AllFreeNovel
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Another is on us—and yet more riders are circling. Aston spins the horse. Lor takes another rider out to our side, only to yelp as he tumbles on the ground.
“Lor!” Only now do I see an arrow embedded in his hind leg and how his beautiful coat is matted with blood. “They are killing him!”
Aston growls and wheels the horse around, clashing swords with another rider.
But we are surrounded. As he fights on one side, I am snatched from his arms on the other.
“Stay your blade, or I’ll slit her throat!”
I catch the glint of metal and feel the cold press of a blade against my throat as an arm roughly clasps my waist. Around me, the forest falls quiet.
Aston is on the ground leaning over the body of a soldier, his chest heaving, face and body splattered with blood. “You’re not going to hurt her,” Aston says.
“Are you willing to take that risk?” the man with the dagger against my throat asks.
“No!” I beg, but it is too late. I see that dreadful softening in Aston, the evidence of defeat, even before he growls and tosses his sword to the floor.
Lor issues a low growl as he lingers on the periphery, his beautiful coat stained by blood.
An arrow whistles through the air, embedding into a tree inches from him, and he darts behind the trunk for cover.
“Lor, go. Run!” Aston calls, just as a man comes up behind him and, using the hilt of his sword, knocks him to the ground with a savage blow.
Lor growls, but another arrow wards him off as the soldiers converge on Aston, beating him into the snow.
I sob. My captor only chuckles as the light dusting of snow turns red with Aston’s blood.
“Enough!” A voice snaps through the cruelty, and Marshal nudges his horse to the front, his cool gaze sweeping over the scene before landing on me. “Bring my bride to me.”
The blade disappears, and I’m hauled forward by a fist on my arm, my eyes torn between Aston and Marshal. Relief washes through me as Aston stirs.
“Marshal, please! It is over. I am not your betrothed anymore.”
“It is not over, omega. Did you think I did not know what you are? Did you think there were no ways to test for such things? Did you think I would let these barbarian scum snatch such a prize from my hands?”
His eyes gleam with fervor as they turn from me to Lor, who hangs back in the shadows of the trees.
Aston heaves himself to his hands and knees and spits out blood. “For fuck’s sake, Lor, run. You know what you need to do.”
A soldier brings his booted foot down into the middle of Aston’s back, driving him back to the floor.
The soldier hoists me up to the horse in front of Marshal as Aston’s wrists are bound, and he is dragged to his feet.
Lor turns and runs, gait ragged under a fresh volley of crossbow bolts.
That is the last I see of him as Aston is tossed face down over a saddle, and we ride out of the forest, bound for Pershore.
ChapterFourteen
Lor
Leaving them is the hardest thing I have ever done.
They are my world, and I love them both. We have known one perfect moment of happiness, and I am fucking greedy for more.
Only I cannot save them, so I run.
Run for the only source of hope I know… if I can get there alive.
