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Except, maybe, for Talon. If he was in the field, perhaps searching for her. She’d known the male since she was a child. Their bond was something—Arianna shook her head. She couldn’t let herself think about him now. If she did, she might start imagining that desperate look on his face. The last one she’d seen before men had clamped irons around her wrists and changed everything.
The youngest female coughed, the wet sound emitting from deep in her lungs. Arianna fingered the iron shackles and cursed them again. If they were gone, she’d be able to heal the female, fix the open wounds on her back too.
But in her current state, Arianna was just as weak and vulnerable as the rest of them. Through the rain, Arianna tried imagining the girl as she might have been. With her long, blondish hair, suitors would have considered her beautiful. Perhaps even mistaken for a pureblood. And those eyes. Though they’d never spoken, Arianna had glimpsed the pain in those deep, brown eyes.
Thoughts of the female forced Arianna to consider herself. She’d once possessed elegant, dark locks that flowed past her waist. But that was before she’d crudely cut it to shoulder length, leaving the ends shredded and in disarray. Her skin, once smooth and flawless, now carried the scars and calluses expected from her predicament. And her eyes. She wondered if they shone as they once had, or if they’d dimmed like the female’s, carrying the last year and a half of pain within their depths.
Status had once separated her from the female slave kneeling in the mud. Now, nothing did. Nothing except the fact that Arianna wasn’t a half-breed at all. She was a daughter of Móirín. A pureblood. Royalty.
Her father had ruled their country for centuries and though she’d been born the eldest, her younger sister possessed strength she could never hope to match.
It was for these reasons she feared the mountain pass so much. Because if those in Brónach discovered she was from Móirín they’d beat her, skin her alive, and hang her on a post to serve as a message to their people. One that, despite her weakness, would be heard loud and clear. It’d breed chaos in the cities, fear would spread, and the very empire her sister was set to inherit could come crashing down.
But she couldn’t hide forever. She’d been planning her escape before these males arrived. She was eighteen, too close to adulthood to remain in captivity. Any time now she could shift into her full Fae form, forever losing the half-breed disguise of her youth. She’d gain an animal shift instead, something denied to half-breeds as much as magic was. Well, most half-breeds anyway.
Arianna laced her fingers through her hair, rocking against the cold. She could shift into her Fae form and make a break for the trees. The darkness would give her cover, but her body trembled, and the surrounding males were strong. Without her magic, she wasn’t sure how far she’d get before they caught up. Was it better to keep waiting or take action?
The storm continued, as did the worry as Arianna raked her brain for an impossible solution.
THEY WERE moving before dawn. Arianna’s body shook, frozen and exhausted. Who was she trying to fool? She didn’t possess the strength to run, no matter how much she wanted to.
Her world tottered. Sounds faded and in a wave of dizziness, Arianna’s knees hit the ground. She winced from the pain and the male nearest to her hissed. The slaves glanced back, but they didn’t dare stop. If Arianna couldn’t get to her feet, the warriors would consider her an invalid.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and the chain stretched, but before it could drag her along, Arianna forced her body up.Just a little more.She kept repeating.Just a little further.
The four slaves gave her worried looks, but Arianna knew they wouldn’t intervene, nor did she expect them to. Not if they wanted to live to see tomorrow.
Mud squelched beneath their feet, then one of the horses fell. The creature squealed in distress while its companion struggled to stay on its feet. The Fae males cursed, rushing toward the back of the wagon faster than her half-breed form could see. They planted their heels in the mud and pushed, hoping to assist the animals as they regained their footing.
But they were still sliding back.
The slave closest to the wagon slammed her frail body against it, shoving with all her might. The next slave did the same. And the next, until Arianna was moving with them. She eyed her chains. If the wagon fell…
Her feet slid in the mud, muscles straining against the exertion. Everything in her screamed, begging for rest. She thought the wagon might never move again, that perhaps the slavers would force their new captives to carry the cargo. But they gained an inch. Then another. And another. And before Arianna knew it, they’d crested the hill.
She leaned against the cargo boxes, sucking in breath, willing her lungs to relax.
“Finally,” one of the males said. “I was starting to wonder if we’d ever make it.”
“Don’t be dramatic, it’s just a bit of rain.”
“I hate the rain. It smells too much like Móirín and pisses me off.”
The one with a scar on his face laughed. “Let’s get you under a tent then, princess.”
The wagon pulled forward again, forcing Arianna to stand on her aching feet. She turned with the others, ready to examine Brónach’s stronghold, only to gasp and almost fall to her knees again.
She’d been imagining a couple of dozen tents roughly scattered across the landscape. Perhaps it might have had a few armed guards at its entrance, coupled with a pitiful attempt at a fence line. She’d seen them all before.
But this... this was something different.
Hundreds upon hundreds of tents and canopies lined the field with trees surrounding three sides. At the front sat a barricade fortified with wooden spikes that jutted from the ground at awkward angles. Guards stood every few feet, some in their animal forms.
Murky water guarded the fence line and Arianna didn’t possess the stomach to begin imagining what horrors lay within.
Her gaze roamed the area, trying to count and comprehend the numbers and though her captors eyed her, Arianna couldn’t stop the fear that rolled off her in waves. Thankfully, they only snickered and pressed forward. None would guess the real reason for her pounding heart.
She’d received countless lectures from Talon. She’d overheard the warrior’s whispers. They spoke of a nightmarish place where Móirín’s people were brutalized and beaten. The very place where The Demon was rumored to reside.
