I stepped onto the porch, shutting the door so as not to alert whoever was awake with the icy gust. Tugging on the thick socks, I pushed my feet into the boots, lacing them up as tightly as I could. My bad leg jarred more than once, but the pain was dulled by the adrenaline fuelling my movements.
In seconds, I was half-jogging, half-limping off into the trees. The woods were woven with mist, consuming me the moment I stepped into them. I was grateful for the cover, but the way forward would be more difficult to navigate. Especially as I didn't even know which way to head.
The sky was cobble grey as dawn seeped through the clouds. I staggered on, twigs crunching and leaves cracking under my boots.
The sound of a whinnying horse caught my ear and I halted, listening for it again. A horse could solve all of my problems...
As a neigh rose into the air, I turned on my heel, changing course toward the sound. An old stable emerged from the mist. I hurried toward it, crossing the courtyard toward one of the stalls, sliding the bolt and pulling it open. A brindle mare snorted her indignation at me, squinting in the light. I moved slowly toward her, raising a hand.
I'd been around horses when I was younger. Before my father had purchased the helicopters and SUVs to run the V Games, we'd used horse and carriages to get around. I used to love when a season of the games came to an end and the six months of summer would reign. The Vs were kept indoors and I had free access to the island. I'd ride all the way out to the furthest point and visit all the checkpoints of the games in one day.
The mare stamped her foot and I cooed gently, soothing her. “It's alright, come on girl.” A few moments of silence passed between us before she stepped forward in the hay, pressing her soft nose into my palm.
“That's it.” I ran my hand up and over her brow, moving around her. There was no time to saddle her. I'd ridden without tack before, but not for years. And not with an injured leg. But I'd have to get a bridle on her if I was ever going to steer her.
I found one hanging outside the stable and she took the bit into her mouth without complaint. I ran the reins over her head, resting them on her neck. Next, I threw a thick blanket over her back and placed my hands on her spine. With a steadying breath, and with the mare glancing at me over her shoulder, I hauled myself up. When I had my legs dangling either side of her, I smiled broadly, gently spurring her on.
My injured leg protested when I nudged her with my heel, but I could do enough with my good leg to get her going. She trotted out into the courtyard and with a little more encouragement, I had her heading into the trees. A laugh escaped my throat and the mare answered with a joyful neigh as we trotted into the forest.
Just as she picked up her pace, the mare reared and I had to fall forward, clinging to her mane to ensure I didn't fall.
A figure came into view, reaching for the reins. My elation died in a wave. Lynch.
“No!” I shouted, kicking out at him, thankful that he'd approached on the side of my good leg. He was bleary-eyed and sloppily dressed, but the only thing I could focus on was the gun in his hand.
He snatched the reins of the horse and I kicked at him again. He swore, pointing the old pistol at me.
“Get down!” he roared. I ducked my head as if I could avoid the bullet by sheer will alone. I knew it was pointless, but my gut wouldn't accept it. I simply couldn't go back to that room.
“No,” I said through my teeth, reaching for the broken tile in my pocket. He clearly didn't want to fire that gun. And perhaps that meant he didn't know his master, Alfric Hund, was dead. So he was still keeping me alive on orders.
Lynch's hand clamped around my calf and he tugged hard. I tried to cling on to the horse, but she reared up again in a panic and I slid to the ground, slamming into the mud. I shimmied backwards as fast I could, the jagged tile still clamped in my palm.
Lynch slowly approached as if he were enjoying watching my plight.
“Lord Alfric's dead,” he said, surprising me that he knew this. Then why didn't he take the shot?
He placed a foot on the ankle of my injured leg. Pain blossomed up the bone. A scream ripped from my throat and I thrashed out of his hold, turning onto my hands and kneels to crawl away.
Lynch's heavy footfalls followed and a kick to my side sent me flying onto my back again. He took hold of his belt buckle with a smirk that ate at my insides. “Which means I don't have to follow orders anymore.”
