Another sound escapes him, low and guttural.
The collar collapses.
Segments fall away from his throat, clattering against my fingers, his chest, and the ground at our feet. One edge catches my thumb and splits the skin. Another chunk drops onto my wrist, hot enough to burn. I jerk back, but his grip holds me in place until the last piece has fallen away.
My hand slides over bare skin. His throat is slick with sweat and blood—his and mine, mingled together. The flesh beneath is a mess. Raw and weeping where the iron sat, torn open where the breaking collar ripped it again. Dark bruising disappears down the collar of his tunic.
His pulse beats beneath my fingertips, hard and fast.
He pulls in a breath, chest lifting. His throat works under my hand as he swallows. He holds the air in his lungs, eyes closed, every muscle in his body still.
Then he releases it and takes in another. Then another.
His eyes open, and he holds my stare for a beat. My hand is still pressed against his throat. My blood is still wet on his skin.
My blood broke his collar.
His fingers loosen on my forearm, and I stumble back, gasping as feeling floods back into my arm. Pins and needles race from my shoulder to my fingertips.
I get one step away. Two?—
His hand snaps out and closes around my upper arm.
I don’t get any further.
He glances down at the broken pieces of iron scattered around his feet. His lips curve into a savage and triumphant smile, andeverything inside me turns cold. He turns toward the nearest gap in the trees, and the pull on my arm jerks me forward. My boots skid in the dirt. I stumble, catch myself, stumble again. It doesn’t slow him. His stride stays long, towing me behind him.
The opening in the ring of trees rushes toward us. My body braces for impact, remembering the sick stop of slamming into the barrier when I tried to reach the stream. My shoulders bunch. My free hand flies up to cover my face.
Coolness brushes over my skin, slides across my shoulders and down my spine, there and gone. My next step lands on the earth beyond the hollow.
We’re out.
I twist to look back.
The hollow sits behind us. From here it looks like any other clearing in the forest. His fingers dig harder into my arm, and I stumble after him because there’s nothing else I can do.
Every step sends pain through my ribs. My palm burns where the cut remains. The places where he kicked me ache with every jolt.
Questions pile up in my head.
What did you just do? How far can you go now? Where are you taking me?
But asking is pointless. His attention is on the forest ahead. Mine has to stay on my feet if I don’t want to fall, because I know he won’t bother waiting for me to stand up and will drag me across the ground.
The hollow disappears behind us, swallowed by tree trunks and shadows. It looks the same as it did when this started, when I arrived full of excitement.
Buteverythinghas changed, and I don’t know what that means for me. All I know is that I’m still his prisoner, and eventually he’s going to kill me.
FIVE
ALLERIA
The first fewtimes I fall, I try to catch myself, and get my feet back under me before he hauls me upright.
Now, I just let it happen. I let my knees buckle, my body pitch forward. He yanks me up by the arm without breaking stride. My shoulder screams every time. The joint grinds in its socket, tendons stretching past what they were meant to hold, and the pain shoots all the way down to my fingertips. But fighting takes energy I don’t have anymore.
It’s easier to be dragged.
