forgotten, like decaying teeth. Nearby, the broken wing of a stone angel poked up from the snow. Delirious and desperate as I was, I scrambled toward the broken wing, hoping to use it as a weapon. But before I could muster up the strength to get very far, Petre hopped off his horse with a thud and planted his boot on the small of my back, digging the heel into my spine.
“You’re a fighter, I’ll give you that much,” he said, spitting on the ground so close to me that I felt his saliva spatter my cheek. “But today is the last day you fight me, you hear? If you fail to comply, if you fail in any of your duties as a wife, I won’t just take it out on you, my love. Your father will be strung up as an example, and if that fails to change things, I’ll have your mother’s throat slit. If I have to, I’ll murder every single Valentine on this earth to get you to become the wife I deserve. And Vasile? He isn’t coming to save you. Not this time. Because he’s dead. I ordered my men to take care of that. You met them? They’ll have him in pieces by now.”
