Page 4

Chapter 3

Anise woke to the sound of knocking at her door. A peek from beneath the bed showed sun rays had escaped the confines of the curtains to lighten the room. She rubbed her eyes. She should already be awake and on her way by now. Damn it.

Sleeping under the bed felt safer, but it was also darker and she’d missed her dawn wake-up call.

Knock-knock-knock.

Frowning, Anise found her dagger and shimmied out from beneath the bed. Cracking her back, then neck, she eyed the door with suspicion. She’d been living here for over a year but hadn’t told anyone. There was no reason she’d have a visitor. She gripped her dagger hard and darted a glance to the window, suddenly cursing the lack of opening for an escape. She supposed she could break the glass.

“Anise?” came the muffled deep voice. “It’s me.”

Anise stared at the door.

It’s me.

Oh, how she’d dreamed of hearing those two little words over and over whilst captured and tortured in that cage. How she’d hoped and longed for them, held onto them as though they were a lifeline.

A lifeline that never came.

The tension in her body shifted until it crumpled her face. She opened the door and scowled despite her heart galloping and her stomach fluttering.Damn it.

Caraway loomed in the hallway, his big bulk taking up most of the room. His head and curved horns almost brushed the ceiling. Segmented pauldrons on the Guardian uniform hit the walls on either side—he was that broad. Bone stud buttons ran down the front of his flat torso. Blue piping accentuated the shape of his body—bulging where his biceps stretched the leather jacket almost indecently. A broadsword was holstered over his back.

And the most dangerous part of all—his big, brown, long-lashed doe eyes staring right into her, reaching inside and tugging on her atoms, sending them into a frenzy.

His presence stole Anise’s breath away. Nothing had changed in the way her body reacted to him. Only her mind.

She looked closer and took in his face, surprised to note his usual jolly, flushed coloring was gone. Messy shaggy hair fell over his curved horns. Scruff over his square jaw. Dark, bruised circles beneath those long lashes.

His usual nonchalant vibe had been replaced with hard lines. A pinched look to his face, a flattened press of his lips, and tendons in his temples pulsed from a clenched jaw.

It didn’t suit him.

The old Anise wanted to ask what had happened to suck the jolly out of him. The sound of his big-bellied laugh had warmed her on many cold nights during their friendship. But the new Anise, the one he’d left in that cage to rot, didn’t give a shit.

“Go away,” she said and tried to close the door.

Caraway shoved his giant boot in the gap, stopping it from closing. He put his big meaty hand on the door and pressed. It seemed effortless, and the marked difference in their body strength drove her nuts. This was why she was going to see the Ice-Witch.This.

Helplessness swam over her and she stood back. Caraway ducked to get under the doorframe, came in, and closed the door behind him. He surveyed the room with trepidation.

“This is where you’ve been staying?”

His gaze landed on the pillow decoy in the bed, tilted to see the blanket and sleeping arrangement beneath, and then caught the dagger still in her hand. When his shrewd gaze lifted to meet hers, it softened.

“I don’t want your pity, Caraway,” she said, pointing the dagger at him, and then the door. “And I told you to go away. So you should respect a lady’s wishes and do just that.”

But he didn’t go. He started poking around the room as though he owned it. He went to the window, opened the curtain, looked outside, and then tested it to see if it opened. Turning, his eyes tracked around the room until they landed on her knapsack, filled and ready for her journey. His brows lifted.

“Where are you going?”

“None of your business.” Anise folded her arms. “Why are you here, Caraway?”

Those brows lowered darkly. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Anise. Why are you running away from me? I thought we were friends.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Friends don’t leave friends to the mercy of evil, twisted people.”

“I didn’t know about that until it was too late.”