She rises, the three of them looking like newborn deer on ice. She manages to find a safe path and lunges toward the forest. She doesn’t look back and disappears into the line of thick pines.
Shit.
For the first time since Peighton arrived in my home, a new instinct rises in me.
It is primal and urgent.
I’m torn in three ways: chase after her, protect my empire from intruders, or listen to the darkness.
Torture. Kill. Everyone.
I move away from the window calmly, but inside, the chaos of my mind is in full battle.
Chapter 8
Peighton
I’m being chased by two men with guns.
Lord, lord, lordhelp me!
I burst into the forest at full speed, branches slapping my arms, the frozen air slicing into my lungs.
Panic wipes out reason, leaving only instinct. The trees are dense and blackened by winter. The ground is uneven and hidden beneath patches of snow. Every icy breath feels like it shatters inside my chest.
Running into the forest might kill me faster than these guys, but at least the forest does not torture. The forest takes lives quickly.
Gustav uses his hands. His rules. His cruelty. Out here, I might find a way out. Back there, unlikely.
A root catches my shoe and I stumble down a steep bank, tumbling through snow and dead grass. My hip smashes against the cold earth. I gasp, pushing myself upright. Ahead of me, an iced-over river snakes through the landscape, thin cracks glistening under a pale film of frost.
It is not solid. One wrong step and I will plunge through.
Behind me, I hear the crunch of boots as the two guards appear at the top of the bank. One points at the ice.
“Don’t cross. You will die. Come back now.”
The other yells for me to climb up. His voice is sharp and demanding, but the cold wind steals most of the sound.
I know they are right. The ice is weak. I see the fractures, the darker patches where the river churns below. Crossing this is not just dangerous, it is foolish.
But my instincts scream that the only direction with any chance of survival is forward, not backward.
I step onto the ice. It groans under my weight. My breath halts in my throat.
“Stop,” one of the men shouts. “Don’t take another step!”
I drop to my hands and knees. The icy surface burns my palms with a bone-deep ache. The cold is so sharp it feels like knives slicing into my skin. I crawl, distributing my weight, moving with careful, shaking breaths.
The ice cracks under me.
The river bubbles beneath the surface. I move anyway. I have to.
The guards slide and scramble down the bank, shouting at me as they rush toward the ice. Their voices blur into frantic noise. The only sound that matters is the deep, sickening crack spreading beneath me.
I freeze.
Another crack jolts through the surface. A thin seam opens beneath my knee, wetting it.
