“Eventually, Prince Courage’ll show,” a familiar male voice said. “We’ve locked down the other docks, so this is the only way on or off the island.”
My eyes widened, and I darted a glance toward Rage.Yikes.
His nostrils flared; he gritted his teeth, glaring daggers at the guard who spoke. ‘Do you see who that is?’Rage’s voice in my head was still not something I was used to.
I stared at the guard through the leaves that cloaked us, studying his features. Holy flippin’ mage. ‘That’s herpes Beo.’
‘Yeah,’Rage spoke in my mind.‘We grew up together. I can’t believe he would…’
‘I’m sorry.’I rested my hand on Rage’s, a pathetic attempt to comfort my mate. That kind of betrayal would sting.
“Don’t harm them when you find them either,” Beo continued. “Until their shield bond is broken, we need to make sure she isn’t killed. The king needs at least one strong heir.”
Two of the men laughed, and the sound sank into my chest like an anvil.
The guards disappeared into the cloud of soot and smoke, and my gaze jumped to the twins.
“Now what?” Rage asked, his voice just over a whisper. “Is there another way we can meet you in the water? Because there is no way Beo will let us just waltz through Dark Row.”
Yeah … strolling past the guards with a canoe on our heads was so out of the question now.
Sadie nodded. “You’ll have to hike back up the path a bit to the cliff. We’ll go ahead through to the main dock and meet you in the water.”
I knew what she was going to say next, and I shook my head.Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
Her twin confirmed my worst fear: “When you get to that narrow bend, go onto the cliff’s edge. You can jump in from there.”
Jump. From. There.
And then what? They’d fish our mangled bodies from the water?
“Is it safe?” I asked. Swimming, I could do. Cliff jumping? In selkie infested water?
Hells no.
“Tide is in,” Rage said with a stiff nod. Then, he squeezed my hand. “It’s only a sixty- or seventy-foot jump or so.”
Onlysixty or seventy feet?
“You go around and meet us in the water,” Sadie told us. “Swim out a ways, and we’ll pull you in the boat when we’ve lost sight of any guards.”
Swim out a ways?
I gulped. Normally, a good swim would be refreshing, but swimming in these waters infested withselkies…
This plan sucked. Not that we had another option.
As if in confirmation, a gust of wind cleared some of the smoke, revealing several destroyed streets of Dark Row—all of them crawling with guards.
Okay, time to scram.
Both girls picked up the canoe and the furs and nodded to us. “Meet you in the water, straight out from the cliff.”
Rage slipped his hand into mine and gave the girls a quiet salute. I turned to go back into the woods—to the path of our probable death, and without a word, he tugged me back.
‘Let’s go jump to our deaths.’I hurled the words at him, my anxiety getting the better of me. Wolves were not made to fly.
The trees thinned, and Rage paused, looking left and right across a dirt road where a lone shack remained, leaning into the destruction as if mourning. After confirming the area was all clear, we bolted across the street, my hand still in his, and then tucked behind the shack where a tarp hung from the crude hut, its edge staked into the ground.
