Masked Prince (Fated Royals 2)

Below me, I watched the life drain out of my father’s eyes. I felt so helpless, so terrified, and so far away from him. For all the terror he had caused me, I had tried—always—to treat him with kindness. I had always tried to smother his rage with love, because despite it all I had loved him. But now, in his dying moments, I could do nothing to comfort him, as I watched the life drain away, away, away.

It was too much to take in. I was so shocked, so overwhelmed, that I just stared at him in mute terror. But slowly the hot tears found their way to my eyes and clouded my vision. The guards became blurry through them. I had to hang on. I just had to. All I had to do, I told myself, was hang on until Bonny sent someone to help me.

But that could take forever. The guards were there to take what they wanted of me and dispose of the rest. It was only a matter of time before I joined my father in bleeding to death on the milk shed floor.

The guards prowled around me from below. The memory of that frozen salmon unlocked another memory, one I had tried desperately to forget. When I was a very young girl, while my mother was still alive, a pack of wolves spotted me and drove me up a tree, where I stayed for hours until my father appeared, driving them off with his shouts and the fire of a makeshift torch.

The guards were exactly like those wolves—hungrily circling and circling, and this time I knew my father wasn’t going to bravely come to my rescue. They made no movements to follow me up into the rafters; I could tell they were very much enjoying the chase. One of them used the tip of his sword to slit my skirt up the length of my thigh. The wood grain dug into my skin as I gripped the beam so tightly that it made my legs burn.

“I’ll give you anything you want. But please…” I begged them. “Please don’t kill me.”

They chuckled, like I’d made a joke.

I’m not going to survive this. I’m not.

“Oh, we’ll kill you alright,” said the big guard. “But I fucking promise to make it nice and slow.”

This could not be happening. It simply could not. My arms trembled so hard that splinters dug into my flesh.

Nellie was getting increasingly worked up as the guards circled. As many animals do when they’re nervous, she took the opportunity to relieve herself. Before she was even done, one of the guards had grabbed a stinking pile of her hot dung and threw it right at my face.

I spat it out and tried to wipe my eyes with my knuckles. They just roared with laughter as one after another handful of cow dung splattered my body and head. The more of it they threw, the more slippery the beam became and the more difficult it was for me to hang on tight.

Once they’d finished with the dung, they moved onto whatever else they could find—tools, buckets, and finally the full bottles of cider. The first hit my shoulder, the second hit my hip, both of them causing a shooting and horrible pain. But before I could even cry out, I saw a third one, heading directly for my head.

I shut my eyes and tried to turn away, but it connected with my left ear, making me feel as though my brain had been shaken up and torn apart. My skull was full of a shrieking, disorienting pain.

Instinctively, I pressed my palm to my head; as I did, I began to lose my grip and slip off the beam. I felt myself beginning to fall. I clung to the beam with one arm, knowing that I would surely be killed if I fell and landed on the hard floor of the milking shed. As I blinked away the horrible pain in my ear, I realized that death by falling might be a much less painful death than whatever the guards had in store.

In the haze of my tear-streaked vision, I saw a shadow darken the doorway, followed by the sound of two heavy steps and a gurgle. Below me, I saw one of the guards slump to the floor with a slash that ran clean across his throat. On the ground were a pair of boots that I did not recognize, but by their sheer hugeness I knew who it had to be…

And it was. It was Randal.

He was dressed differently than he’d been when I saw him last, and now he was looking as savagely angry as I had ever seen another human being in my life.

He looked up at me without saying a single word, but from his glance, I drew enough strength to hang on. Just hang on a little longer.