Page 64 of A Dance With Fire
“Blue-skinned bitch put up a fight,” one of them tittered.
Shula choked on her sob and Ryker tightened his grip on her to keep her steady.
“Once the captain’s done with her, she’ll wish she’d never been born.” She heard one of them spit. “Esses scum!”
Four different sets of footsteps. They all stopped a few feet away.
“Poor bloke would have been spared, but he decided to wet his cock in Fae pussy.”
The crude words had Shula slamming her eyes closed. She felt the beginning of a growl rumble in Ryker’s chest, but he tamped the sound down immediately. The words pissed him off as much as they did Shula.
“Let’s take his body back to camp and nail it to a pike. The captain’s going to make us come back and finish the rest of them off anyway.”
“Shit luck we came across this.”
There was a grunt and a rustle, and Shula knew they were hoisting the body up.
“The Fae aren’t gonna know what the fuck hit them.”
And then their footsteps retreated and left only silence in its wake. Silence and blood.
Ryker’s hold on her loosened and she whirled around, tears in her eyes.
“They have Orna.” Her voice broke. They took her. They took her and killed her husband. All of Shula’s worst fears came to life in that single moment. That the humans would find them and kill them.
Here they were, partying around a bonfire while Orna had been suffering in the woods.
“Let’s go,” Ryker growled. His fingers threaded through the spaces between hers and he tugged her. They ran through the woods at a speed that was blinding. Shula’s feet skidded and tripped, but Ryker kept her upright, pulling her so hard she felt the strain on her arm.
She tried to keep up, tried to breathe.
Her thoughts kept going back to Orna, though.
They burst into their camp and Ryker growled, “Valerio!”
The prince and Uric were in front of him in a second.
Ryker began filling them in with quiet, clipped tones. Shula felt her breathing become uneven. Dark spots danced behind her eyelids. This was everything she feared. It was everything she told them would happen. And Orna was the victim. All because she’d snuck away to have a moment alone with her husband.
Orna.Orna. Her thoughts filled with the blue skinned Fae, making her dizzy. She swayed where she stood, swallowing down the bile that rose behind her throat.
Ryker yanked her close. “Focus!” His voice cut through her senses. It was then that she realized he was still holding her hand tightly.
He hadn’t let go.
Valerio looked gravely at Ryker and turned to Uric. Uric’s jaw was set tightly. “Which way did they go?” he asked.
“East.”
Uric nodded and waved a hand. A moment later, the air around them shimmered as a portal was created. Uric stepped through. He was gone for a few moments before he came back and the portal disappeared.
The Fae gasped a bit between words. “Not far. Their camp is surrounded by a shit ton of iron. It could be why we missed them…”
“How many?” Valerio barked.
“Fifty, maybe more,” he answered gravely.
Valerio cursed and ran a hand through the shaved side of his head.
