Josephine's voice kills any man who hears it-except for the assassin sent to capture her for the king that's been chasing her all her life...but what happens when he decides he doesn't want to hand her over and keep her for himself instead?
...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Either my mind was playing tricks on me, or I had been kidnapped by a beast.
Seduced, attacked, then kidnapped by a beast masquerading as a man who wanted to help me.
Smoky wind berated my senses as I stirred, twitching hands and feet to find both were bound by a harsh rope and the tears sprung to my eyes unbidden.
At least the rope in my mouth, gritty and stringy, kept me from crying out in terror.
The soft lulling of the carriage I was bound up in kept a steady pace, the gait of the horse no doubt controlled by the beast-man who had stolen me the night before.
I had heard the tales of men who turned by the light of the full moon, but he had grown at least three inches in height, with rippling muscles along his width remaining humanesque, and he never lost his humanoid shape like the men who turned into the wolves of lore.
I shivered at the memory of his teeth that elongated to the length of my dagger that he had presented back to me as a gift, no doubt laughing maniacally behind my back at the thought that someone like me could ever do damage to someone as powerful as him.
Rocks and dirt rushed past the bottom of the carriage that I was facing as I attempted to realign myself with my surroundings.
That was not the forest floor beneath me any longer.
We were traveling along the shoal beds that fed into the Carti river, but from the steep incline, it was obvious to me that we were headed east, toward the Ness Mountains.
Why we were headed to the mountains, however, was a complete mystery to me as minute after minute passed and still, Oren did not notice that I had woken up from his drug-induced sleep.
Silent as a field mouse, I tested out the strength of the binds on my wrists.
They rubbed the delicate skin of my inner arms raw as I did the same with the rope at my ankles.
Slowly and with quiet ease, I made the decision to begin the long and arduous task of rolling my wrists and ankles to loosen the binds. I worked around the rope shoved into my mouth, saliva collecting at the briny dirt taste coating my tongue.
I held back a gag as I pushed the thoughts out of my mind of who might've been tied up similarly with these same ropes, at the thought of who came before me.
Sweat dripped down my back as I twisted and writhed in the binds, rubbing the skin even more, and as the wounds I'd created began pulsing with the roaring beat of my steady heart, the unrelenting heat of the sun cooled to a pleasant lukewarm temperature, the air invigorated with a fresh chilly quality as we ascended into the mountains.
It was that very same pulsing of my wounds that reminded me of an injury that should've been hurting still: my shoulder.
There was no shockwave of pain, no ache, no sharp pinch that belied a puncture wound of the skin.
