I brought the spade up, but seconds from contact, he noticed. Wrenching the handle from my grasp, he flung it so far I lost sight of it. He lowered his head until his blood dripped on my chin. His breath was hot and hissed between his teeth. His expression sent fear shivering up my spine.
I swallowed hard. “Please—”
His palm sealed the plea in my mouth. “Save your lies for those who might believe them.”
Trapped beneath a snarling male who stood a head taller than me, three times wider than me, I had no choice but to obey. He was battered, his judgment clouded, and I knew I would outlast him.
“Those eyes—that hair—” His gaze narrowed on my left ear. “You’re Segestriidae.”
A name I could falsify. The golden hair and lavender eyes common to my clansmen, those I had no way to alter. Failing those telling signs, there was the clear quartz crystal suspended from my earlobe by a golden strand of Araneidae silk. The expense of that silk confirmed my identity. If their nigh-unbreakable silk made the Araneidae the wealthiest clan in the Araneae Nation, then the craftsmanship of mine made us almost equals in worth. Our skill with crystals was unrivaled.
To possess the appearance of the Segestriidae and indicators of my status was foolhardy.
Vanity kept me clinging to one while desperation made me reliant on the other. At least I had the good sense to travel with the matching necklace concealed. Bad enough to be a lone female on the road. That earned me unwanted attention. But if my fellow rogues had coveted the earring, they would have gutted me for the pendant.
Behind my captor’s eyes, I imagined his mind at work puzzling out my identity. My clothes were heavy and meant for travel, dyed soot black because I hunted my prey after the sun had set.
Briefly, I wished for his midnight hair and eyes. How well he must complement the night.
After a moment’s hesitation, he wiped the blood from my mouth with a cloth pulled from his pocket. When he finished, he inhaled my scent, and dread tightened my stomach. The Mimetidae were trackers, the lot of them. What I had given him was a means of locating me should I escape.
While tucking away his prize, his gaze never left mine. “Why are you on Mimetidae land?”
I mumbled against his hand, and he removed it. “Let me go.”
His eyes crossed. “I asked you a question.”
“Why bother answering when we both know I won’t tell you the truth?”
“I suspected as much, but as you’re female, I thought to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Well,” I countered, “as you’re male, I thought honesty and small words were prudent.”
A tic started beneath his right eye. “You’re insulting me.”
The seriousness of his expression made me laugh. “You’re a quick one, you are. Did you enjoy the chase?” I winked at him. “Set me on my feet and we can have another go.”
“I prefer you just as you are…” he shifted his hips, “…flat on your back.”
His words dried the spit from my mouth. All the ways this encounter could end poorly—for me—spun wild through my head. Though the guard’s heavy thighs pinned mine together, he was not aroused. That realization somewhat eased my mind. Now if he would only stay uninterested.
When he slid his hands down my body, then up my waist and over my breasts, I launched my fist at his bloodied jaw, but he swatted aside my arm.
“Calm yourself.” He went still, his face earnest. “I would never harm a female in that way. I must search you for more weapons. Understand?”
I nodded as if I believed that was all he was after.
“What’s this?” His patting had located my necklace. When he fished it from my shirt, his eyes widened. “I’ve never seen such a large crystal. The setting…” he turned it over in his hand, “…it’s solid gold.” He wasn’t asking. He didn’t have to. What would be the point of using such a remarkable stone but denying it an equally elegant setting? He breathed, “This must be worth a small fortune.”
His tone implied I must have stolen it. In fact, it had been a gift from my betrothed, a bauble as beautiful as it was lethal.
Qualities Hishima had once ascribed to me.
“It was a gift from my uncle.” I wasn’t stretching the truth too far. The earring had truly been a gift from Ghubari, a match to the impressive novelty my betrothed had given me. “Please let me keep it. Better yet, let me go.”
“If I did, where would you go?” He glanced up, then back at me. “What would you do? Find another field of bodies to desecrate? Loot more poor souls bound for the Above?” His expression mirrored his repulsed tone as he shoved the pendant back into my shirt. “Have you not a decent bone in your body that you violate the dead?”