He dropped his weight onto me, his pistol still clamped in his palm. But it wasn't aimed at me, so I had a single, tiny moment of advantage. My mother had taught me how to handle men like this. And it was her lasting legacy to me now. As he tried to pin me down, my good knee came up, slamming hard between his thighs. He let out a strangled roar, swinging the pistol toward me. I jammed the heel of my palm into his nose and a satisfying crack followed. Droplets of blood splattered my face, some fell into my eyes. I saw red, literally, slashing the sharp tile up, slicing his shoulder in a haphazard line.
His anguished cries filled the night air as I threw him off of me, scrambling to my knees, my injured leg protesting all the way. My foot caught on something and I spotted the pistol discarded in the leaves. I snatched it up as I stumbled away. My limp was back in full force as I moved through the woods, gasping, desperate, but determined.
I found the horse lingering by a tree, looking frightened, swinging her head in a jittery movement.
“Here girl...I won't hurt you.” I raised my sticky red palms, which didn't help my cause. I wiped the blood from my eyes with the back of my sleeve, moving toward her, urgent in my advance.
Please don't run.
I didn't know for sure Lynch was dealt with.
The mare let me approach and with a gasp of relief, I dragged myself up onto her back. A shadow emerged from the mist, pelting toward me at speed. Colt appeared, his boots unlaced, dressed in his shirt and jeans, a leather jacket gripped in his fist. His eyes met mine, his mouth agape as I spurred the mare on with a loud and triumphant, “Yah!”
He didn't even have a weapon. I had a phone, a horse and a gun. So I win.
Mercy
The mist swallowed me whole as the mare charged through the forest. Riding was familiar and I soon fell into the rhythm of the horse's strides, keeping myself balanced by leaning forward and gripping her mane. I didn't know where I was going, I just needed to get as far away from that place as possible.
As my racing heart began to slow, another thumping noise took its place. Every beat of the mare's hooves seemed to have an echo. Casting a glance over my shoulder, I could barely draw breath at the sight of the pursuing shadow tearing through the fog behind me.
“Stop!” Colt's voice reached me, his tone frighteningly loud.
He burst through the mist on a huge black stallion, his eyes narrowed on me with a predator-like precision.
A gasp escaped me as I urged the mare onward with a kick to her sides. “Go – go!” I pleaded and she reacted to my urgency with panic of her own, bolting into the forest ahead. The mist swirled around her hooves as she tore across the damp leaves at high speed. I slid down her back an inch and grasped onto her tighter, my bad leg making it difficult to grip her sides.
She weaved through the trees at speed, their slim boughs whipping past me with a whoosh of noise. The pursuing hooves pounded louder, harder. That stallion was huge and I didn't know if my horse could keep up the advantage.
“Mercy!” Colt's voice howled through the trees like a hungry wolf.
In knowing who he truly was, I feared him catching me more than I ever had Lynch. The image of him beheading me was all too vivid as I urged the mare on another time. Over and over I begged her to keep up her speed, praising her for her hard work. Sweat was gathering on her flanks, and she was starting to pant with every bounding pace she took. Still, she didn't slow, but neither did the stallion.
I tried not to picture how this might end. If only I had a vague idea of where to head. Of a town I could aim for. I needed to find people.
I needed a crowd to scare Colt off. But the forest never changed, the mist, the greyish-brown trunks, the endless iron sky.
Something hard was digging into my hip, crushing between me and the horse.
Lynch's gun!
I snatched it from my coat pocket, turning and trying to get a good shot over my shoulder. Colt slowed his steed, veering sharply to the left, his dark expression never changing. He tore into a denser patch of woodland, keeping to my left. Gaining on me with every stride as he used the trees for cover.
I cursed under my breath. Changing tact, I lifted the pistol skyward and fired two shots in quick succession, then I screamed as hard and as loud as I could. “Help! Help me!”
If anyone was close. Perhaps a farmer. Someone. They might come.
As we charged on and I checked the barrel of the gun -four shots left – I guided the mare to the right.
She turned sharply, responding to me quickly. We cantered away from Colt and I heard him curse loudly as he fell behind again.
