The back of the guard’s hand collides with my jaw, like a fucking slab of concrete whacking across my face.
The impact is blinding. Stars erupt in my sight as suddenly as the hot sensation of blood fills my mouth.
It’s all I know as the road rushes up to meet me, a startled numbness—then I hit the ground, hard.
I’m blinded.
Darkness is speckled with dancing lights and swirling colours. My eyes squeeze against it, the distorted nothingness, and faintly, I’m aware of my legs moving, writhing, against slush.
I hear nothing beyond the buzz that hums in my ears, a static with the volume cranked all the way up.
Strange that I feel the cold, wet threads of my leggings against my skin before the sudden burst of hot pain in my mouth.
A groan wisps out of me.
I roll onto my side, face scrunched against the onslaught of sensations.
It all floods back to me in a heartbeat.
The slush soaking through my sweatpants to my leggings, then icing my flesh; the dizziness thumping in my head,pulse, pulse, pulse; the hot metal blood falling out of my mouth; the ringing in my ear; the haziness of my sight that, as I squeeze and squeeze and squeeze my eyes, clears more and more.
I aim my crinkled glare at the leather-wrapped guard.
Lilac eyes flicker with a softness they shouldn’t wear, a softness that doesn’t reach the feral twist of his mouth, an almost snarl.
Boots planted firm on the road, he watches me, as if waiting for my next move, to see what I do.
But before I can do anything, the chill of ice spreads over me. I throw my watery gaze to the cold warrior just as his shoulder brushes the guard’s.
He turns a cold look on the guard—and holds it.
A silent moment pulses between them, and whatever is said in that look, without a word, the guard falls his weight back onto one boot.
The slightest retreat, one I would’ve missed if I’d blinked, if I’d looked away or wiped at my tears.
The cold one swerves his sharp green eyes to me, but the green is faded, frosted. Unkindly, he swipes down for my arm, grips it too tight, and hauls me to my feet.
The sudden lift is confetti in my head, an eruption of dizziness that has stars dancing in my vision.
I blink against it, another squeeze of the eyelids.
Beneath me, my legs move on instinct, tugged out of the circle of guards.
Fae watch us.
None of them laugh, like they did when I was carted into their camp, wet with my own urine. That’s dry now, but the stink lingers.
Whatever the difference is now, I don’t know, I just know they don’t laugh anymore.
But they do watch.
It’s a vulnerable feeling as I’m hauled, bloody faced, to the treeline.
I bury my mouth into the crook of my arm. My other arm sways with the movements of the rope as the warrior fastens it to his belt again.
My breaths hitch against the sleeve of the parka.
I’ve never been struck before.
