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She jerked away from Rufus’s touch, her head slamming up against her captor. She struggled against his hold. “Don’t touch me.”

As the sun rose, the sky changing from dark blue to a shade lighter, Tarley could see Rufus’s features were more angular that she remembered. But the strangest sight she couldn’t explain away were his usually bright blue eyes, black all the way through.

“What are you?” she breathed.

Rufus swallowed and grinned, his teeth sharp. “Now that is the perfect question.”

“Hey. Let’s go. Just take her,” one of the men said.

“This guy’s cracked.” The man behind her started moving away from Rufus. “We’re going. Toward the river,” he ordered the others.

Rufus’s horrible eyes flicked over her, and he sniffed her again. “You ready to see what your future holds?” he asked her, then turned to the men and said, “I’m so hungry.”

“We had a deal.”

Rufus’s eyes moved to her captor. Without warning, Rufus snapped forward and latched on. Her captor tensed, gurgled, and fell with a thud like a tree chopped down, releasing her.

The other two men screamed and ran, disappearing into the woods.

Ferdie screeched in terror, yanking at his tether until the branch cracked, and the horse galloped away.

With her arms and legs bound, Tarley couldn’t run, helpless in the dirt as the captor jerked next to her. She was afraid to look at what Rufus was doing. But she couldn’t wait, scooting over the ground like a caterpillar to get away. She inched away from the awful noise—the slurping and sucking, the gasping and the gurgling—coming from the man and Rufus as she worked her bonds. When she chanced a look in their direction to see how much time she had, Rufus was attached to the man’s neck. And there was blood. So much blood.

Overflowing with terror, she knew she was about to freeze with it.

The woman’s body had been mutilated.The story surfaced like a branch bobbing in the river.

Her gaze jumped back to Rufus, doing… something with all that blood. She couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to take the time to figure it out.

Get away!her inner voice screamed.

With additional fervor, she worked on the bond at her ankles, sliding her feet back and forth to loosen the binding. She knew she couldn’t get the boots through, so she worked one of her feet free of its boot. Then the other. She stood, ignoring what was happening behind her, afraid that if she looked, she’d freeze. So she ran, darting into the dark woods for the river.

“Tarley!” the monster that was Rufus roared, the birds in the trees taking flight at the terrible sound.

She didn’t think about her bare feet, the rocks and sharp sticks biting her skin. The river. She needed to get to the river. The river, she chanted as she ran. Then she thought of her family and chanted for them.Father… Mother… Jessamine… Brinna… Auri… Mattias… Lachlan.Tarley thought of each of them, picturing their faces, recalling their smiles, feeling the deep way she loved each of them, even Lachlan. Especially Lachlan.Help me.

An unnatural sound of wind snapping against branches like a horrible storm echoed behind her. Terrified that Rufus—or whatever he was—was going to catch her, she didn’t stop. Her arms were still bound, but the water seemed her best option, the swift moving water to carry her away. She’d much prefer to drown than to face whatever kind of monster was chasing her through the woods.

33

Brinna sat up in her bed, coughing and clutching at her throat, the horrible dream sticky in her mind. Tarley was in trouble. Brinna had heard her cry out for her in the dream and shuddered now in the aftermath. Every fiber that made her—even if her dreams weren’t exact—told her Tarley was in danger. Her gut rolled, telling her to trust her instincts.

“Jessamine? Auri?” She pushed Auri in the bed next to her.

Auri roused slightly, groaning, and rolled away. “It’s not morning, Brinna.”

“Tarley’s in trouble.”

“What?” Auri rolled back. “What do you mean?”

“I had an awful dream.”

“What is it?” Jessamine asked from the next bed over.

Brinna turned to look at her sister’s shadow, propped up on her elbow. “Tarley was in the woods being chased.”

“She went with Oll–I mean, Lachlan,” Jessamine said. “He said–”