“I'm not going to hurt you!” he yelled.
Yeah right.
“Then let me go!” I screamed back, swinging the gun toward him once more.
I aimed, narrowing my eyes. I had the gift of a Hunter's aim. And his expression told me he knew that. I took the shot as he yanked his reins sideways. The bullet planted in a tree trunk precisely where his hair had just been.
“Enough!” he roared, then shouted at his horse, “Yah!”
The stallion snorted harshly as it increased its pace once more, this time gaining on us faster than the mare could possibly outrun.
“No, come on, come on,” I begged, but her responding whinny told me how tired she was.
The stallion pulled up on our flank and I turned to fire the gun once more. Colt ducked. The mare jumped suddenly, leaping over a fallen log. The gun left my hand and I gasped as it fell away from my palm and hit the forest floor. I dropped quickly forward to ensure I didn't follow it to the ground, clinging to the mare's neck.
She cantered on, but the stallion pulled up beside us and Colt reached for my reins.
“No!” I screamed, pulling them out of his reach. I did the only thing I could think of and yanked back hard. The mare protested with a loud neigh but rammed her hooves into the ground all the same, slamming us to a halt. Colt was caught off-guard, taking longer to turn his horse about.
I turned the mare one-eighty, kicking her on, but she only made it into a half-hearted trot. I circled back, searching for the gun I'd dropped, sliding from the horse when I spotted it.
I started running but I could hear the stallion charging me down. And I didn't have the strength in my leg to gain any speed. I darted forward as I spotted the weapon amongst the dead leaves. The weight of a tonne fell atop me as Colt dropped from his horse, knocking me to the ground. I scrambled forward, my hand grasping desperately in the mud as I tried to reach the weapon. His hand clamped around one of my wrists, then both, turning me over as he slammed them into the mud. He pressed his hips down to hold me in place.
I gazed up at him through strands of dirty blonde hair, blowing harshly to remove them from my eyes. My heart beat madly. My breathing was frantic. I felt like a rabbit in a trap.
I let out a huff of defeat, letting my head fall down against the soft earth. “I'm not going back there,” I said, my voice surprisingly calm despite my heaving breaths.
Colt's jaw was set and his eyes were hovering over my expression. “I can't let you go.”
I pressed my lips together, the cogs wheeling in my head. He didn't know, I realised. He hadn't got the message about Alfric being dead.
It struck me now that perhaps I should have tried calling someone for help. But I still couldn't fix on who. Even if I'd called the Norwegian police, how many hours would it have taken for them to get here?
Colt rearranged my wrists above my head, gripping them both in one of his hands to free his other. Reaching down, he patted my clothes then rummaged in my coat pockets, his eyes never leaving mine. Fear took hold of me. If he checked his phone, he'd discover the truth. But there was nothing I could do about it as he plucked the iPhone from my pocket.
I could feel his own slow breaths as his chest rose and fell against my own. One slow one of his for every two of mine.
His eyes shifted to the phone screen and I watched as a mixture of emotions passed through his gaze. Relief? Fear? Concern? All three?
He chewed the inside of his cheek before tucking the phone into his pocket. Then, all at once, his weight left me. He stood, holding out his palm.
I recoiled on instinct, glancing over my shoulder, searching for the gun. He strode around me, plucking it from the mud and jamming it into the back of his jeans.
In the meantime I gained my feet, my head spinning a little as I returned upright.
I considered running, but Colt would outpace me easily with my injury. So I gazed at him warily, awaiting his next move.
“Alfric's dead,” he growled. “But I'm guessing you already know that?”
I nodded, my throat constricting.
“I still can't let you go,” he said. “You'll hand me in to the Watchers.”
“I wouldn't,” I said quickly. But why would he believe that?
My situation was suddenly ten times worse. He now had information that made me completely expendable. The only reason he hadn't killed me before now was Alfric's orders to keep me alive.
I took several steps backwards and my spine collided with the mare. Her head swung over my shoulder, and I clung to her, reaching for the reins.
