Page 7 of Moonmarked

Neither happened.

The doors seemed to be opening wider, and I could tell by the sound they made as they were dragged against the ground. I couldn’t see anything, could hardly hear the footsteps now, but they were coming closer to me.

Regret came over me just like before.Fuck, fuck, fuck!I should have found a better hiding spot, damn it. I should have been more clever!

Too late now. With my tongue between my teeth to make sure I didn’t scream accidentally, I waited.

Someone spoke, but only the muffled sound of their voices reached my ears through the fabrics over my head.

A moment later, the lid of the chest I was in closed.

A miracle I didn’t scream or jump or move at all. My body could have been made out of concrete, each one of my muscles clenched, my eyes squeezed tightly still, my heart trying to break right out of me. The lid of the chest was closed and the sound of it still echoed in my mind. Fuck, it sounded sofinal,and the urge to get up, to push it back open, to get the hell out of there was so strong.

The next second, I was picked up.

Voices outside, and my heart beat too loudly to hearanything even if I hadn’t had soft silk in all shades of green all over me. My God, I was suffocating, even though I felt air going down my throat. There was plenty of it, yet I couldn’t convince myself that my lungs were expanding and Iwasn’tabout to die any second now.

Rune.

That’s what I needed to focus on—Rune. His indigo eyes, those silver maps in them that could very well show me my way home. A very different home from the one I grew up in, though. A home that felt entirelymine.My destiny, if I even believed in such a thing.

His smile that was only half most of the time, but then when he gave me the full version, it was worthy of fucking worship. I wanted to live just so I could see more of those smiles forever. His lips that tasted better than anything to have ever existed, and his body that made mine come alive, and his voice—God, his voice. Not a whisper, not quite voice, but the sweetest spot in between.

Now, as I thought of it, I could have sworn that Rune was there behind me, and the silk was his arms, and he was whispering to me that we were going to be okay. Whatever came next, it didn’t matter because we were going to make sure that we would be okay.

The chest was put down, and I exhaled for as long as I could.

I wasn’t dying, not even close.

Then someone shouted something—could have been aready!Whatever they’d put the chest in moved, and suddenly I heard that weak sound of wheels turning again.

A carriage. There was a good chance that I was put in a carriage, and maybe I had chosen the exactlyrightspot to hide in. Maybe wherever they were taking this chest full ofsilk would be far away from the queen’s palace, from the queen and the prince and everyone else—until Rune found me.

Maybe I wasreallygoing to be okay.

three

Whatever carriagethey’d put me in, we were on the road for a long time. Could have been a few hours, could have been one, but to me it felt like an eternity.

In the first few minutes, while my fear still had a hold of me and was threatening to drive me insane if I didn’tseewith my own eyes what was happening, I actually pushed the pieces of silk aside, and I tried to see through the holes on the side of the giant chest. Something blocked my sight, though. That’s why I pushed the lid open—all the time imagining that a fire-breathing dragon was going to scorch me alive as I did—until I saw that I was indeed in a carriage. A massive carriage, at least three times the size of the one Rune and I had ridden in, and there were no seats here, just six chests, and three big wooden boxes. The white fabric that covered the entire carriage was thick enough so that I only saw that it was daylight outside, that’s it. No opening, no windows, just the wooden structure that held it up.

Most importantly, there was nobody in there with me.

Wherever I was going, the guards hadn’t seen me. Thepeople who were controlling this carriage had no idea I was here.

For now, I took it.

My fear and my panic calmed down, and eventually I was able to close the lid of the chest again and think. Plan. Try to see a way out of this situation, despite how absurd and utterly hopeless the whole thing was.

I was in a different world, and I was being chased away by royal guards, accused of murdering the very prince I’d come here to save.

Things were bad. They werebadbad.

But then there was Rune, and as long as Rune was around, I felt like I could make it. Whatever kind of magic that man put on me, the thought of him gave me hope. The thought of him made me believe—truly believe—that I would actually make it out of this somehow and get back home.

And in order to talk to Rune, I had to send him a message, to let him know where I was. So, the plan was simple—I needed to find my way back to Blackwater, the vampire territory of Verenthia, and find Raja, Rune’s friend, the woman who saved his life, who saved mine.

She hated me, Raja, and that was okay. She could communicate with Rune through shadows, and that’s all I cared about. If I had to, I’d beg her to tell Rune I was there, and then he’d come. I had no doubt in my mind that he would come.

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