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I take off at a run.
But she is gone, and my frantic search comes to a stop as I turn full circle in the midst of tents in an area unfamiliar to me.
“Where are you off to, my pretty little omega?” a rough voice says.
Omega?There cannot be more than one omega in this camp.
I take off again, slowing as I near, peering around the side of a tent, heart thumping in my chest.
Dolan has her. The toothless bastard who is Rig’s friend. The one Penny warned me about. He has a hand clamped over Winter’s mouth as he drags her into a tent and from my sight.
I look around, feeling frantic. Should I go back to Bron? I do not want to give the bastard that long alone.
My eyes alight on a sturdy tree branch that has fallen beside the tent.
I snatch it up and creep toward the front of the tent.
“Quiet, little one, and I will not hurt you,” he says, his words muffled by the tent wall.
I shake with outrage fills me. The dreadful memory of that night Trent took me batters at my mind. I blink furiously, my palm turning sweaty around the branch as I carefully peer through the crack in the tent.
He has his back to me with Winter pinned to the floor beneath him. She kicks and flails as he fumbles with his belt.
She cries out.
He slaps her.
I charge. The tree limb is far too large for my small strength, I nevertheless put everything into it. It swings in a perfect arc, driven by the potency of my rage, and connects with the side of his head.Crack!
“Uf!”
The blow carries him with it, and he topples to the side.
I stare down, chest heaving, wondering if he is out or if I need to bash the bastard again.
When he doesn’t move, I toss the branch to the floor and rush to Winter’s side. A deep guttural sob bursts from her chest as she strains to break free. Dolan has trapped her legs with his heavy weight, and we both wrestle to push him aside.
“Come, mistress,” I say. “We cannot linger here.”
“Melody?”
“Is safe. But you cannot go to her like this. Come.”
I take her hand and lead her back through the camp. Finding an empty tent, I take her inside and sit her down. I pour her a cup of water, but she is shaking so badly that she spills more than she drinks. I pour more water into a basin and wring out a cloth, which I press to her cut lip. The side of her face is already coloring and will soon bruise.
Her warrior, Jacob, will beat Dolan bloody when he finds out. “There will be retaliation,” I say bleakly as I wring and reapply the cloth. “Your alpha will not stand for this.”
“He is not my alpha,” she says bitterly.
“You are a woman and a bondservant,” I say, face tightening. “If he is not your man, then you should make him so. If you don’t, other bondservants will offer him what you do not, and then he will protect them and not you.”
My words are harsh. They are delivered with far less finesse than my mother did to me.
Yet Winter is not a young fairy. Bard said she was many hundreds of years old and surely not ignorant of the world. There is no time for gentleness when we live in such bleak times. I have seen how she looks at Jacob and how he looks at her. Now is not the time to be fey with feelings when there is so much at risk.
“If you do not give him the favor of your body, you cannot expect him to fight for you.” I am speaking with a hardness I do not recognize as I wring and reapply the cloth. “This is about survival. My mama told me the day they took me to find the biggest, baddest male and throw myself at his mercy. I am still alive because that is what I did. The masters don’t much care for the bickering between bondservants. What is the rape of a bondservant? It is nothing to them. They do not trouble themselves with our infighting so long as no bondservant dies. Without a clear message from your alpha, Dolan will assuredly try again. But next time, he will be meaner and crueler.”
She stares up at me a beautiful broken fairy with an ugly collar around her delicate throat and a bruise on her cheek.
