Page 122

“Know? Where I’m from, the darkling is feared above all.”

“Where are you taking me–”

The man didn’t answer, just rowed the canoe downstream.

Tarley wasn’t opposed to it. The stranger, who she knew she couldn’t trust since he’d left her tied, had saved her from the creature she’d once known as Rufus—at least for the moment—and he was taking her closer to Sevens. Closer to her family. Closer to Lachlan.

Why had she ever run? She should have stayed and fought.

When the stranger directed the canoe to the opposite side of the river, he pulled it ashore and forced her out. He grasped the rope and jerked her along with him. Tarley glanced over her shoulder taking stock of where they were, but it looked so different on this side of the river. She was confident they were just before the rapids.

“Keep up,” the man said.

“Do you have a name?” she asked.

“None that means anything to you.”

They walked, Tarley limping along behind him. She slowed, her feet slick with blood now. The man jerked her rope again.

“Hey. My feet.”

He shook his head. “Nothing we can do about it now.” He continued walking. His stench was atrocious, as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks. Probably hadn’t; it was a good way to hide in the woods from animals and was perhaps why the man had been able to attack Rufus at all.

After what felt like hours because of her feet, they walked into a clearing. The fetid aroma hit her like a slap to the face. She coughed, gagged, and pressed her tied hands to her nose. Death lingered. Carcasses strung from the trees hung around the encampment. Whoever she was dealing with weren’t Whitling woods folk. The stench would draw feral creatures. She was surprised they hadn’t already. But it was also a good way to hide your own stench. Keep people away. The question would be, which was more important?

She needed to get to the river somehow. She’d follow it downstream, where it would spit her out near Sevens after the rapids but before the waterfall. Getting free of her bindings was priority number one. Slipping into the woods bound wasn’t going to do her any favors especially if she was trying to avoid that darkling thing.

And shoes. She needed shoes.

The dark of night had long been chased away by the dawn. Goldenrod streaked across the blue sky high above the trees, which then melted into the barely blue sky of a warm summer day. Not ideal weather in which to hide once she escaped, but she’d figure it out, hope blooming in her chest once more.

Her captor stomped them toward a large tent across the camp.

A man stepped toward them from the front of the tent. He looked dingy from a life in the woods, but not hungry. His body hinted he was well fed and his clothes and shoes that he was well paid. There was a weapon—a rope with several stones—at his hip, and a dagger tied to a leg. “What you got here, Hep?”

“The project that Snell and Bock ran from. Found Klem ripped to shreds by a darkling.”

“Who is she? A whore?”

“Dressed like that?”

Tarley bit her tongue. King Mallor’s earlier comment hit her. Only then she’d been dressed as a lady. She might have been standing there with her under clothes ripped after being with Lachlan earlier, her heart racing at the knowledge of sharing that secret with him, but no one else had known. Then she’d been called a whore. Kaloma stripped women of their autonomy, but it took Lachlan’s father to strip her down to her insecurities.

Perhaps that was always what her problem had been? She’d worked so hard to lock those insecurities about her womanhood in a small trap inside her and keep them hidden. Only the more time she spent with Lachlan, even loving him, her fears of being inadequate broke open and spilled out. He’d made her feel safe and desired. Loved and cherished. Accepted as she was. But when he hadn’t stood up for her, her heart had cracked open, giving those insecurities power.

And she hadn’t waited.

She should have waited.

Instead, she’d fled like she’d always done.

She raised her head. “I’m no whore, and even if I were, I’d have more standards than what could be had here.”

“You’re a mouthy bitch.” The man who wasn’t Hep stepped forward menacingly. “A woman needs to know her place.”

Her captor—Hep—jerked her closer to him and swiveled her bodily so he was between her and the other man. “Now none of that. She’s here because boss-man paid for it.”

Hep pulled on Tarley’s wrists once more. “Let’s go.” He dragged her just outside the large tent.