Page 71 of The Enslaved Duet

My laugh burned through my ravaged throat. “Which circle of Hell is this, then?”

“The very worst,” he agreed, pausing just out of arm’s reach. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this. Your father is sorry too.”

I blinked.

“If he could see you now,” he murmured as his eyes tracked every cut, scrap and bruise painted and punched into my body. “He would cry. And Salvatore is not a man prone to tears.”

“Who the fuck are you? What are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to tell you that I am a friend. I’m sorry this had to happen to you, but—”

“None of this had to happen,” I shouted, spittle flying through the air.

I felt rabid, a dog too long without food in a place too cold to bear it.

“None of this had to happen,” I sobbed angrily, dashing at the blood, tears, and mud on my face. “If you are a friend of Salvatore as you say, tell mypapa puttaniereto go fuck himself! None of this had to happen, and none of it would have happened if he’d stepped up once in all my life.”

There was a rustle in the bushes, and the heavy rush of breath through the nose of a beast. Seconds later, a horse burst out of the trees into the clearing.

“Minchia,” Edward Dante swore, swivelling to face the man. “Fuckingrun, Cosima.”

I turned and ran, the sounds of hooves beating into the ground behind me like the drum of a funeral song.

There was a shout, and a huge splash behind me.

I took a moment to look over my shoulder and see Dante straddling the hunter in the shallows of a stream, beating his huge hand again and again into the dethroned rider’s face. The horse stomped and whinnied restlessly, pawing at the air.

“Cosima,run!” Dante yelled as another rider appeared in the clearing.

I faced forward again and raced as fast as my legs could take me back into the densely woven trees.

The second rider wasn’t deterred; he took the horse leaping over fallen logs, swerving around tight corners until I could feel the breath of the beast at my back and the vibration of its steps on the forest floor.

I was so tired, and I was going to lose.

Hands twisted in the back of my hair, then wrenched so hard, I flew into the air and went sailing over the pummel of the saddle.

A slap rained down against my rump as the rider howled into the night. “Right where you belong again.”

I shivered at the sound of Landon’s voice and wriggled enough to roll over, landing a kick to his shoulder that had the reins falling from his hands. The horse bucked slightly and sent us both falling hard to the root gnarled earth below.

The breath left my body as my head hit the base of a tree and pain exploded in white shards across my vision.

A hand grabbed my ankle and dragged me across the mud. I flipped onto my belly, scrambling with my hands to find purchase in the soft soil.

And I screamed.

I screamed and screamed like a symphony of terrors as Landon used his hand to pull me under him and rip my dress straight down the middle of my spine. He hissed with pleasure at the sight of his pink whip marks on my skin. I struggled, bucking and twisting against him as he took each mark between his teeth and bit down, tasting the symbols of pain he’d branded me with.

A stick was in my reach, the sharp, pale end of it gleaming dimly in the mist-shrouded, moonlight murk. With an almighty shove, I reached forward enough to grasp it in my hand and then twisted my torso with a warrior’s shout.

Then I slammed the branch into the nearest bit of flesh I could find.

It impaled Landon in the cheek.

He roared as he reeled off me and onto his knees, his hands clambering at the blood wet stem, desperate to remove it.

A high-pitched screech rent the air in two, and with a great flurry of black wings, a bird descended from the sky and reached his dagger-like talon for Landon’s prone face.