“You don’t know me.” My morals had been abandoned for the sake of survival.
“I know enough.” He pushed to his feet and took me with him. “Come on. Let’s go. You can keep the necklace until my paladin says otherwise.”
My palms turned sweaty. “Where are you taking me?”
“Has it slipped your recollection that you’ve mutilated our dead? That offense is punishable by five years imprisonment, and assaulting one of the city’s guards has earned you another five.”
“They were dead.” At least they were as far as he knew. “What does it matter to them?”
“They have family that will come to pay their respects and find their loved ones hacked into pieces and the silver tokens placed upon their eyes pocketed by the female who did the cutting.”
Shame prickled my skin, but I held my head high while he dragged me toward the city. Near the bodies stood a second male, whose short blond hair was so filthy it almost matched his mud-brown eyes. His frame was heavy with muscle, his shoulders as wide as the ursus northlanders rode.
He paused in his deliberation and jerked his chin my way. “Did that little thing do all this?”
My captor rubbed his discolored jawline. “All that and more.”
The blond smirked. “You taking her to Vaughn?”
“No.” His grip on me tightened. “The paladin has weightier matters on his mind.”
Paladin Vaughn? No, that couldn’t be right. The maven here was his mother, Isolde. She had ruled the Mimetidae since the death of her husband, since before I was born. Unless the plague…
“That’s the truth of it.” The blond male scrubbed a meaty hand over his head.
“Finish up, then check the perimeter.” He tugged me closer. “Her kind rarely travels alone.”
He was right about that. Most future paladins, especially Hishima, refused to let their future wives leave their clan home unguarded. What would this male say if I presented my necklace as a token from my once-beloved as proof of what my kind was? How would he react once he realized that I was the future maven of the Segestriidae? His scowl made me believe that neither the scrap of parchment bearing Father’s crest nor Hishima’s letters tucked into my pocket would sway his determination to see me punished, so I studied my captor and our surroundings as the males wagged their tongues.
“Get on with you, then.” The blond knelt and resumed whatever task we had interrupted.
A hard tug on my arm sent me stumbling. “Are you trying to yank my arm from its socket?”
The brute loosened his grip a fraction. “Stop dragging your feet.”
Out of spite, I was tempted to dig in my heels and make him haul me every step into Cathis. But I wanted freedom more, so I hurried along while slipping a hand into my shirt to grasp the pendant. With a firm jerk, I broke the silken chain’s metal clasp then shoved my hand into my pocket. My fingernail slid along the topmost edge, where the stone met its metal setting. A push of my thumb broke the seal and left me holding the crystal sheath while the petite dagger it had concealed dropped into my pocket. Careful of the blade’s razor edges, I grasped the short hilt in my palm.
“What will you do with me?” Sad to say, I had some idea. “Will it involve seasoning salts?”
He gl
anced back, his eye twitching again. “We do not partake of the flesh of our prisoners.”
Hit a tender spot, had I? Perhaps I ought to jab harder to prod a reaction from him.
“Ah. Well, that’s a comfort. I had heard Mimetidae consumed the flesh of their enemies. I’m relieved you said even my kind is exempt from your kind’s indelicate predilections for eating—”
He whirled around so fast, I yelped in surprise. Grasping my shirt, he reeled me hard against him. “What else have you heard? That we find the screams of helpless females intoxicating? Or a favorite of mine—how we peel the skin from our victims, dry the meat in strips to savor it later?”
I blanched when our chests bumped and his head lowered. I had what I wanted—his reaction was whip-sharp and furious. Riling him proved he was as far removed from Segestriidae males I had known as the moon was from the sun. He was no gentle craftsman. He was fierce, a warrior.
My knees quaked, but I stood my ground. “I don’t believe everything I hear.”
“In this case…” his eyes glittered, eager for truth to burn my ears, “…perhaps you should.”
By the time a scornful retort had readied itself, he had given me his back. I let my gaze slide over him while I deliberated, the broad expanse of his muscled shoulders coaxing my eyes lower.
