Page 65 of Breaking Isolde
He leans in. “It’s to see if you’re worthy of being claimed. If you can’t fight, you don’t deserve to win. Only the strong can survive in the grand scheme of things.”
I glare at him, hate burning out every other feeling. “Fuck you.”
He grins. “That’s more like it, wildcat.”
He kisses me, hard, blood and spit and cold all mixing together. I bite his lip. He doesn’t pull away.
When he breaks the kiss, he wipes his mouth and says, “Last chance. Run.”
I stagger to my feet, vision doubled, and sprint for the trees.
This time, I hear him behind me, footsteps steady, never rushing, never slowing.
He’s letting me think I can escape.
I run until my lungs are on fire, until the dress is torn to shreds and I’m covered in mud and blood and tears.
The Hunt isn’t over.
But now I know what’s waiting at the finish line.
I wipe my mouth, taste his blood and mine, and keep moving forward.
I’m not done yet. Not even close.
I crawl, then stumble, then crawl again. Blood runs down my wrist, the cut from the altar reopened. My lungs are burning. My brain is on fire, static everywhere.
For a while, I lose track of time. Every second is the same as the last—breathe, move, don’t let the ghosts catch up.
There’s no footsteps behind me, maybe he’s taking a smoke break, but either way, I keep going. My stomach flips. I try to double back, but my sense of direction is gone, and I crash through a thicket of brambles into a shallow creek. The water is black, full of mud and fallen leaves, but it numbs the pain in my legs.
I wade through, feet numb, then stagger up the other side, where the trees are older and closer together. The moonlight barely reaches the ground here. Everything is shadows and movement at the edge of vision. I blink and see flashes of white in the dark—at first I think it’s Rhett, but then I realize the figure is too small, too frail.
It’s Casey. She’s everywhere, a flicker of color behind the trunks, a shudder in the reflection on the water, a cold hand at my shoulder urging me forward. I try to shake her, but she won’t leave. She wants to see how it ends this time.
I trip, fall, roll through mud, come up gasping. My teeth chatter, not just from the cold but from something deeper—a fear I can’t name, a certainty that I’m not meant to survive this.
At the edge of the next clearing, I collapse behind a tangle of roots and let myself rest for half a second. My hands are shaking. My knees are cut to ribbons. I press my palm to the wound on my leg, trying to stop the bleeding, but the blood just pools between my fingers, hot and sticky and stubborn.
I hear footsteps. Not running, just a slow, deliberate crunching of leaves and twigs.
He’s not even pretending to be quiet.
I hate him for it. I want him to sweat, to fear me, to believe I can turn the tables, but he just moves forward, steady, patient, as if there’s no doubt in his mind how this ends.
I pull myself to my feet, dig my nails into the bark of the nearest tree, and haul myself up. The dress is torn nearly in half. My left breast is almost out, but I couldn’t care less.
“Come on,” I whisper, voice hoarse. “Let’s finish this.”
I run, slower now, but with more purpose. I want to draw him in, make him work for every inch. I circle back, moving perpendicular to where I heard him, then cut toward the clearing he took me to.
The incline is hell. The ground gives with every step. My calves scream, but I force myself up, grab the top of the ridge, and drag myself over.
On the other side is the other side of the clearing, lit almost perfectly by the moon, the ground smooth and unbroken. In the center is a massive fallen tree, hollow and ancient, a grave marker for a hundred years of rot. The bench is far off.
Guess I covered more ground than I thought.
I go to it, crawl inside, and hunker down, listening.
