Sinfully Yours (Hellions of High Street 2)

The echo reverberated through the woods like a gunshot.

Hurry, hurry.

As the road narrowed and turned sharply past a thicket of brambles, Caro slapped aside a twist of thorns, and in her haste to put the grove behind them, nearly slid into a puddle of brackish water. Before she could call out a warning, Isobel stumbled on the wet ground too, and lost her footing.

“Oooh!”

Caro caught her just as she was about to take a nasty tumble. “Steady now,” she murmured, keeping hold of her friend’s trembling hand.

“Sorry to be such a ninnyhammer.”

“Nonsense. You are a far more intrepid adventurer than any storybook heroine.”

“J-just as long as I don’t step on any c-cobras.” Though she appeared on the verge of tears, Isobel managed an exhausted smile.

“Oh, there aren’t any snakes in this part of Somerset.” That might be stretching the truth a bit, but as reptiles did not come out in the chill of night, it didn’t matter.

“Let’s rest for a moment.”

They slowed to a halt. And yet, Isobel’s breathing only seemed to grow more ragged.

If only a cart would come by, thought Caro. But given the hour, that hope was unrealistic. There was no option save to forge ahead on their own.

Tightening her grip, she started forward again, hoping that the next bend would bring them free of the trees. There was something oppressive about the heaviness of the air and the canopy of leafy branches that nearly blocked out the twilight sky.

Rain—only a soaking shower could make matters worse.

She angled a look up at the scudding clouds, just as a sudden movement in bushes caught her eye.

A scream caught in her throat as branches snapped and a man dressed all in black burst out from between two ancient oaks.

Seizing Isobel from behind, he tried to drag her back into the tangle of leaves.

But Caro reacted in the same instant and held on to her frie

nd’s hand for dear life. “Let go of her, you fiend!” she cried, then raised her voice to an even higher pitch. “Help! Help!”

Isobel struggled to fend him off. She was putting up a game fight, though in size and weight she was no match for her assailant.

He gave another wrenching yank, then swore a vicious oath as Isobel’s flailing elbow caught him flush on the windpipe.

“Help, help—let me go!” She, too, had started screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Bloody Hell, shut your gobs,” he snarled, clapping a beefy hand over Isobel’s mouth. “And you, you hellbitch…”

The epithet was directed at Caro.

“Back off or I’ll break every last bone in your body.” The brute—for brute he was, with muscled arms and legs thick as tree trunks—punctuated the threat with a lashing kick aimed at Caro’s knees.

She caught his boot and jerked upward with all her might.

Yanked off balance, the man fell heavily to the ground, his skull hitting the hard-packed earth with a thud.

The force of his fall took Isobel down, too. But she managed to roll free and scramble to her feet.

“Run!” urged Caro. “Run!”

However slight the chances were of outracing him, flight was their only option. Trying to outfight him was madness. Still, she snatched up a rock as she turned to follow her friend.