No time to be squeamish. While he was distracted, I had to strike. I had to break free of him.
Tightening my fist around the dagger’s hilt, I slipped it from my pocket. Its tip wavered as if it were a divining rod, angling toward his weak spots. I had never sunk a blade in a living person.
But since he had no intention of granting me freedom, I would seize it for myself.
Death awaited me in Cathis. If not in the teeth of his clansmen, then at the hands of mine.
Steeling my nerves, I brought my arm across my body. My wrist rested on my shoulder for a moment before I used all my strength to bury the blade deep in the tender meat above his left hip.
My captor howled, and I struggled to break his grip on one arm while twisting the knife with the other. When pain brought him to his knee, I shoved him, retrieving my dagger and toppling him to the dirt on his back.
Guilt and relief made me lightheaded as I pocketed the blade and sprinted for the forest. The fallen male’s furious shouts would set his friend on my trail for certain. I had to hurry. I had to—
Bones popped in my shoulder when a wall of muscle slammed me against a tree. Thick arms banded about my waist and cut off my air. Gasping, I squirmed and kicked, but the blond giant held tight. He lifted me, tucking me under his arm as if I were a bedroll. With my arms pinned, I threw my leg to trip him. He caught that too and swung me high on his hip as he would a child.
Blood heated my cheeks when he smirked at me. “Nice try, but I’m one tree you won’t fell.” To prove his point, he trapped both my ankles at his hip with one hand while the other supported me by crushing me so tight against his side his lungs might have been supplying the air for mine.
“Shouldn’t you see to your friend?” I twisted my head, the only part of me I could move, but I saw no sign of the male I had stabbed. The field was littered with bodies, but none of them his.
“Murdoch?” The behemoth grinned. “He’s not my friend.” He chuckled at something behind me, and I dreaded what lurked past my shoulder. “Female, I don’t think he’s your friend, either.”
“I’ll take her from here, Lleu,” a familiar voice grated near my ear.
“You sure?” The giant squeezed until I gasped. “Shouldn’t you get sewn up first?”
“I’m sure.” Murdoch wrenched my arms behind my back. “Do you have your hawser?”
A tense pause stretched between them. “Always.”
Murdoch held out his hand. “May I use it to secure the prisoner?”
“Use this instead.” The blond tossed him a length of black thread that made Murdoch frown.
He ran the thick, knobby silk rope through his fingers. “You’re a male of many talents.”
His friend waggled his eyebrows at me. “So the females tell me.”
After binding my wrists, Murdoch smoothed his thumb over the stump of my missing ring finger. I cringed when he touched it. The first two joints were missing, and his caress of what remained felt too intimate somehow. I was grateful he showed me the small mercy of not asking about it, but resumed his task. He pried my legs from Lleu’s grip and crossed my ankles to hobble me before he knotted the rope. Lleu was all that held me upright while Murdoch searched me. This time his efforts produced the bloody dagger and its crystal sheath, which he kept.
Assured I was unarmed, he slung me over his shoulder. My face hit a wet spot on his lower back, and I recoiled from the blood turning his worn shirt brown. The wound splashed crimson over his tan skin, and the stain kept growing.
He must be in terrible pain. I wasn’t being wholly facetious when I offered, “I can walk.”
“Very fast,” he said, “and in the opposite direction of where I want you to go.”
Huffing hair from my eyes, I glared at his arse, figuring it was the same as arguing to his face. “Release me.” When he grunted, I promised, “I’m more trouble than I’m worth, Murdoch.”
His shoulders tensed at my use of his name, but he continued on without comment.
“You will regret this.” We both would if Hishima got word. “Put me down, please.”
“There.” He winced when he set me on my feet. “You’re down.” He reached into his pocket and produced the cloth he’d wiped my face with earlier. “Open your mouth.” He waited. “Now.”
My eyes rounded. “You can’t be—”
He crammed the cloth into my mouth too fast for me to even bite him. After hefting me over his shoulder again, this effort costing him a muttered oath, Murdoch lumbered on toward Cathis.
