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She popped one eye open, then the other.
Reiner on his horse at the road, just behind the empty wagon.
She carefully drew air into her lungs, trying to cause no movement.
“Reiner.” The word exhaled softly from her throat.
“Sloane.” Panic laced the word and he jumped from his horse, charging into the bog.
“Stop.” Her screech echoed over the bog and it cost her. She sank. Another inch toward her death. The whole right side of her body had descended into the cold tentacles of the muck.
But she could still crane her neck upward. Still see Reiner moving into the bog.
“Stop. You’ll sink.” Another inch down.
He stopped, thank the heavens.
His fingers flickered, flipping in and out of fists out of sheer frustration. “I have to come after you, Sloane.”
The determined glint in his eye told her he was coming, death or not.
She nodded slightly, not that he could see it. She drew a shallow breath, trying to talk without her chest moving. “Wood. A piece of wood to throw out to me. There’s no solid ground here.”
His look went frantic around. And then he ran toward the wagon as he stripped off his coat. He tossed it onto the hay in the rear and then brought his leg high and kicked at the long planks running the length of the wagon. Five sharp blows of his heel, and one plank splintered. He grabbed the edge of it, twisting it from the frame of the wagon. It was half as tall as him and it would have to do.
He ran back to the edge of the bog, his look frenzied on the mounds of grasses and moss. His first step out, he missed the solid ground and sank up to his shin.
“Bloody hell.”
“Slow. Pull it out slow.” She waited, breath held until he freed his foot.
Once his balance was set again, Sloane watched him lift his foot and aim for another wrong area of grass.
“Stop.”
His foot froze in midair.
“It’s forward to your right.”
His hovering foot moved in the air until it was directly above a solid clump she could recognize. “Yes.” The cold muck crept upward to reach the base of her neck.
He dropped his foot and moved to the clump.
She exhaled. It held him.
“Next one, Sloane.” He lifted his left foot in the air, waiting for direction.
“Straight ahead. A foot further than you can stretch. You need to jump.”
He leapt forward without hesitation. No skidding. Impressive for his size and weight.
“Now to your right again.”
“It’s sending me farther from you.”
“Trust me.”
He lifted his right foot.
