Page 82 of Lifebound

But the men kept on coming, and it seemed to me their horses were faster than ours.

“They’re getting closer!” I screamed because I had my eyes on them and Rune was only looking forward.

“We have to jump!” he shouted back, and every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps. Did he sayjump? “I need you to hold on to me with all your strength. Our horse is tired, hungry—he can’t keep up. We have to jump!”

Yes, he did.

“Jumpwhere?” Because we were in a forest full of trees, and those men were still running after us.

Worse yet—morewere behind them. More men on horses, and though they were still far, they’d get to us in no time.

My heart stopped beating.

“Just trust me!” Rune shouted.

Did I have a fucking choice?

No, I did not.

So, I locked my ankles as tightly as possible, gripped the back of his cloak in my fists with all my strength, and I waited for him to do whatever the hell he’d planned to do.

I even thought I’d have another moment to catch my breath, to prepare mentally for him tojump,but once again, everything spiraled too fast for me to keep up properly.

The horse turned to the right all of the sudden, did a full U-turn faster than a fucking car would, with a neigh loud enough to be heard all the way back home.

My eyes were wide open so I saw it when Rune moved us,threwus to the side while the horse continued to run without us—and then we were falling.

Trees.

Yellow, purple, blue, green leaves on big and small trees below us, possibly over twenty feet. Rune had one arm around my back, keeping me to his chest, and the other outstretched to the side. The shadows of those trees were moving, coming up, rising toward us while the trees remained in their place.

My eyes squeezed shut. My brain insisted that none of this was real, that I was still asleep, that it was still nighttime wherever we were. We weren’t about to fall onto these huge trees, and shadows were not reaching up to touch us from the ground.

Not real.

Then we were spinning.

My eyes opened—I blamed my instincts. Darkness around me, not so thick that I didn’t see anything outside, but thick enough that itheldRune’s back while he basically slidonto it, like it was a solid thing, that darkness. Like it was a very slippery surface, when I could still see the trees and the sky and the world beyond. I could see that this ball of shadows was pretty much sitting on top of those trees that had seemed so far below us the last time I had my eyes open.

Now, they were there, and they were holding the shadows, while Rune slid on them around and around, slower by the minute.

My mouth opened to scream, but his hands were on my face, his wide eyes on me.

Rune shook his head, brought his finger in front of his lips for a second. I still had my legs wrapped around his hips, and I gripped his wrists, too, to make sure he didn’t let go. I stayed there, tried to get enough air in my lungs, and I didn’t look around us at all. If I did, I’d lose it, so I just focused on him. On the wayhewas focused on me. On how close we were, how I was practically sitting on him. On his hands on my face, and the tips of our noses touching, our lips an inch apart.

When he closed his eyes, I did the same. No sound came through to us, so all I heard was the wild beating of my heart. I felt that heat in my chest, too, the kind that terrified me, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what could happen if I lost control. If I did here what I sometimes did back home when I woke up sweating from my nightmares.

Right now, I didn’t even consider whether it had ever been real or not—the fear wouldn’t let me. All I knew was that I needed a distraction, and Rune might have just been created for that very purpose, to distract me from everything and everyone without even trying.

God help me, I leaned in and touched my lips to his. Justtouched.

My entire body stood perfectly still. The heat under my skin paused.

Rune whispered, “Wildcat,” and he made to move away.

I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck. “Please, Rune, Ineedyou.”

And maybe I would regret it later. I probably would, but right now, I knew that I wouldn’t survive if I couldn’t make it to the end of this. I would never survive this in one piece.

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