Chortling sounds made me lift my head. Lleu sauntered past me, a grin splitting his face. He tipped his head when our eyes met. I narrowed mine, which appeared to amuse him all the more.
Let him smile.
If Hishima found me at long last, his retribution would be no laughing matter.
Chapter 2
Whistles rent the air as Murdoch approached a gate made of bone and tethered with sinew. It groaned on its hinges, an echo of its victims’ final cries. Though I had plotted to escape Murdoch at my first opportunity, entering Cathis made me reconsider. Above us, along the wall, its guards leered and shouted profanities at me. More than one hand popped my rump in passing. Murdoch bantered with the males, exchanged crude jokes. Even he landed a swat to my arse that jolted me.
That trespass I might have forgiven him, had he not also rubbed away the sting.
“Fine morning, eh?” Calloused fingers crept over my scalp, fisting my hair, wrenching back my head. I stared up at a thickset male whose grin lacked several teeth. “A fine morning indeed.”
Murdoch tightened one hand around my ankle, as if afraid this male, whoever he was, would snatch me from him if given half a chance. “Mine was going well enough until I found this one.”
“She a biter?” His friend poked the cloth stuffing my cheeks. “That why you gagged her?”
“She’s a talker.” Murdoch made conversation with me sound positively vile.
“Eh. Could be worse.” The male’s filthy hand traced my cheek. “Has a nice face at least.”
A shrug from Murdoch rolled my stomach. “I’ve seen worse.”
“Haven’t we all?” The older male chortled while I glared at him. He cupped a hand to his ear and bent so close his breath made my eyes water. “What’s that? Have something to say, lovely?”
I bobbed my head, and he yanked the gag from my mouth. “I apologize for my appearance.” My voice cracked. “But you’re no doubt used to seeing Murdoch sling females on his shoulder to haul into his lair. I should be grateful he tied and carried me instead of dragging me by my hair.”
Murdoch sighed. “That’s why the gag was necessary.”
“Aye.” The male wadded the cloth into a tight ball bound for my mouth. “I’ll mute her.”
I slumped against Murdoch’s back to escape, burying my face above his wounded hip.
“Let her be.” His thumb stroked my ankle. “We’re here. No point in stoppering her now.”
“Fine by me.” The male tossed the cloth to Murdoch. “It’s your name she’ll be cursing.”
“She’s not the first—” Murdoch began.
“Nor the last—gods willing.” The male slapped his thigh. “She headed for the grotto?”
“Where else?” Murdoch angled so he faced the male. “Pearce…she’s under my protection.”
“Figured as much.” He whistled through his teeth. “If I’d found such a pretty thing—”
“Mine,” Murdoch said again, firmly.
“I heard you the first time.” Pearce huffed. “Me and Owain, we’ll spread the word.”
“Do that.” Murdoch lurched into motion. “I’ll finish my rounds once she’s settled.”
“Aye, you will.” Pearce jabbed Murdoch’s tender side. “Get that scratch tended to first.”
Though gritted teeth, Murdoch said, “It’s nothing.”
“Suit yourself.” The burly male shrugged. “It’s your life if infection sets in.”
I waited until we left the bustle of the gate behind before clearing my throat.
“Something to add?” Murdoch asked. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“He’s right—about the risk of infection.” His body was not the first sheath for my dagger.
Conversation halted while he wedged open a heavy door. “Why do you care?”
A better question was, “Why did you place me under your protection?”
Was that pained laughter his? “Give me your answer, and I’ll give you mine.”
I didn’t have to think twice. “Deal.”
“Then it’s done.” He prompted, “Why do you care if I see the healer?”
I saw no harm in saying, “You saw me at my work. Can you not imagine where else a blade of mine has been? I have never killed another person, and I would regret it if you were the first.” Into the lengthy silence, I added, “I’m also hoping fear of contracting the plague from my knife sends you fleeing into the arms of your healer and that you’ll leave me alone to plot my escape.”
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