We came to another checkpoint two nights later. Once again, they lowered the gate, and Shayn disembarked, papers in hand.
The rest of us waited, huddled together for warmth, grateful for the break.
Angry voices rose beyond the torchlight on the bridge.
“Problem?” Maz asked hoarsely.
I slowly stood, the cold metal around my ankles rasping against my skin.
Shayn stood with a few other soldiers, waving his arms and talking loudly. They argued back, pointing emphatically toward the raft.
Gods damn it. I sank down. “Something’s wrong,” I muttered.
“Fucking Four.” Maz grasped his oar with blue-tinged fingers.
Kiera’s shivering body pressed into me. I wrapped one arm around her, giving her what little warmth I had left. Ruru huddled against her other side, his wide eyes on the bridge above us.
Footsteps tromped overhead, and two soldiers came down the bank with long, hooked poles. My chest seized as they stabbed the logs and dragged us up the sloping shore.
I heard a small splash behind me, but I was too busy searching for Shayn. Surely he hadn’t betrayed us? Abandoned us?
I didn’t see him. But I did see a figure who made my blood run ice cold.
Long, greasy, dark hair. Dead black eyes. A triumphant smile.
Korvin had found us.
Chapter 44
Kiera
Such intense terror was nauseating.
I never thought I’d meet death weak, shivering, shackled, and defenseless. But that was certainly how Korvin liked to deal it.
His toothy smile and bared muscles made him look like a monster ready to devour us.
The soldiers dragged our raft up the shore. I held onto Aiden and Ruru, my nails digging into their arms. Maz was as pale as the moon above us, still as stone. Where was Nikella?
Four more soldiers with spears herded us up onto the bridge with Korvin. They shoved us to our knees before him.
Korvin glanced behind him to where two Shadow-Wolves held a red-faced Shayn. “Your papers said four prisoners—three men and one woman.”
“That is what you see before you,” Shayn said through clenched teeth.
Don’t anger him, Shayn. You don’t know him like I do.
Korvin smiled as if very pleased with this answer. “How strange when the western patrols tell me that there were three male prisoners andtwofemale prisoners. The likes of which matched the descriptions I gave them.”
My heart sank. They’d been watching for us and reporting back. They let us slip through their fingers so that we would land in Korvin’s clutches.
Where in the deep, dark, wandering hell had Nikella gone? She was still shackled. She could be drowning right now, in the same river her father had.
Shayn visibly swallowed. “They were mistaken. My papers say three men and one woman, as you see before you.”
I grimaced.Brave, stupid man.Perhaps he knew Nikella might be our only hope.
Korvin’s smile dropped faster than an executioner’s axe. He sauntered over to Shayn, pulling a long, thin sunstone blade from his belt.
