Page 46 of Remmen

I tugged on the ropes anyway. I would have spit in his face, but I held myself back. I might need to pull that out later. First, I had to see if he could be reasoned with. I wasn’t afraid. I was pissed as all hell, but even with my hands tied above my head and Mestyn looking at me like he meant violence, I didn’t have it in me to be afraid.

It was foolishness. This was a violent man. My mate had just taken away his new toy, and he’d abducted me off the street.

But it had been a very long day, and I was too tired to do anything but stare at him and wait for his master plan to start making sense.

“What?” he asked, affronted. “You’re not going to tell me that I’m not going to get away with this.”

“It’s a small town, Mestyn. I think you already know that.”

It was just past midnight. All of New Knossos was asleep and would be for some time. Remmen woke with the sun, but we could go an entire day without seeing each other, especially after a night together.

Chelsea would notice I was gone, but not until nine. I was completely at Mestyn’s mercy until then.

Oh. There was some of that fear.

Mestyn made a show of cleaning his fingernails. “You see, your Mayor Remmen thinks he owns this place. He thinks he can tell us what to do, how to live, how to have our fun. And when he doesn’t like it, he kills our pets and smashes our face into the dirt.”

Now wasn’t the time to remind him that it had been Rauf who smashed his face in the dirt.

The tired was wearing off fast, and what came up under it wasn’t brave. My heart was going hard, up in my throat and down in my wrists where the rope cut. My hands had started to prickle and go cold where the rope choked off the blood. And every time Mestyn said Remmen’s name my stomach dropped another inch toward that filthy floor. I kept my expression blank and made him work for it.

“And you’re his little pet, aren’t you? His favorite counselor. Does he cry on your couch? Does he tell you that he was forced to kill to survive? It’s a lie, you know. He was just as vicious as the rest of us. He loved it. And he needs to be reminded that things can be taken away. He’s not god.”

Mestyn grabbed a length of rope and my eyes widened. I struggled against the ropes, but they didn’t budge.

Oh god, he was going to strangle me right here.

“Stop being dramatic.” Mestyn scowled. He shoved the rope in my mouth and tied it behind my head. “Sleep tight, lovely. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He walked out of the barn, back stiff, like he was forcing himself to stand tall.

He was still hurt. Could I use that, somehow?

I worked at it while I still could. The post behind me was solid and didn’t budge when I threw myself against it. The rope had no give at all, and every time I twisted to find some it just bit deeper and rubbed my wrists raw. I tried to walk my fingers up to the knot and couldn’t reach it. My hands had gone from prickling to a dull ache to almost nothing, fat and dumb at the ends of my arms.

I let myself think about Remmen for exactly one second, asleep in his bed with the sun not up yet, no idea. Then I put it away and got back to the rope. Even if I did get loose, I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me, and I couldn’t have outrun a drunk toddler right then, let alone a yard full of gladiators. But panic wasn’t going to pick a single knot, so I made myself stop sawing at it and breathe.

After that all I could do was wait. The barn creaked and settled around me. Something small rustled in the straw. Somewhere past the wall an animal shifted and blew out a breath, and every sound had me bracing for Mestyn coming back. The cold worked up out of the dirt floor into my back and my dead hands. I started shivering and couldn’t stop. I lay there and waited on a morning I didn’t want to come.

At some point I passed out. Or time decided to speed up between one blink and the next. When I came to, the gag in my mouth was looser, as if shifting positions or being coated in my spit had slackened it. Gross, but good.

I struggled, forcing my tongue against it until the rope was past my teeth. I scraped my face against the wall, unable to use my arms, but trying to peel the damn thing down. As soon as it was free, I screamed.

My scream tore out into the dark and I had no clue what it would bring back. For all I knew every bull on the farm was in on it and I’d just rung the dinner bell. One of them had carried me in here and I still didn’t know which one. Who else? I pictured the whole lot of them rolling off their bunks to come watch Mestyn have his fun, and my throat wanted to close. But it was all I had. Nobody in town could hear me this far out, and I couldn’t get my own hands free. So I sucked in another breath and screamed again, louder, and kept it up until my voice cracked.

For a second nothing came back but my own breathing. Then boots hit the yard at a run, heavy and fast and coming straight for the barn, and I braced for whichever of them I’d called down on myself.

Rauf marched into the room and froze when he saw me. He looked so angry for a second that I thought he was on Mestyn’s side. Especially when he snapped, “Shut your damned mouth.”

I did. And then I opened it again. I wasn’t taking his orders.

But Rauf was already kneeling by me and working at the ropes with a knife he’d pulled from his pocket.

I felt the knife sawing at the rope more than I saw it, quick little tugs I felt way up in my dead arms. I held still so he wouldn’t cut me by accident. I still hadn’t figured Rauf out, but right then, down in the muck sawing me loose, he was the best thing I’d ever laid eyes on. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying in front of him. My whole body was shaking now, big and helpless, and I couldn’t stop it.

“It was Mestyn,” I forced out.

“No shit,” Rauf said. “Who else would it be? How’d he nab you?”