Page 49 of Moonmarked

I dropped the plate on the ground, turned around, and ran back the same way through which Maera and the wolves had brought me here.

The crazy part? I wasfast.So much faster than I thoughtI would be because I’d eaten and I’d rested—and also my life was on the line.

Or maybe it was that moon magic stuff. Maybeitwas responsible for the way my legs were moving. For my stamina. For my near perfect sight in the dark, even close to the line of trees where the lights of the house didn’t reach.

I thought I would make it. I looked back, and the soldiers had charged after me, but I thought I could run just as fast as them. And since I already had a head start, I thought I could get to a hiding place and wait until they walked away.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

Darkness spread on the ground around me, fast—like waves crashing on the shore. A sense of deja-vu hit me instantly because I’d seen those shadows shaped like tendrils spreading around the same way.

Raja’s magic. So powerful, so deep, the shadows looked like pure black ink as they swallowed every inch of the ground to my side and came for me faster by the second.

I knew it was a done deal. I remembered how those succubi had fallen the moment they’d touched the darkness, but I still tried to run faster. I still tried to change direction, jump into the lake,swimaway from here if I had to.

Then the shadows touched my feet.

I didn’t fall quite like the succubi had, but there was no way to stop or get those shadows off me. Dark and dead and cold as the night, they spread up my feet and wrapped around both my legs, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break through.

A scream of raw anger ripped out of me, and I fell forward on the ground that had become pure darkness. The side of my head slammed onto something hard.

I lost consciousness right away.

The soundof wheels turning and the feeling of being pushed and pulled on all sides woke me up. I blinked, but there was still darkness in front of my eyes. My neck hurt because I’d been holding it to the side at a bad angle, but other than that, I seemed to be intact. Breathing and aware that something cold and heavy was around my wrists.

Suddenly, my brain was wide awake.

Suddenly, I remembered Raja’s face, the soldiers—the Seelie soldiers found me!

Fear rose inside me, took my breath away for a beat, forced my eyes to blink faster until I was able to see where I was.

Bars. Thick and made of dark metal—there were bars in front of me, and on the other side, four Seelie soldiers sat on wooden seats that extended from the wall of the room.

No—the carriage.We were in a carriage, and we were moving.

Holy fuck, we were moving.

It was a big carriage, unlike any I’d seen so far because half of it was barred. I was the only one behind said bars, sitting on the cold wooden floor, and the chain that was wrapped around my wrists was welded to this large piece of metal just outside the bars.

Hot and cold energy spilled inside me at the same time, and the view in front of me tilted. Chains as thick as my forearms were around me, locked tightly, my fingers white because very little blood seemed to be flowing to them. That’s why I could barely move my hands.

My mouth opened to speak, to demand somebody tell me where we were and where they were taking me, and to take those damn chains off my wrists—but I couldn’t make a single sound.

Because I knew where we were going. I knew why they’d chained my wrists to this fucking carriage.

The Seelie Queen had found me, and her soldiers were taking me to her.

The Seelie Queen who was undoubtedly going to have my head, and she wouldn’t even believe me if I told her that Lyall wasn’t dead. That hecouldn’tbe simply because I wasn’t.

Tears pricked the back of my eyes. I closed them and took in a deep breath, tried to calm my racing thoughts. There were no windows in the carriage, only those balls of golden light floating about in the air, so I had no idea where we were right now or if it was daylight outside.

But I could still make it. There were only four soldiers with me in the carriage. The fact that Raja had betrayed me meant nothing, and we were probably not in Blackwater anymore anyway, but it didn’t matter.

I would try.

The heat inside me clicked, just like before. It was there, and it was going to work, break these chains and throw these soldiers off me until I could escape. The doors of the carriage were at the back. I could jump before anybody out there even saw me.

And I was going to. I wasn’t going to stop, until…

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