“Ahnna, this is not the time! We’re reaching the end of the forest!”
Where Carlo and his men would be waiting, on land and on the river.
Ahnna twisted in James’s grip and looked into the darkness downstream. The light from the fire was behind them now, which meant they still had the cover of night. “Quit shouting,” she snapped. “In this darkness, they won’t see us coming.”
The water ahead held only deathly silence, but as they rounded a bend, torches glowed.
Perhaps a hundred paces beyond where the trees ended waited masses of armed men. Soldiers and civilians with a chain of boats tethered across the river. A wall nearly as terrifying as the one of fire racing up behind them.
“The river is deep,” she whispered. “Just before we come in range of their light, swim to the bottom. We’ll go right under them. Hold your breath as long as you can on the far side. With luck, they’ll think either the fire got us or that we were never in the woods to begin with.”
“All right.” James pulled her closer, his breath warm on her face. “You still have your sword?”
“Yes.” She briefly touched the hilt, the weapon pinned tight to her side by her belt. “If they catch us, we fight. I don’t think we can escape a second time.”
They turned in the water, eyes on the approaching wall of torches and boats.
“Deep breath,” she whispered, then sucked in a mouthful of air and sank, pulling James down with her.
They moved into the depths of the river, but as her fingers brushed the slick rocks of the bed, Ahnna looked up through the blackness. The glow of the torches grew closer and closer, and triumph mixed with her fear because the lights didn’t move, the Amaridians having no idea their prey was near. No one would even notice as she and James swept right beneath them and downstream to safety.
Her chest tightened, lungs abused by smoke wanting no part of this gambit, but Ahnna ignored the pain.
The glow grew brighter.
Closer.
Her triumph swelled, and then was abruptly vanquished as the current slammed her into something coarse and ropy.
A net. They’d strung a fucking net.
Ahnna wrenched her hand free of James’s grip and clawed at the tangle of fishing net. She tried to swim backward, but her legs had gone through and she was caught. The relentless current shoved her forward, her fingers snagging on another loop of rope, and she tried to climb. But it was weighed down. Holding her under.
And she needed to breathe.
Bubbles exploded from her face as she fought the net, desperation making her pull her injured arm from its sling and try to climb. Pain ricocheted through her as the break snapped again, but it meant nothing compared with the need to breathe.
James.Where was James?
The net jerked with his motions but she couldn’t see him. Couldn’t reach him.
Couldn’t breathe!
Blackness was rolling in, deep as the oceans, and Ahnna wordlessly screamed her rage that this was it. That this was how it would end. That she’d fail to get home because the Beast had caught her as easily as a morning meal.
And then the net jerked her upward.
Ahnna sucked in a breath and stared into Carlo’s one remaining eye.
“There you are, my darling,” the Beast crooned as he drew back his fist.
After that, there was nothing but darkness.
36
Lara
Lara sat unmoving in herchair as she listened to the Valcottan man relay the message Keris had sent. She kept her expression blank, but her hands were leaving sweat marks on the silk of her skirt as she took in his words.
