Dorian led me to the stream, where the water rushed past clear and cold and glorious. He stood a few paces away, back turned, muttering the wordsdisgustingandnastyand told me to hurry up.
I deftly stepped backwards through my arms so that my bound hands were now in front of me then knelt with my back to my captor, clasped my hands together, and gulped mouthful after mouthful of clear water. I drank desperately, each swallow bringing clarity back to my fogged mind. The cold numbed my lips and chin, but I didn’t care. I felt alive again.
Once my thirst was quenched, I plunged my hands into the water, searching for something,anything, that could help me. This may be the best chance I would get to escape. At first, I only felt smooth stones and silt, but then my fingertips touched sharp edges.
A rock.
I gripped it between my teeth and began to saw the rope with slow, careful strokes. But the rope was thick and hardened, and progress was much too slow. There was no chance my efforts would escape Dorian’s notice.
I needed more time when Dorian wasn’t watching, so I tucked the stone into my waistband, washed quickly—just enough to be convincing—and rose to my feet.
For now, I would have to wait, but I had water in my veins again.
“Done yet, lassie?” called Dorian from behind me. He sounded bored and irritable.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that he had settled himself on the far side of a broad stump, leaning back with the rope stretched loosely between us. My bindings were still secure at my wrists, but the length connecting me to him was slack as it dragged across the ground.
A plan sparked to life in my mind.
“Almost!” I chirped. “This water isso cold!”
He grunted in reply. Good. Disinterested and unworried—exactly as I needed him.
I moved quietly, each step deliberate, gathering the rope into my hands inch by careful inch. My breath slowed.
Closer and closer I crept, making sure to move so even my shadows wouldn’t alert him to my presence.
The stump came up to my waist, shielding me from his line of sight and I stopped directly behind him.
He finally noticed.
His head twitched—not fully turning, just sensing the absence of the clumsy splashing I’d made before. I couldn’t afford hesitation.
In one swift motion, I flung the coiled rope over his head and wrenched it back hard, bracing my feet in the earth. The rope bit into his throat. His gasp was soft, more a choked snarl than a shout, and his fingers scrabbled uselessly at the line cutting off his air.
I let out a grunt of exertion as I struggled to keep a hold on the rope. I had no desire to kill him, but I did need to incapacitate him, and soon.
His boots dug trenches in the damp earth as he fought, but I had too much leverage and desperation to lose. I continued to pull against Dorian’s fruitless efforts to free himself from the rope cutting off his air until, finally, his movements grew fainter and fainter until he fell unconscious.
When he sagged, unaware, I eased the tension and slipped the rope free. His body slumped sideways against the stump with a dull thud. I crouched quickly, slid his dagger free from his boot, and cut through my bindings.
Once free, I used the rope that he had kept such a tight hold of to secure him—arms pinned, chest bound tight to the stump. His head lolled forward, tongue hanging in a way that was almost comical if I ignored the bruising already forming along his neck.
“That’s the price of tying up innocent girls, Dorian,” I murmured, though I was anything but innocent.
The memory of the rope jerked hard against my shoulders surged hot and furious through me. So I took his boots and pitched them into the stream. They disappeared instantly beneath the current.
Let him walk barefoot back to camp…ifhe got free.
For good measure, I tore a strip from his filthy tunic and gagged him with it. I allowed myself only a breath—just one—to admire the scene. The sheriff wanted to play games. Fine. Let this be his first lesson on how the House of Locksley played.
Then I ran.
I splashed upstream in the shallows, water kicking up in silver sprays, my stride long and sure. The icy current numbed my feet, but at least there would be no footprints, no scent trail, no easy tracking.
“Try and follow me now, Baron,” I thought savagely, my breath fogging in the cooling dusk air.
As I ran, I pictured the sheriff’s expression when they found Dorian trussed and gagged by the very girl he had sneered at. The satisfaction warmed me far more than the sun, sinking now behind the treetops.
