Page 44 of Trapped By Vengeance

I nod, so glad that the coat survived. “I think you’re pretty.”

With that brilliant explanation, my body collapses onto the raft.

Chapter Twenty

Valda

My spirit watches as Konrad stares at my prostrate form in confusion. “What—?

“She did a lot of rowing,” Eloise offers quickly. “I probably should have helped. Then she wouldn’t have passed out instantly at sunset like an— like someone who’d been rowing all evening.”

Konrad frowns. “I feel like we should make it a priority to purchase a home somewhere with other kids your age. I don’t think hanging out with a gruff werwölfe is helping your communication skills.”

Eloise just shrugs and keeps her lips sealed.

Then Konrad shrugs back off his coat and lays it over my shoulders like a blanket. “Get some sleep, pup. We won’t reach shore until daybreak, and you’ll need your strength.”

“What about you?”

“I’m a werwölfe, remember? I’m strong enough for all of us.” Despite his brave words, I hear the tremble of weariness in his tone as he glances down at his fingernails.

They are stained with blood.

Eloise doesn’t seem to hear the tremble, though, and curls up on her side of the raft with Sir Pigeon, who watches me with his head tilted. Eloise’s stomach rumbles, but she doesn’t complain.

Neither does Konrad as he takes the oars and propels the raft forward alone.

It’s mesmerizing to watch him in action. Unlike my attempts with the oars, his every movement is strong, fluid, and graceful.

“All things considering,” I whisper, “you’re a good man, Konrad of Schwerin. As far as abductors go.”

Konrad glances back at that, and I fall silent. Then he returns to his labor of taking us safely ashore.

Konrad doesn’t fall completely asleep, but he slips into a daze.

I itch to learn one more memory from Konrad’s past before it’s too late.

My stomach lurches at that thought, and I quickly push away the reminder of what is to come. Then, because I know I’ll regret not doing it more than I’ll wish I didn’t if this goes wrong, I conjure my fangs. Slowly, I lean toward Konrad’s neck. If I do this just right, he won’t feel a thing, and he’ll think he was just dreaming . . .

As gently as if I were moving in for a kiss, I pierce his neck with my fangs.

The world fades away as his past engulfs me.

Thunder cracked around us and a fork of lightning illuminated the surroundings. He was standing at the edge of a campwith four leather tents and a firepit that was fizzling out in in the downpour.

Lightning flashes again, displaying a shadow not of a man, but of a werwölfe.

He lifts his head and howls into the night.

A man crawls out of the tents and sees him. He cries out in alarm, and then five other men appear, each holding assorted weapons.

They charge just as Konrad does.

The blades pierce his hide, but he doesn’t seem to notice as his claws slashed through their skin.

Screams fill the air, blurring with the thunder. Two men try to run. Konrad easily outpaces both. One was thrown into a tree, never to rise again. The other receives his death with a single bone-breaking bite. Then he is cast aside undevoured, because eating human flesh is evidently not Konrad’s style.

Though even with what I knew of these men’s fates, I did not think such slaughter was his style either. Especially after he let the pirates live the first time.

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