Page 47 of Settle Down, Princess

“I just need to freshen up,” I said, the lie rolling easily off my tongue.

“I’ll help—” he said, a slow grin forming.

“Some things a woman must do on her own.”

My eyes stared into his, begging him to understand, and there was something in those yellowish depths that saw me, saw what I was asking. The man just smiled and let me go.

“Hurry back then.”

I wanted to. My feet felt like lead as I walked away from him, but my brain was well and truly in control, not my heart. It had me stepping into the adjacent bathroom and closing the door with a click.

Thankfully, once I’d worked out this would be where I’d make my escape from, I’d had the foresight to stash my bags in here. I picked one up slowly, carefully, to not make a noise, but mostly because it was a burden I didn’t want to carry. I slung the strap across my body, squaring my shoulders under the load. Then I went over to the open window and looked down.

I could dimly make out the shapes of multiple men on horseback lurking in the shadows of a small laneway across from the inn. Then, as if to make that less terrifying, Rion stepped into the light and waved a hand in welcome. I glanced back at the bathroom door, then picked up the chair I’d brought in earlier and set it under the door handle before going back to the window and slinging my leg over the sill.

“Jessalyn…?” At the sound of his voice, I stifled a sob, almost overwhelmed at being halfway between the future that lay inside the inn and the possibilities of the one outside it. “Jess…?” I’d never be able hear that diminutive again without thinking of Creed. I took a shaky breath in and then shook my head and put my foot on the first rung of the trellis, drawing my other leg over and carefully pulling the extra bag down.

As I negotiated the wooden framework on the side of the inn, I was very much aware that I was just another flower, easily bruised. I carefully made my way down it, step by step. Eventually I got to where hands went to my waist and helped me down.

“You came!” Rion said, eyes gleaming at me in the moonlight. “I’ve found the men you need. They’re just across here in the alleyway.”

Meeting strange men in alleyways was everything my mother had warned me about, I thought slightly hysterically, but I couldn’t let that stop me now. She was not able to prepare me for this reality because she could no more imagine me doing this than me turning into a bird and flying free from the castle turrets. I nodded sharply and said, “Lead the way, Master Rion.”

“This is the girl?”

Sitting in his saddle, reins held loosely as his body shifted with the horse’s restive movements, the man talked to Rion, not to me.

“Yes—”

“I am Jessalyn Tennesley,” I broke in, holding up my hand for the man to take, but he and his fellows just stared.

“You’ve got gold, girl?”

“Yes,” I said, wresting free the bag that Arik had given me. I felt a momentary flush of guilt, but lifted my chin and jingled the pouch for emphasis. “I’ve got good Kheanian gold if you can be of assistance—”

He didn’t wait for me to explain what I wanted. In fact, it became clear that he didn’t want to listen to a thing I had to say, as he nodded as if in instruction to Rion.

Just as my mother had warned me.

I was a perfect little idiot was the last thought I had when I turned around in some confusion to see Rion that had turned from a bath attendant to something else in the dark, as he raised his hand with a small club clenched in his fist. A scream burst from my throat, and at the same time, I saw the curtains in my room twitch aside. Creed’s eyes found mine, right as my scream was choked off by the thud of the club hitting my skull.

And that was the last thing I knew before darkness overcame me.

Chapter 27

Arik

“She’s been taken!”

Creed’s roar had everyone in the inn jerking upright in their seats as the sound of a beast in their midst provoked predictable responses. Everyone except for the three of us. My veins pulsed with fiery lava that was moving slowly, too slowly, even as it burned me from the inside out. And so my head could only swing around in slow motion to see Creed launch himself from the first floor balcony and land with a smash on the table.

“She…?” Silas blinked, then blinked some more as his eyes and lashes fought a battle neither could win. “She…?”

“Jessalyn has been taken! My mate has been taken!”

Creed’s snarl had my spine snapping straight. We were a pack, and our packmate had issued a call to action. I stumbled to my feet, the whole world swaying, as the innkeeper came running over, eyes wide.

“Taken?” he said.

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