“Like Hell!” I growled into leather, thrashing against him no matter how it pulled my wounded shoulder.
He grabbed just below my chin, no longer gagging me, but I couldn’t make a sound. The man said something more, but I couldn’t hear him beyond the ringing in my ears, and as my vision darkened, I could only think of all the terrible things Mother said men were capable of.
Chapter 7
Rough fabric brushedmy lips.
I couldn’t see anything, but I smelled a distinct combination of oak, potatoes, and rotten apples. My body was bound so that any range of motion was near-impossible, though there was little room to move at all inside whatever container I’d been stuffed into.
My breathing hastened. I fought to control myself so that I wouldn’t pass out again, but I was fighting waves of panic and pain. Only the vibrations below me offered any sense of setting—I was moving by wheel, the wagon drawn by the uneven strides of a man.
I screamed into the cloth stuffed in my mouth, then banged my head against my container.
“That was fast,” said someone. My abductor, perhaps. His accent was familiar. Hadrian, perhaps. “Listen here, girl. People want you dead. I’m doing you a favor. Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll find a better use for it when I get you out.”
The ground shook again, and the wheels grew quieter. There was another sound, like humming, before we slowed to a halt. Someone was talking to him, but from the sound of it, they were distant.
I could scream.
Of course, that meant getting an interloper mixed in with the curse, since clearly even a muffled shout was enough of a catalyst.
My abductor was under my influence, but that hadn’t stopped him from being gruff or violent. The specific terms of the curse only meant that he’d fallen in love, but I supposed they didn’t dictate what that love looked like. Maybe it had been a stroke of good fortune that Prince Nicolas was the first to hear me speak. Not all men were so gentle.
“Quer tarsé peuto! Q’osa che entembarrile?”
The foreign language was melodic, fast, and animated, with rolling r’s and a staccato rhythm. Was another Hadrian speaking? More than likely, it meant the man had a fellow conspirator. Tears fell down my cheeks, soaking the sack around my face, at the thought of more dangerous men.
My earliest understanding of sex came with the caveat of its perils. I was eight or nine when Mother gave me that talk, all because I’d asked what could possibly be so dangerous about being loved.
“Love isn’t always a poetic thing,”she’d said, propping me on her lap.“For some men, it’s more like a hunt. It’s a hunger dressed in pretty words.”
The wrong man would use the feeling to condone all manner of unspeakable acts, to hurt me and use my body in ways I was too young to have so bluntly expressed.
“Ehh, batates,”said my abductor. I lost what little mastery I had over myself as my chest filled with shorter, faster breaths.
“Batates! Ba, tua atendio se enliuvella.”The stranger’s voice came nearer. I thought I heard a smile in it. “Russel?”
Something slammed against the wagon. My abductor barked a protest, and then light filtered through the top of the sack. I looked up at nothing, and then my cover was pulled free, and I stared directly into the eyes of Lord Quinn.
He wasn’t smiling now.
“Hold him, Russel,” he said, gripping the barrel. As he tipped it slowly, he helped me out. The endeavor shot pain up my arm, but I fought through it. Then he cut the rope that bound my arms behind me. I doubled forward; it took every ounce my willpower not to shriek as my limb dangled uselessly beside me.
“Lady Alana?” asked Guardsman Russel.
The viscount untied my gag. “My lady, are you hurt?”
My lips trembled in attempts to mouth a silent reply, but I could summon neither denial nor comfirmation.
A visible rage stirred within him as he studied me, whispering something I couldn’t hear. He removed his cloak, putting it around me, and turned to where my abductor lay prostrate beneath the guardsman. He approached them and kneeled, then took the man’s knife from its holster and plunged it straight intohis neck, swiping across and letting him bleed into the grass like a stuck pig.
I collapsed, paling at the sight of my abductor’s face. He gulped frantically, his expression fixed with confusion, like he didn’t quite understand what was happening to him.
My good hand lifted as if to help the man, but what could I do? With so much bleeding, he’d be gone in moments.
The viscount cleaned the knife with practiced efficiency. There was something unsettling about how naturally the violence came to him, yet when his eyes found mine again, they softened with worry. He tucked the knife away into an inner pocket of his tailcoat, then drew nearer. “I’ve frightened you.”
He offered a hand and I flinched. His fingers were steady, despite what he’d done. I shook my head, but he ignored that as he took hold of my good arm and helped me to my feet.
