None were there.
People came out of their homes to see the commotion, most of the men armed with the weapons they kept in their cabins.
Ian stumbled out of his cabin, shirtless and visibly drunk.
“Here!”
I followed the voice behind my cabin and jogged up the road.
I’d already figured out exactly what had transpired before I made it to the cabin.
Cameron was dead on the ground, a small dagger lodged in his throat. The door to the cabin was wide open, and the tray of food was spilled over the ground. The prisoner was nowhere to be seen.
I checked Cameron’s belt and discovered that his sword and bow were missing. “Fuck.” I checked his body for vitality, and when I felt his frozen skin, I knew he’d been dead a while. For hours. When the dawn shift had started, he was discovered.
That meant she had a head start—a big one.
“Huntley.” Mother’s strong voice came from behind me, low and controlled, not high-pitched with panic like everyone else.
I turned around to regard her, knowing how pissed off she was about to be.
She surveyed the scene with intelligent eyes, deducing exactly what had happened without having to ask questions. “Bring her back, Huntley. If she’s going to die, it’ll be by my hands—no one else’s.”
SEVEN
Ivory
I couldn’t believe I did it.
I actually got away.
I had to kill two guys along the way, but I didn’t have any other choice. Queen Rolfe and Huntley made it very clear they wouldn’t show me mercy, so I couldn’t do that either. North was the direction from which I came, so I just had to head that way. When I found snow, I knew I was on the right path.
But with snow, there were tracks.
Huntley would come after me. He would know exactly where I was headed. He would follow these tracks and be close on my tail.
So, the only way I would be successful was if I outran him.
Or…kill him when he caught up to me. That didn’t go over well last time, but if I caught him off guard, it might be different.
When I’d killed the guard, I’d taken as much of the food as I could before I ran off, so my stomach had been full at that time, but without more nourishment, I wouldn’t make it far. If I found the cave where we’d rested, I could raid the storage and keep going. That was the goal… I just had to find it.
I ran for hours in the dark, using the reflection of the moon on the snow through the trees to guide my direction. The sun eventually peeked over the horizon and lit up the sky in the colors of sunrise. It was much easier to see, but if it was easier for me, it was also easier for him.
I fought to run as long as I possibly could, but my body grew too fatigued, especially with the weight of the weapons I carried. I would walk then run, alternating between the two so I could move forward at a decent pace.
I was under the cover of the trees when I heard it.
A whistle.
It made my blood go cold because I recognized what it was.
A signal.
Huntley had made the same whistle to his brother and the others once my guards had been killed. I didn’t know what else to do besides hug the trunk and hope I wasn’t seen. It was dark under the canopy of the trees because the limited light struggled to penetrate the branches and the snow. My breath escaped as clouds of vapor, so I tried to slow my breathing as much as possible to keep from giving myself away.
Boots crunched against the snow.
My hand went to the hilt of my sword and gripped it.
“Maybe it was just a vision. A vision of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen—running through the woods.” The voice wasn’t deep like Huntley’s, but it was far more formidable because of the way it sounded…unhuman. “Spike, was that a dream? Or did you see it too?”
A voice far deeper than Huntley’s spoke. “Yes.”
Fuck. They knew exactly where I was, and they were toying with me.
“No need to be afraid, darling,” the first one said. “Come out. Show us your beautiful face.”
Huntley had been my biggest fear. But I’d forgotten that other people were out here. Or…other things.
I stepped out and turned in the direction of the voices. My face was hard, my eyes fearless, and I had to keep it that way even though my heart gave a jolt at the sight of them. They were both men, dressed in all black with matching gloves, swords at their hips. But their faces…I’d never seen anything like it.
Too many teeth crowded their mouths, so they protruded past their lips, looking more like fangs than teeth. It was almost as if their mouths were outside their bodies. I didn’t know how they chewed. How they even spoke.