Colt sighed, taking out the gun. “Don't,” he growled, lifting it to point at me.
I pressed my lips together, furious at the unfairness of the situation. “I don't care who you are,” I snapped. “Just let me go. You can leave this place. You can disappear again. Even if I did tell someone about you, you would be long gone before they ever came looking for you.”
“It's not that simple,” he said in a low tone. He moved toward me, lowering the gun to his side, evidently reluctant to use it. Maybe he had a machete stashed up his shirt he'd rather use instead.
“No one's come looking for me for nearly twenty years. If you run off telling people you've seen me, you'll restart the manhunt. I can't live like that again, scared of my own damn shadow, moving to a new place every week.” He ran a hand over his short hair, looking torn.
The conclusion he was drawing was obvious to me. But I couldn't understand why he hadn't already made the decision. Why would an infamous Hunter killer stay his hand now? I was an obvious threat. So why wasn't I dead yet?
“Then kill me,” I said, my throat barely releasing the words. It was a bluff, but I didn't have much choice. I couldn't run. I couldn't fight. So I was at his mercy. Either he was going to kill me or he wasn't. I just had to hope for the latter.
He strode toward me at a slow pace. The mare backed away, leaving me alone.
Fear pinched my heart. Maybe this was it. After all I'd done, I probably deserved a violent death. That didn't make me feel any less terrified as Colt eyed me.
“No,” he said at last and I released a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding. “But you're going to do as I say. Everything I say.”
“Like?” I questioned, my relief obvious. I'd have to go along with anything he wanted for now. Until I got another chance to escape. I doubted he was going to make that easy, but I wasn't giving up yet.
“Hold out your hands.”
I resisted for a few seconds longer before complying. He tugged his belt loose and looped it around my wrists, tying them tightly together. I bowed my head in defeat, furious at having to give up.
Colt led me to the stallion and lifted me onto his back, tying the belt to the saddle so I wouldn't be able to get down. He took the stallion's reins, guiding him over to the mare before tethering her to my saddle. Colt braced his hands behind me and dragged himself up onto the stallion, locking his arms around me as he took the reins.
&nb
sp; Colt kicked the stallion on and the mare grumbled a little, stamping her foot, but he soon got her trotting behind us in the direction we'd come from. Back to the house. The attic. And, no doubt, a very angry Lynch.
Three Months Ago
The men who came to the games weren't all bad. And I could more-or-less choose who to spend time with. It felt good to have company at last. At first, I had struggled to watch the games. The blood. The screaming. The brutal deaths. It wasn't my thing. And sometimes I pitied the girls. Mainly, I distracted myself with the guests, putting on a show of flirtation. Sitting in laps, pouring drinks into their open mouths. It was my very own game. And the more I flaunted my body, the more power I felt. Eventually, the men would want more. Sometimes I'd give it to them. But not always. That was up to me. But sometimes my mother would steer me in the direction of a particularly wealthy spectator. I'd learned a thing or two about sex. If I wasn't into it, I'd block out the world until it was over. And if I was, I'd figured out how to enjoy it.
Varick hounded me day and night. And I loved feeling of his eyes on me when I was draped over another man. I got my power kick from him a lot of the time. Father had let him have his muzzle off whilst he guarded me at last - on my request. The first time I'd seen him without it, I'd been struck with how handsome he was. And now he was fed regularly, he had a rugged look about him none of the spectators possessed.
I stole glances at him whilst I was wrapped around another man, picturing his hands on me, sometimes even his teeth. The fantasy had grown a little wild over the years. But Varick was pretty much the only constant in my life beyond my family.
He never showed desire, not beyond the hungry look in his eyes. And perhaps that was why he intrigued me so. As the years turned into decades, I drew power from that feeling. I'd spend a night teasing one man, only to go to bed with another who had been drooling over me all night. And all the while Varick would watch, remaining close in case I needed saving. I grew bolder with him, teasing, pushing barriers that should never have been pushed. But only when my mother wasn't looking.
Wolf Games: Island of Shade (The Vampire Games Book 5) Page 16