Page 30 of The Stolen Princess
Wait.
That wasn’t just any man; it was Drake. Myka would recognize that face anywhere. He was dressed in all black like always, and her pink scarf was wrapped around his arm.
Her breath burst out of her, matching her exploding heart rate. “Are you crazy!” she yelled, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. “I could’ve killed you!”
“Mya?” Drake’s face paled. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m going home. What are you doing here?”
“I…uh…” He stared at her for a moment. The creases on his forehead deepened like he was as confused as she was.
Arco came up the path behind them. He must have been waiting outside the Tolsten wall for her to come back from the market. He prodded his horse forward. “Is everything okay?” he asked, looking between her and Drake.
Myka swallowed. “Yes, it’s fine. This man scared me and Bronze. That’s all.”
Drake’s gaze moved to Arco. There was a question behind his stare that scared Myka like this moment was big and significant. The stillness in the air made the hair on her arms stand up. She hadn’t thought Drake was dangerous. He was a friend of Rommel’s. He’d smiled and flirted with her earlier, but for some reason Myka’s heart pounded inside of her chest.
Drake looked around. Why had he stopped her? Something wasn’t right. It should have been easy to recognize the danger, but instead, Myka’s mind looked for reasons why everything was still okay. Normal. The trees around her rustled, and she swallowed back the sick feeling inside. Her eyes turned to Drake like he would put the puzzle pieces together for her, like he had a perfectly good explanation for the noises surrounding them, but his eyes seemed distant, shocked.
Everything happened in slow motion.
Drake grabbed her off of her horse, pulling her arms around her back as he lifted her to the ground. His fingers clamped around her skin uncomfortably.
She should have screamed, but her focus went to him and his tight grip.
“Get off me!” she yelled, fighting back with violent jerks of her body. When that didn’t work, she sucked in the air around her and let out a high-pitched scream. “Arco! Help!”But from where she stood, she couldn’t see Arco or what he was doing.
Drake’s hand closed around her mouth, and his lips spoke close to her ear. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I’m sorry?
She tried to let out another loud scream.
“Yelling is pointless,” he whispered. “No one will hear you.”
Then why was his hand covering her mouth?
She had to do something. She twisted her body furiously, not giving up, until somehow she wiggled an arm free, throwing it back behind her. Her elbow acted like a knife against the corner of Drake’s eye, making his head jolt to the side. The hit split his skin open, and blood dripped down the side of his face.
He released her mouth, but instead of reaching for his now bleeding eye, he wrapped his arms around hers, restraining her movements. “Stop fighting me. We have you surrounded,” he said through heavy breaths.
His words took a moment to register inside her head. Myka’s eyes scanned the area. Five other men on horses circled around them. When had they appeared? Who were they? What did they want? It was amazing how quickly her mind rotated through those questions while also assessing the danger closing in on her. Myka’s neck stiffened, and a stabbing pain seared through her heart. How would she save her father? Escape these men?
“Princess Mykaleen,” one of the men said. He looked older than the rest, with gray and white hair. A thick beard covered his face, matching his hair color. His eyes glanced down at her from atop his horse. How did he know her name? Know that she was the princess? Since her mind couldn’t sort that out, her thoughts wandered to his age. He seemed old—too old to be ambushing a young girl. But was there really a good age for that sort of thing? “There’s no point in fighting us.”
What the old man said seemed pretty logical. There probably wasn’t any point, but that didn’t stop Myka from screaming as loud as she could again. It didn’t take long before Drake’s hand covered her mouth, making her taste the saltiness of his skin.
Behind her, Bronze whinnied, and she struggled to turn her head to the sound. She squinted her eyes to get a better look. Arco sat on his horse, holding Bronze’s reins. He had a pained expression on his face, but he wasn’t making any moves. Why wasn’t he doing anything to help her? The old man and the other riders nodded in Arco’s direction like they had some sort of secret code. Myka should have been concerned about that nod—that little gesture—but her mind couldn’t make sense of it. She wiggled her body furiously until Drake dropped his hand from her mouth.
“What’s going on here?” she yelled to Arco. His chin dropped, and his gaze fell away from her. “Arco, what’s going on?” she demanded.
“Tie her up.” The older man spoke again.
Myka’s stomach went hard. Things were moving too quickly to process. Another man with shaggy brown hair dismounted his horse and began walking toward her. He approached her slowly, inching closer with each footstep...and was that a knife in his hand?
The air escaped Myka’s lungs.
Itwasa knife.
