Page 4 of Married By Treachery

But this…this more resembled a scene from Raquel’s nightmares, which she had aplenty.

Startled, and now a bit wary, she glanced back at the Bear Prince, who promptly dismounted. The mist seemed to curl around him, this wild prince of a dying forest, while his kith eyed the trees. The Bear Prince stalked forward and then crouched upon his haunches before a large tree root.

The root twisted and coiled like a fat serpent, as though bloated and swollen from its last meal. Raquel shifted in the saddle, straining to look ahead, to see around the Bear Prince’s broad back, to see what he was doing, and he reached into his oversized earthy-brown coat and withdrew a curved dagger.

Raquel sat stone-still, eyeing that shining silver claw. This was it. This was the moment he would take her life.

Her heart pounded.

Yes, Lee had been right: shehadtrained for this moment. Extensively. However, “this moment” was supposed to happen within the confines of the Bear Prince’s bedchamber. There was no way that she could overcome a Bear and two dozen armed Forest kith.

Raquel was determined, but she wasn’t an idiot.

Mostly.

Raquel appraised her immediate surroundings. If only she could draw him away. Isolate him. Then she might have a chance. She was a good rider—better than most, thanks to her equestrian father. It didn’t matter so much that she had no idea where she was, or where to go, as long as she lured the Bear Prince away from the others, and if she acted quickly—

The Bear Prince stabbed the silver claw into the root, and, to Raquel’s shock and horror, bright red blood oozed out of it.

All of her strategizing promptly evaporated. “Is thatblood?” Raquel asked.

The Forest kith cast her sideways glances, and horses shifted, but no one answered.

Raquel could not see the Bear Prince’s face. He was still turned away from them as he observed the bleeding root and lifted the silver claw that now dripped crimson. It was a siren of color in this gray world.

And then he stood.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. He simply stared ahead, as if waiting for something to materialize in the mist.

Finally, he turned around.

He looked very much like a bear in that moment. A bear standing at full height, one claw dripping with the blood of the victim he had just savagely maimed.

Raquel felt a rare spike of fear, and her hand twitched at her hip on reflex.

“Should we stop at Drava, or did you wish to”—one of the kith started, then glanced at her—“continue?”

The Bear Prince considered, and then his gaze settled upon Raquel. Particularly on her hand. Raquel couldn’t be certain through all his hair, but he almost looked amused.

“We’ve no time for Drava,” he answered in that same commanding voice as he pulled a cloth from his coat to wipe the blood from his silver claw. “But we should not linger, or Drava will become a necessity.”

The Bear Prince shoved the claw back into his belt. The cloth, however, spontaneously combusted in his grip. He regarded it calmly—almost in boredom—as he watched it dissolve into ash and be stolen away by an errant breeze.

Raquel had never seen magik before. She’d heard mention of it from Hamor and her father and Lee, and she knew well that a supernatural force had protected their little village all these years, but that force had been invisible. She’d never seen such a tangible display, and it left her momentarily awestruck.

The Bear Prince caught her watching, Raquel looked abruptly away, and he strode straight for her and his steed.

But he did not mount.

Instead, he reached beneath her skirts.

On reflex, Raquel grabbed his arm and twisted, but he wasshockinglyfaster. Within seconds, he’d trapped her arm, and her leg, and withdrawn the dagger she’d strapped high against her thigh. The one that Lee had fashioned for her.

Raquel would have felt violated if she weren’t currently furious at being ousted.

The Bear Prince observed the dagger, then her. “And what, pray, would a fair maiden such as yourself be doing in possession of an item such as this? Onemightassume you intended your betrothed harm.”

His voice dripped with condescension, and a few of his kith snickered.

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