Page 167 of Mud

“No can do, sweetness. Just relax. We’re close,” he calmly said, his arm wrapped tightly around my thighswhile my face slammed against the small of his back with each step.

“Are youserious?!” Because he couldn’t be. He was going tocarry meon his fucking shoulder because I refused to go with him?!

“I’m always serious,” he said. “Steady…”

Fuck that.“Put me down, Taland. Right now—put me down!” That I even had to tell him this was beyond me.

“No.”

“Put. Me. Down!” I tried again, even knowing his answer wasn’t going to change.

“No.”

I slammed both my fists onto his back.

He laughed.

“Taland, you’re being ridiculous—let go of me!” And I thrashed my legs, too.

All that did was earn me a slap on my ass, so hard it stung, but the asshole didn’t let me go.

For a moment there, I considered reaching for my weapons. He deserved to be stabbed in the back, literally this time. I could shoot him in the foot, too. That would do it—he’d have no choice but to let go of me then.

But I couldn’t. Even though he might be the most frustrating being on the planet, I couldn’t stab him or shoot him while he carried me across the field to the darkness on the other side. I just continued to hit him and thrash and demand he put me down, and he continued to tell menoand slap my ass and laugh.

Had I had my magic, all of this would have been over in an instant.

Had I had my magic, I could have made him trip easily, and he’d have had no choice but to let go.

It didn’t last long, though. By the end, I gave up thestruggle and just hung there on his shoulder, his ass right there below my head, and I was considering slapping the hell out of it, too, when we walked inside somewhere.

I hadn’t bothered to keep my head up to see where we were going, but it was a building with a lot of open space, it seemed, because the sound of Taland’s footsteps as he took us up the concrete stairway echoed eternally—or so it seemed to me. The air was colder, and it was darker here, so dark I couldn’t see anything.

Until we reached the third or fourth floor, and a little light slipping through an opening in the wall—an opening, not a window, like someone had taken off a chunk of the building and forgot to cover it up.

Then Taland slapped my ass again, for no fucking reason, and it echoed, that sound. It echoed and I was ready to scream my guts out at him, but the next second he bent over and put me down on my feet.

The world tilted in front of my eyes, then fell into place. His smiling face was in front of me, and he looked soyoung,so carefree, so mischievous my heart hurt a little.

Then I made to slap him again.

He saw it coming this time, though. My hand was an inch away from his cheek when he grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me, smiling still.

“You’re tired, sweetness. You really need to rest,” he said and pointed behind him—at the single mattress on the concrete floor of the naked room. Near it was an old, dusty lamp, and a hay basket full of green apples.

“And you need to get the hell away from me,” I said, meaning to move back, except he still had his hand around my wrist, so he pulled me toward him with ease.

“Not going to happen,” he simply said. “Don’t make me carry you again.”

“I amnotgoing?—”

Just like that, I was upside down again, hanging over his shoulder. The asshole walked up to the mattress andthrewme on it.

He threw me on the fucking mattress.

I could have screamed.

Instead, I jumped to my feet again, determined to fight until I passed out, and Taland wasn’t smiling anymore. But this time, when he threw me on the bed again, he fell with me. On top of me. Pinned me to the mattress with his arms and legs. Refused to let me move.

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