These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)(7)

My stomach heaves as I take in my captors. The orcs are still around the fire, but instead of snarling at me the way they were last night, they’re . . . dead. Bloodied and gruesome, their guts spilling out onto the forest floor. And on the ground before me is my dagger—the one I keep wrapped in shadow on my thigh, but it’s unsheathed and bloody.

I stumble to my feet and back away. There’s blood everywhere, but none on me. I’m still shackled and weak, so who killed the guards? And why did they leave me alive?

The sound of horse hooves beat in the distance and grow closer. They’re coming. The captain is coming.

I gulp in air, and reason comes with it. I turn and run.

My feet are bare—they must’ve taken my boots—and the gravel bites into my flesh. The wet heat of blood coats the bottoms, but I run. On bloody feet, with lungs so raw they feel like they might tear apart, I race away from the sound of those hoofbeats.

I’m breathless, my bloody feet raw and numb, but I keep running.

The gravel path eventually leads to a stretch of fields. The spring wheat lashes at my legs and face as I sprint through it, but I don’t stop. I see stables ahead and use the dregs of my energy to push through the doors with my manacled hands. By the time I pull myself into a corner inside, the last of the night has all but left the sky and I have no energy left to cling to consciousness.

I collapse against the wall, let my eyes close, and sink into a deep sleep, where I run even in my dreams.

Images flash through my mind. Sebastian’s sea-green eyes as he promised to make me a home, the rune inked on my skin right above my heart that represents our bond, the iron bars of the oversize cage where the queen locked away the Unseelie children.

In every dream, past every memory, I’m running. Heart racing, lungs seizing, legs aching, running.

This is my life now. Running. Nonstop running, with enemies in every direction.

The thought grips me as I drift in and out of sleep. I want to rewind time. To go back to Elora before Jas was sold, before I knew Sebastian was a faerie, was a prince. I want to go back to that lonely, tiring existence. I didn’t have many people who cared about me, but at least no one was pretending to care. At least I got to believe that the little I had was real.





Chapter Three

“This is the great beauty Oberon’s sons have been fighting over?” a male voice asks.

“She doesn’t need beauty. The Fire Girl is a great thief; she steals hearts as easily as jewels,”

replies a vaguely familiar voice.

Bakken? What is Bakken doing here?

A scoff. “Sure she does.”

I try to open my eyes and fail. My lids feel like they’ve been glued shut and my mouth feels like it’s full of sand.

“She looks as foul as these untended stalls. And smells worse,” the male says.

I try to sit up straight, groaning as every muscle locks in protest.

“Wake up, Princess Abriella. Your salvation has arrived.”

My disgust and annoyance are powerful enough that I finally manage to open my eyes. I’m greeted by the sight of shining boots laced over heavily muscled, leather-clad legs. I lift my head and see a very large, very tall olive-skinned fae male smirking down at me. Through his mop of thick, dark hair, the fractured lines across his forehead pulse a glowing silver.

“There she is,” the male says, his uptilted russet eyes dancing with amusement. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

I know those eyes. “You were the one helping the children escape.”

I’m treated to a wide smile. He looks familiar somehow. Not just from the moments when we crouched in the grass together outside the Unseelie prison, but more than that.

“You’re Wild Fae,” I say, my voice hoarse.

He snorts. “Why, yes. Thanks for noticing. Can we leave now? Before your prince finds me on his mother’s lands and makes me pay with my head?”

My gaze slides to the goblin standing beside him. It’s not Bakken at all, but another goblin I don’t recognize. The creature’s too-long teeth gleam with saliva as he stares at my hair.

“Go where?” I ask. Talking feels like gargling daggers. I thought that being fae meant feeling healthy and energetic—full of life—yet I’ve felt closer to death than life from the moment I woke up with these elven ears.

The strange male chuckles. “Well, you used a great deal of power before you even had time to recover from your metamorphosis. Of course you feel like hell.”

I glare at him. Is he reading my mind, or are my thoughts that obvious?

“Both. At least your feet healed.”

He’s right. The pain’s gone. The only evidence of last night are the shackles on my wrists and the dried blood covering my feet.

He waves haphazardly in my direction, and the iron on my wrists falls away. He offers me his hand. “Come. Prince Ronan’s sentries will arrive in moments.”

“How would he know where I am?”

“The bond?” the male reminds me with an arched brow. “If he’d bothered to come after you himself rather than sending a unit from his guard, he’d have you already. But you keep running, so his men have had quite a time trying to find you.”

There it is—the distant sound of hoofbeats. I’m so tired of running.

The male takes one of the goblin’s hands, and the goblin extends his other for me.