To Have A Heart (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 7)

“It’s the only route out of here. I have to take it,” Mallory muttered as she crept into the frigid room.

She wedged a large box against the door, just in case Marcus did hear her moving about. When she was as secure as she could possibly be, Mallory turned her attention to the window, and how to get out of it.

“I have come this far. I am not going to allow five feet to thwart me.”

Encouraged by the realisation of just how far she had managed to get without discovery and with relative ease, Mallory carefully unlocked the window. The swift nudge created a scraping noise, but it was over almost the instant it began. Nevertheless, Mallory paused, just to make sure Marcus wasn’t stirring. When she was confident that he hadn’t heard anything, she pushed the window open.

Cold air swept into the room. It was so frigid that Mallory looked at the door in horror. She knew that the chill of the night air would filter beneath the door, into the kitchen, and might be icy enough to wake Marcus, who was lying on the floor.

“Stop making yourself panic,” Mallory breathed. “Just stay calm. You can do this.”

Determined to leave the house before Marcus did stir, Mallory poked her head out of the window. Her gasp was barely smothered when she immediately saw a guard walking toward her. With little choice she nudged the window closed and pressed herself against the wall while she waited for the figure to amble past.

“I have to get out of here. I will get out of here,” Mallory bit out as she mentally counted the seconds it might take someone to walk to the corner of the house and disappear.

When she was sure that the coast was clear, Mallory squared her shoulders and, once she had checked to make sure that the man had gone, forced herself to crawl out of the window. It took far more effort than her aching limbs really had the strength for, but with a lot of wriggling and writhing, Mallory eventually managed to reach the kitchen garden. Unfortunately, she knew that there was no place for her to hide in it except behind the low stone wall where any of the other guards might find her.

I shall just have to make sure that they don’t see me, won’t I?

Forcing herself not to think about the consequences, Mallory hurried over to the wall and threw herself onto her knees. She tucked her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them while she watched the patrol pass. One second. Two more. She counted a full minute before she lunged to her feet, threw herself over the wall, and ran as fast as her feet could carry her toward the barn.

All the while the wind whipped in her ears, Mallory waited for that inevitable shout, the barking of the feral dogs, the whistle that would alert all the guards to her escape. What she heard instead was the pounding of her feet on the ground, and the wild thundering of her heart.

Once at the barn, Mallory pressed her shoulders against the brick wall and watched the guard in the stable yard. She watched him pass the window she had just used and prayed that he wouldn’t notice it was slightly ajar. He motioned to someone beside the barn, just feet from her. Whatever he saw gestured in return must have been reassuring because he then ambled off. What wasn’t reassuring for Mallory was the knowledge that another guard was still so close.

Now what?

Mallory contemplated what to do. She couldn’t go back to the house. It was a miracle she hadn’t been seen already.

Mrs Cummings would love it if I got caught by the guards trying to break back into the house where I was being held a prisoner.

With little choice, Mallory edged toward the farthest corner of the barn. She knew the stable block beyond it housed several of the master’s guards and she was running toward danger, but there was nowhere else she could go.

Eventually, she rounded the corner of the long barn, and stepped into impenetrable blackness only to slam bodily into a solid wall of masculinity that was as unyielding as it was completely terrifying. Mallory opened her mouth to scream as all her hopes and prayers for luck to be on her side vanished. She wanted to wail at the hopelessness of her situation while at the same time she became wildly furious. She wasn’t just angry; she was so wildly livid that she pounded at the man’s chest while she struggled to wriggle free of his tight hold with the ferocity of a spitting tigress. At some point during their skirmish, the man, a guard she suspected, cursed beneath his breath, and did so again when Mallory hit him in the face. Still, she had little remorse, and so tried to hit him again.

“Will you stop?” Callum hissed, trying hard to capture her fists before she thwacked him again.

Mallory heard his grunted order, but he was many, many miles away from the place of terror she had been plunged into. His words didn’t filter through the thick fog that had settled over her thoughts; a fog of denial, confusion, terror even. She continued to fight for her life against this unseen enemy who wanted to stop her flight. Fear compelled her to struggle, to break free from the horrible ordeal she had been drawn into, no matter what it cost her.

“Let me go. Please.” She moaned tearfully.

Mallory twisted, tugged, and pulled against him, but her captor’s hold remained unrelenting.

Suddenly, he slammed her harshly against the wall of the barn with such force that it stole her breath and immediately rendered her useless.

“Oomph,” was all Mallory managed before the man’s hand slammed over her mouth, stemming any further objection.

Mallory watched in amazement as the man planted himself directly in front of her and pressed himself tightly against her. A scream hovered on her lips but it wasn’t uttered because she was swiftly enveloped in the long edges of the man’s flowing cloak, which were flicked around them both and held firmly in place by the man’s arms which were bound tightly around her.

“Stand still,” he breathed directly into her ear. “Don’t say a word.”

Mallory had no choice. She was stunned, amazed, and yes, curious. Who was he? Where had he come from? What was he doing in the darkness? Did he know who she was? Was he mistaking her for someone else?

As she waited for the chance to speak, Mallory’s thoughts turned to the stranger she had spoken with in the kitchen garden that afternoon, but she dismissed all possibility that this man might be him. The man before her was a lot taller, and heavily muscled given how hard his thick biceps were beneath her frozen fingers. While pressed so shockingly close to him as she was, Mallory could hear the steady thump, thump, thump, of his heartbeat. It echoed her own, but that made her wonder. Why didn’t he want to be caught either? What had he been doing when she had bumped into him? Was he a thief?

Mallory tried to peek at the guard just a few feet away but the stranger before her refused to allow her to budge. Instead, he held her perfectly still and intimately pressed against him. His arms were wound so tightly around her that she felt infinitely fragile against his strength, but she didn’t mind because he was keeping her safe – for now.

Unfortunately, while she was glad of his quick thinking, it was a little concerning to know that nobody knew she was outside with him. He too could do anything he liked with her and nobody would ever know.