Page 114 of Edge of the Wild

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Even if she was stubborn as a mule, as Malcolm often told her, Amelia knew when she was outnumbered. She went willingly to her knees, empty hands behind her head, and didn’t resist when the Sels bound them. That didn’t prevent one from pressing a noxious rag over her nose and mouth until unconsciousness claimed her.

She woke slowly, lurching toward awareness and then falling back into deep, velvet black. Noises intruded, pain, flickers of indistinct light. Impulses fired in her brain:run; fight; no.

When true consciousness finally found her, the first thing she noticed was the dry, awful cotton texture of the inside of her mouth, and the burning in her nostrils. Aftereffects of the chemical they’d forced her to breathe. Her eyelids were heavy, but she cracked them open a fraction. Firelight. Her own booted feet, stretched out before her. A little flexing of stiff muscles, and an ache in her back proved she’d been seated on the hard ground, and had her hands bound behind her back around a thick wooden stake wide as a young tree trunk. The fire was huge, crackling, and hot, ringed by stones – and by her men. They were all staked out the same way she was. Malcolm wasn’t beside her, but halfway around the blaze, at the edge of a shadow. And he was awake: his head turned toward her, eyes glittering wide and furious – and worried. Worried for her.

She blinked at him, but didn’t lift her head, and lowered her lashes when she heard voices close behind her.

Two men. Sels, speaking in their lilting, musical language that seemed composed entirely of vowels. It made some sense when she saw it written, but listening to a rapid-fire conversation between two native speakers was unintelligible to her.

She wished she’d taken Oliver up on his offer to tutor her.

They sounded to be having an argument: one’s tone was pleading, the other impatient. She had no doubt she and her men were the topic of conversation.

Moving slowly, trying not to wince against the crick in her neck, she turned her head a fraction, trying to get a better feel for their surroundings.

Connor was staked out right beside her, his chin fallen forward on his chest – but his lashes flicking as he blinked. He was awake.

She wet dry lips with a dry tongue and whispered, “Connor, what’s happening?”

He didn’t respond.

Her feet were loose, and, as subtly as she could, she kicked him in the boot.

His head lifted, and when he turned toward her, he wore the face of a grieving man. Grieving his wife.

She felt a momentary pang, but there was no time for grief right now. “Where are we?” she hissed.

When he spoke, his voice sounded as if his throat was as dry as her own. “In Inglewood. In the duchy proper. At the border of the forest – and my brother’s estate.”

The conversation behind her continued, uninterrupted, so she dared to lift her head another fraction and search to either side of them. The light of the fire was too bright to make out much, but the moon was up, gleaming off frosted grass – and blackened tree stumps that gave evidence to the Sels having started to clear-cut the wood back. Sels in their gold armor moved about, firelight gleaming off breastplates and pauldrons.

She turned back to Connor. “Where’s your brother?”

Still facing forward, his gaze lifted, head tilting back against the stake he was bound to.

Amelia started to ask him again, but the look on his face chilled her, suddenly, and she turned to follow his gaze.

Just visible in the shadows beyond the firelight, she recognized an unmistakeable outline stamped against the moon-pearled sky. A gallows. And swaying from it, a body, its face twisted grotesquely in death. He had Connor’s nose, though.

She shuddered.

“They did it before nightfall,” he said. “while you were still unconscious.” A smile flashed, tight and bitter. “He was helping them, cooperating. He let them use the manor. And then they dragged him out and hanged him. I don’t know what happened to his wife,” he said, tone light and detached. Vacant. “I suppose they’re raping her.”

Amelia’s stomach rolled, and she took a few deep breaths through her nose, willing it to settle. “How long was I out?”

“Two days. The time it took us to travel through the forest.”

“You haven’t seen my horse, have you?”

“No.”

She cast another glance around. Malcolm caught her eye, brows lifting in question. She shook her head. She had no idea what to do at this point. She tugged ineffectually at her bonds: stuck fast. They weren’t getting out of this. Not on their own.

Belatedly, she realized the conversation behind her had ended. Footsteps crunched over pebbles and small twigs.

Too late to pretend she was still out cold. She pressed her head back against the stake, schooled her features, and kept her gaze high – meeting that of the Sel captain when he came to stand before her.

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