Page 48 of Bounty Hunter

He puts his hand over my mouth and listens as I continue to speak through his hand. “Sh!”

I stop and listen. The loud rumble of a wagon on this bumpy road is distant but growing closer. I almost bounce with joy and peel his hand from my face.

“Maybe we can hitch a ride,” I whisper with excitement. I already feel the steamy bath, warm soup, soft bed.

Ikar grabs my upper arm and hauls me into the woods to our right, but there’s not much space to hide before the trees drop away and we’re left beside a steep hill. Steep enough that if we fall, we won’t be able to stop. He shushes me with his blue eyes and keeps moving forward, completely silent. My own steps seem to magnify. No matter how I step, I find myself cringing with every crack and crunch of forest below my feet. How is a man his size so quiet?

But as the wagon grows closer, I hear sounds of crashing and movement through the forest behind us, it makes me want to forgo all my failing efforts at stealth and charge recklessly away. The only things that would be making sounds such as these are large, dangerous animals, and I don’t want to meet them. Ikar was right.Like he always is. I purse my lips.

The sounds grow closer, but even though Ikar could probably run and maybe get ahead, I can’t.Dratted everwisp and her nasty vines. When my instinct says to hide, to imagine myself as the smallest fern amidst this forest of towering trees, I fight it. Ikar doesn’t stop, and there’s no way I’m choosing to pretend to be a fern over following my criminal. He’s proven over and over that he’s my safest bet. He starts running, and I force myself to keep up. Leaves and branches slap my arms and face, bushes clawing at my clothing like they’re trying to hold me back.

The mixture of growls that surround us, ahead and behind, tells me we’ve been caught, but we keep running. A great, hulking beast of an animal sends some sort of yipping signal to his friends, and within moments, we’re surrounded by a groupof shifters, some in animal form, some in human form. Either way, it’s intimidating.

They don’t wait long to demand our weapons. And when we refuse, an arm wraps around my neck and squeezes.

“Drop them,” the voice says behind me.

“We mean no harm,” Ikar says placatingly. “Just trying to cross the forest.” He carefully lays down his sword and two other knives, along with his bow and several arrows. The enchanted sword lies among the assortment innocently. I can only hope these shifters won’t know what it is, and we can somehow get it all back.

“Trespasser is what you are.” The weapons are snatched up, and my neck is released. Someone roughly jerks my arms behind my back and forces me toward the road. I don’t try to fight, even when my forearm burns with pain. The shifters in animal form have their teeth bared threateningly, and growls come from deep in their throats as they surround us. It feels like they wait for an excuse to rip our throats out. Ikar must sense it too, because he is surprisingly compliant.

Everyone kept warning about mate bond this and mate bond that. So far, the mate bond has been the least of our worries. The group of shifters tosses us in the back of some sort of low-level prison wagon, stripped of all our weapons. Our packs, everything except the clothes on our backs, have been stolen.

The wagon is like a large, rectangular, filthy coffin. Low and flat, I doubt the sides are more than two feet tall. I cringe as a heavy board is lifted up and slammed over the top, effectively cutting off all sunlight, and possibly even oxygen. My nose is inches from the top. It smells dusty, and I sneeze twice, my forehead almost hitting the board above us with the motion. A unique way to make sure prisoners can’t escape since I can’teven bend my legs enough to use any strength to push against it. I hear what sounds like someone latching the sides and then the creaking weight of someone taking a seat on top. The cracks that had been showing, letting in the tiniest bit of light and air, are gone. Never mind about the sunlight and oxygen. My chest grows tight, claustrophobia settling in.

“Now would be an excellent time to remove the cuff,” Ikar suggests simply in the darkness. His voice low and smooth.

“Don’t take advantage of the situation.” I gasp between quick breaths. I’m on the verge of hyperventilation.

“I’m definitely going to take advantage of the situation.”

I don’t know if he’s joking or not, but likely not, with the present circumstances. I don’t know what to say. I finally decide on a simple, but wise, response. “No.”

“Fine. We’ll probably suffocate within the hour, but it’s up to you,” he says, like it’ll be all my fault. I think I feel his shoulder shrug carelessly.

“It’s up tome?” My voice is a rising whisper.

“I can get us out of here in five minutes, tops, with my magic freed.”

Ikar is naturally confident, but this is over-the-top cocky.

Now I’m just getting mad. “You tell me you’re not a criminal, but you sure lie like one.”

This is not the time to play these games.

“Why won’t you trust me?” He sounds angry now, but he keeps his voice low.

“Because you’re a criminal.”

He growls in frustration, and I turn my head in his direction, ready to scold him into silence. “Why can’t you just beha?—

My words are cut off when he looks at me at the same time, and we find our faces mere inches apart. The frustrated pullof his brow softens in the dim light, and I forget what I was trying to say. The claustrophobic feeling fades, the dirty prison wagon fades, and Ikar and I both move to close the small gap.

Then we hear a muffled yell with a snap of reins, and the wagon lurches forward. I yank my gaze back to the board above us as awkwardness fills every dirty crevice of the wagon. Is it shrinking in here, or is it just me?

I just almost kissed my criminal. Again. Hold up,mycriminal? How long have I been calling him that? I start panicking. He’s not mine. He’s a bounty. I’ve never kissed any bounties. That’s definitely on thenever dolist. Tatania would be so disappointed. And Ialmostjust kissed him a second time. If anyone ever finds out about this arrest, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.

The wheels turning over dirt, roots, and rocks are noisy and awfully jostling, and we must have gone over some sort of slanted hill because I slide into Ikar, and my head hits the front of the wagon simultaneously. I do my best to wiggle back to my side. Once I’m situated again, I let out a long sigh, probably using up precious, limited oxygen by doing so.

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