Page 37 of The Prince's Captive

He then looked her over once more and asked, “Nothing else?”

She kept her injured wrist close to her chest as she nodded. “Nothing else. Then you arrived.”

Gavril seemed to finally accept that and started to rise, pulling her up with him. He then reached into his pockets and pulled out a key.

As he did so, she heard voices in the near distance. They weren’t speaking her language. Gavril’s movements increased in speed when they got slightly louder.

Why were his movements so frantic? Why wasn’t he calling out to his men? What was the key for?

When he grabbed her right wrist, the noise she made was somewhere between a gasp and yelp at the pain ripping through her. But then she saw what he was doing.

Why was he unlocking her manacles?

The metal hit the ground with a clang and Marcella gasped again as the muffled, suffocating feeling she had grown used to vanished. She could feel the vitae running through her body again. Her eyes watered at the sudden surge of power and she gaped down at her now freed wrists.

He dropped her wrists, and then his hands were cupping her jaw and tilting her head back up to look at him. For a moment he just stared down at her. She was completely frozen in place, torn between the power now surging through her veins and the weight of unsaid words in his eyes.

Why was he looking at her like that? He stared at her like there was so much left to say, but there were no words for her to understand him if he did.

He let go, pulling his hands back. He finally opened his mouth and spoke in her language, “Not much time. Go.”

“What?”

He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the voices. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and leaned down so he was closer to her eye level. “Know your way home?”

“I—you’re—you’re letting me go?” Marcella finally put it together. It felt too obvious.

After falling for a painfully obvious trap once that night, Marcella wasn’t eager to repeat the mistake. Besides, it made no sense. He’d spent days trying to drag information out of her only to get nothing, and he was just giving up and letting her go?

But… if this wasn’t a trap—

“Can you get home?”

She would figure it out. She gave him a weak nod.

His grip loosened. She started to turn to take off, but the second before she could, his grip tightened again. She stumbled as he didn’t let go and turned to look back at him.

She only heard it because she could see his lips forming the words.

“Vale.Fortassealtera vita.”

Marcella just stared at him. His eyes were burning into her. Her mind was spinning too fast to even attempt to translate it. Although maybe it was the same for him, which was why he hadn’t tried to translate it into her tongue.

Before she could open her mouth to ask, the voices grew louder.

“Go!” Gavril switched back to her tongue and pushed at her shoulders, finally releasing her. She stumbled into a step.

Maybe it was a miracle after all.

Marcella took a few more faltering steps back, keeping her eyes on Gavril in the darkness as best she could. Why? Why would he do this?

But she didn’t have time to waste trying to find out if she wanted to have a hope at getting away. She wanted to believe he was having mercy on her, and if this was real, she couldn’t afford for her doubt to cost her this chance.

She had access to her vitae now. That at least gave her a chance no matter how small.

She turned away from Gavril, but she could still feel his green eyes fixed on her as she started to run deeper into the forest.

The voices, however, were so much louder and far too close.

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