She tried reorienting herself, blinking the spots from her eyes. Her head felt like day-old porridge, all muddled up and thick.
What the fuck—
She jerked and would have fallen out of the saddle if it hadn’t been for a strong arm wrapped around her waist.
She craned her head and nearly fell off the horse again.
Cassius had a protective arm around her waist, her back flush against his chest. They were deep in a forest, no sign of her carriage or her soldiers that were supposed to escort her.
“What are you—” Her words were cotton in her mouth.
“Glad to see you’re awake.”
“Where the hell are we? Where’s the carriage, the soldiers—”
“Relax, Princess. We left them near Kahgan.”
Kahgan? When Thalia had left Corithian, that city near the forest was still two days away—
“You drugged me,” Thalia hissed. She tried to twist in her seat, only so she could shove him right off his horse, but his arm was a band of iron.
“A precaution considering how much you hate us.”
“We have a treaty, remember?”
Cassius smirked. “Yes, but Iknowyou.”
His words sent a shudder down her spine. Hedidknow her, could guess what she would have done as soon as they’d fallen asleep. She honestly couldn’t blame him or the others for theirprecautions.
But what really set her teeth on edge was Cassius’s arms still wrapped around her waist.
“Let go of me.”
“Believe it or not, this is not an ideal situation for me either. But orders are orders.”
“Orders from who?”
“Our prince.”
Thalia slightly perked up at that, trying to keep her heart rate down. “And what were his orders?”
“To deliver his new bride to him unscathed.”
“And riding on this horse with you will accomplish that?”
Cassius pulled his horse to a sudden stop. The five other Vampyrs all filed past on their own mounts, their hooves muffled under a blanket of fallen leaves and moss.
“Do you know where we are?” Cassius’s voice tightened to an edge.
Thalia glanced at her surroundings, fully taking in the forest now that her head had cleared.
No light broke through the thick leaves of deep purple and crimson. The trunks had faded to gray, either because of the near-absence of light or because of something else. Perhaps a lack of water as a result of the woods being blocked off from the human rivers.
But the most eerie thing about the forest was the quiet.
No birds chirped in the silver branches; no squirrels hopped along their limbs to shake down the leaves. Not even the low call of a deer could be heard among the fallen moss-covered logs. The air felt thick—heavy. As if a great weight pressed down, taking all the oxygen with it.
“What is this place?” Thalia’s voice was quiet.
