He clicked his teeth. “Don’t be sour.”
“Guess. Or don’t guess.” I tipped my head side to side and rolled my shoulders back.
“Your first horse.”
“Incorrect.” Just like all his other guesses would be. “My first horse threw me. I try not to think about it while I’m in the saddle.”
A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest.
“Fine. Not a horse. Maybe another beast. Maybe…a lover.” Something between a purr and a whisper rolled out of his mouth and hung between us.
My knuckles whitened around the reins.
“Your late husband.” He tutted my responding flinch. “Oh! Not your husband then.”
“Wrong on both accounts. Game over,” I declared. My late husband, Hollis, was a sore subject. But Beau? He was completely off limits.
“You don’t win if you’re not honest.” Dommik clicked his teeth with an all too knowing look. “I fear?—”
Somewhere in the near distance, bushes rustled and an animal keened, stealing my focus.
“You fear wha?—”
He hushed me, twisting in his saddle, and rummaged for something in his rucksack. Whispered orders flowed amongst the guards who quietly secured torches and weaponry.
“What is it?” I whispered.
An arrow whistled through the air and silenced any response Dommik could offer. My eyes flared in slow horror as it found its piercing home in the neck of my mare. I tried, and failed, to cover my scream. My stomach twisted knots around itself. Her knees buckled, sending us careening toward the ground.
Chapter 6
Bloodbane
Rasping whinnies shook my dying mare. Steel scraped upon steel and arrows whirred as the violent meeting of armed Travelers and raiders escalated.
I didn’t appear injured beyond a throbbing pain radiating from my hip. I winced as I sat up and yelped, immediately ducking to avoid another arrow.
I should have gone to the fucking axe.
One Traveler clutched his leaking gut. The feathered tip of an arrow protruded from his middle and a fountain of blood spurted from his gasping mouth. A viscous rattle cut each breath in half.
My jaw dropped as a dozen raiders emerged from the woods. The darkness swallowed their black uniforms, but the glinting moonlight off their swords and daggers betrayed their positions. When they drew closer, the fuzzy edges of a circular symbol embroidered on their chests came into focus.
“Fucking Veilbreakers,” a rough voice growled.
Strong arms dragged me away from the dying horse. My eyes fixed on the inky pool creeping beneath its mane. The beast shrank as I was pulled away from the skirmish and into the tree line.
“He’s taking her to the woods!” a voice shouted through a grunt and ping of a sword.
“There, hurry!” Another assailant drew the attention of their comrades.
My heart pounded, matching the chaos of the moment. A white hot pain seared through my arm, stealing all breath from my lungs as I looked down at the arrow piercing my outer muscle. A wild scream clawed at my throat as agony like I’ve never known ripped through my body. Instinctively, I reached for the wooden shaft of the bolt.
“Leave it,” Dommik barked. He’d shed his blue robes, revealing intricate black leather armor sculpted to his muscled form. The sleeveless cuirass featured bronze buckles across his chest and sheathes for three daggers near his ribs. The corded muscles of his forearms flexed as he retreated with me in his grasp.
I let out a string of curses. At the arrow. At him. At the whole bloody situation.
“Who thefuckare they?” I gritted as we rounded a mature thicket of thorned shrubs. My heartbeat firmly relocated itself in the marred tissue of my injury.
