Page 101 of The Devil Baron

Victoria unlocked her arm from Eva’s back and reached down to the blade wedged in the side of her boot. She motioned for Eva and Torrie to continue forward. “Keep going. I will catch up.”

Eva’s head shook wildly, her fingers reaching out to grab the blade away from Victoria. “No. No. Give me the dagger. I stay—I will only slow you two down. I know well what to do with a blade.”

“Not on only one good foot.” Torrie’s hand knocked Eva’s down and then went for the blade. “I’ll take it and stay—I’ve got the proper Scottish battle skills.”

“And I’ve been taught by all of you—including Jules.” Victoria jumped a step backward out of their reach, her voice a hiss. “Go. I know what I’m doing.”

Neither moved a muscle. Both stubborn, standing and staring at her like she was a petulant child.

Victoria heaved breath and pulled the hood of her dark cloak up over her head. “You know what Jules has taught me trumps everything you two know—plus I’m not weak from days of starvation. This is the best chance we have.”

With that, Eva and Torrie glanced at each other, then both looked back to her.

“Catch up soon,” Torrie whispered.

Victoria expelled a sigh of both relief and dread as they started to move away from her through the trees, Eva leaning heavily on Torrie. They quickly, if not quietly, disappeared out of sight.

The footfalls came closer, the strides faster.

She saw him before he could make her out in the shadows.

One of the brutes that they had followed to the castle. Seymour? His laughter in the room as Rafe had tortured her had been particularly vile.

With a rifle strung across his back, the tall cutthroat walked, his head down and back hunched, as he followed the trail of their steps in the snow.

Whether or not he knew it was their trail he followed, she wasn’t so sure. It hadn’t been that long since they’d made it out of the cell, and Eva’s feet had mostly dragged through the snow, so it wasn’t clearly evident what had made the tracks in the low moonlight.

By daylight, though, it would be obvious they’d moved through here and easy enough to track them. They needed to get to the road and on some horses soon.

For even in the dark, the brute would catch up to Torrie and Eva in no time.

That couldn’t happen.

Heat surged through her limbs, making her fingers twitch on the handle of the dagger as she silently stepped beside a tree to hide herself next to the tracks.

He huffed, his hot breath puffing into the air around him, then paused for a moment, pulling free a long dagger from a sheath at his waist as his eyes scanned the trees.

Tall, wide, not terribly fit, but he could probably crush her with one swipe of his arm.

Studying him as he picked his way through the trees, she realized her chances of attacking him head-on and coming out the victor were not good—especially as he already had a blade at the ready.

She’d thought to just injure him enough so he couldn’t pursue them—take out his legs at the knees—but that option would be stupid. She could cut him at the legs, but there would be no getting close enough to silence the brute as she needed to. He was massive and his screams would cause more guards to come.

If more guards came, they would be on Torrie and Eva in no time. Or her. Death would not be far behind.

Not an option.

This was—as Jules had impressed upon her once, and only once—a choice moment. A moment where she needed to choose to live, even if she had to damn her soul to hell for that to happen.

No fairness. No mercy. No second guesses.

Just action.

She was ready for that choice.

Her muscles coiling, she waited, completely still, each breath she took only a shallow dip in and out of her lungs.

Closer. Closer. Closer.

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