Page 14 of Thorn Season
I glanced over my shoulder. With the nighttime flies whirring like rain-drizzle around him, Garret might have been that boy again, shivering and forgotten—if not for those guarded eyes, the grimly set mouth. A part of me would always mourn the loss of him. But tonight, that part was quiet.
“If you want to wait for my father,” I said, pocketing the coin, “you’re waiting here.”
In a cruel mirror-reversal of the day we’d met, I left him on the drive, staring after me.
Amarie was waiting at the door, warm light streaming around her shoulders. “Your father?”
“Still in Henthorn,” I said, heading for the kitchens. I was less hungry than restless, but that seemed a good enough reason to raid the pantry. “I fell sick from the roses, and he made me leave early.”
Amarie would learn about the Hunting soon enough, and I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. To acknowledge the feeling of the noose, slowly tightening around me.
Her steps clacked after me. “He sent you withthat boy?”
“Yes, because between the absent ambassador and the king’s proposal, I hadn’t suffered enough.”
Amarie grabbed my hand, halting me. Her wide eyes reflected the candlelight. “The king proposed?”
“Not outright.” I sighed, extricating my fingers. “But my sudden exit won’t go unnoticed.”
“Your father won’t like this.”
“You can’t tell him,” I said, already cursing myself. Amarie had worked in this house since her teenage years—had grown up with my father—and she was too loyal to him to ever really serve as my secret-keeper. “By the time I return to Henthorn, Erik will have forgotten about me.” Though my specter twisted in protest, I knew that even meeting the ambassador wasn’t worth joining court. Nothing was worth the king’s attention.
“Men like King Erik don’t forget, Alissa. The longer he cannot have you, the more he will want you.”
I went to object—the king is fickle, shallow—but true fear had deepened the groove between her brows. And suddenly all I couldremember was the eagerness in Erik’s eyes when I’d started to refuse him.
Reality hit me. I’d refused the king of Daradon. And now I was his challenge, a prize deer in a royal hunt. He didn’t necessarily wantme. He just wanted to mount my head on his wall. And if, while in pursuit, he discovered my secret...
Well, the head-mounting would take a more literal turn.
“Amarie,” I whispered, horror rising, “what do I—?”
A crash shook through the manor, startling the words off my tongue. Then shouting—voices I didn’t recognize. And among them—
Garret.
I didn’t think. I was already running toward the thumping and yelling and shattering glass. My specter pulsed around my body, pumping me faster through the halls. My blood thundered with one name, one purpose.Garret, Garret, Garret.
I rounded a corner and smacked against him. The relief almost knocked me over.
But Garret pushed me backward, his breath hot on my face. “Run, Alissa.” He looked to Amarie, who panted behind me.“Run.”
Time seemed to slow as I looked over Garret’s shoulder and saw the glint of a battle-axe. For a moment, nothing existed but those wicked double blades. Nothing but the man’s gloved fist, tightening around the handle. The roaring in my head.
Then Garret shoved me into the parlor, and time sped up once more. He slammed the door and pushed a desk across it, the screech singing in my teeth.
“Out the back!” He yanked me toward the opposite door.
And stopped short as three more figures stalked from that doorway.All were hooded and weapons-strapped, with black masks concealing everything but their eyes.
I began to tremble.
This was really happening. The Capewells had finally found me out.
They prowled closer, and my breaths sawed out hot and fast, the scene taking on a nightmare quality. I’d expected royally embellished uniforms, indicating their service to the Crown. I’d expected to recognize individuals among them, even masked.
I’d been wrong on both fronts. I must’ve never met these particular Hunters, because I couldn’t identify anyone amid this display of worn, armored leather and combat knives.
