With an ominousthunkAlicia was rendered silent. Left to crumple in a graceless heap at the fool’s feet.
I tried to run. Tried to fight the terrible cold leaching the strength from the back of my neck.
But I couldn’t. Was utterly helpless to doanythingbut collapse into the jagged earth when Jasper closed the distance between us. With booted toe, he rolled me, setting his knee into the deepest part of the lashes bisecting my back. Laughing when he forced a wet, bubbling wheeze from my lungs.
Clapping the soot from his hands, the fool stood over me and confirmed my foolishness. “The captain was right.”
“Oh?” Jerking my wrists together, Jasper grunted, binding my hands behind my back with leather cuffs. Tight enough to tear skin.
“The mark of the serpent does the trick on this one, though fuck me if I can explain it. Woulda bet money that all your superstitious nonsense was just that.”
Fiddling with the bonds, Jasper wasn’t satisfied until something cold and smooth touched the insides of both wrists. Stealing my breath, for it was more of the same nightmare fuel that had me about the throat.
I knew then.
This trap wasn’t set for the Triloth under the mountain.
It was forme. It hadalwaysbeen for me.Hecouldn’t touch me in the forest with the Grandmother at my back—so he’d pulled me out. Dangled theonething he knew I’d never be able to resist. And I’d gone running, just as he’d wanted, not pausing to use my brain, though Alicia had tried to force me to see sense, before I’d turned her into a vessel of my temper. Before I’d filled her with false arrogance and sent her into my fight.
There’d be no aid from the Triloth hidden safe inside the mountain.
Nothing from Belle, heavy with pregnancy and bound to a brier throne by my own doing.
Not from her good men, unconscious in the brush where I’d left them.
Nothing from the rebels, with the shield standing strong between us, despite Alicia’s misguided attempt to bring it down.
Not even Kas could save me now, though I knew she’d spare nothing in the effort.
There was nothing. Just… nothing.
Goddess take you with her into the Void, Captain Rawlings, you clever bastard.
Jasper’s knee dug deeper into my spine as he cinched the bonds tighter, cutting off circulation. “There. Got the Menace all tied up.” He chuckled, lifting me off the ground with one hand about my bound wrists, making my shoulders scream and the lashes weep.
“Can I get my licks in?” the fool asked, tracing the cuts I’d put on his face with a finger, his forearm sporting a perfect outline of my teeth. His throat tattooed by my claws.
Without waiting for an answer, thick grimy fingers pushed past my lips, running over my teeth.
With the meager strength I yet possessed, I snapped my jaws closed on his thumb. Tried to gnaw through solid bone.
“Nice try,” the fool said, and jammed half of his fist into my mouth, putting so much pressure on my jaw that it was impossible to retaliate. He pulled me from Jasper’s hands, whistling, low and long. “Would you look at this? I bet we could get twice what Rawlings is offering if we sell her to a freak show or something. Plus,” he continued, withdrawing his hand, wiping my saliva on my cheek, “you’ve already got the first half of the bounty payment. Win-win.”
Semi-lucid, I snorted.
Oh, what perfect irony! To go to all the trouble of planning my fall, only to be double-crossed at the end by this pair of greedy morons?
For a moment, Jasper was silent, watching me with eyes narrowed. “Rawlings isn’t a man I want for an enemy.”
The fool shook me, though I only noticed because my chin bounced off my chest. “Aw, come on, mate. Have you any idea what that traveling circus will pay for this little monster? Think of the crowds she’d draw…”
Yes, the crowds. As soon as I was freed from this terrible cold stuck to wrists and nape, the crowds would bemostuseful…
“Just get her to the coach. The rebels are stirring and I don’t want to be here when that shield comes down.” Laughing, Jasper turned his back on the Elorans and tugged a bit of leather from his belt. “Apparently they don’t appreciate free pest control. We’re doing them a service. Rebel filth.”
Had reinforcements been drawn by the explosion? I couldn’t lift my head to see for myself.
“Here, you take the Menace. I’ll get the pretty one,” the fool said, pushing me toward Jasper.
