Page 122 of The Demon Crown

What she didn’t understand was why they were kidnapping townspeople. The Horde only had members who willingly joined, at least that was what she had assumed.

Glancing around herself, she found it hard to believe anyone in this party didn’t want to be here. The Horde members enjoyed killing and thieving far too much. So what did they want these people for?

She was jumping too far ahead of herself. Right now, she needed to focus on creating a distraction until Greed could find her. And then they would kill them all together.

The Horde moved quickly. One moment they were in a familiar part of the desert and the next, she wasn’t really sure where they were. The moon was just a sliver in the sky, and without its silvery light, the entire desert started to look the same. The deeper they went, the less she recognized.

Eventually, though, they reached an encampment much like the others she’d seen that the Horde had left behind. Tattered leather tents dotted the horizon, each one a little more dingy than the first. And when had she missed that the Horde wasn’t... prepared? It wasn’t ready for almost anything at all. They’d always seemed to have quality tents, but now that she’d lived in Greed’s home, she realized they were just as poor off as the rest of them.

The only difference was that the Horde had better fighters, and they were hard to find.

It was the Horde leader himself who came to yank her off the horse. He pulled too hard, and she ended up on her knees in the dirt. Spitting out a mouthful of sand, she glared up at him as he hauled her upright.

“Oh, yes. Glare all you want, little girl,” he snarled as he hauled her toward another tent. “I’m getting what I’m owed from you, one way or another.”

Did she owe him the map? Or did he have worse, more devious plans?

Letting out a snarl of her own, she only allowed him to push her toward the tent for show. But once inside, she whirled on him with her fists raised and her body much more prepared than it had been before. She’d spent hours training with the best, and she’d become a better fighter for it. Morag had shown her how to take down a man much larger, and how to fight against someone who couldn’t move as swift.

She would not go down without a fight, and he would have to learn the hard way. If he wanted to take her, then she’d have him spitting out his own teeth before he managed.

“Put away your claws,” he said, blocking the exit to the door with his body. “We’re going to have a little fun.”

The tight quarters of the tent would make it harder, yes. And she needed him to talk a bit longer so the other Horde members would think he was succeeding in what he intended to do.

He wasn’t a talker like Greed, but this would have to do.

“You will not touch me,” she warned. “Not after everything you put me through. If you think I’m going to just lie down and take it, you are sorely wrong.”

“I think you’ll do exactly that, after you tell me everything you know about Greed’s castle.” His thick beard twitched as though he smiled underneath all that fur. “You’re going to tell me how to get in. How to get out. How many people he has and the easiest ones to pick off. You’re going to draw me a detailed map, exactly where I can find all the places best suited for an explosion, the kind this kingdom has never seen.”

Her mouth fell open as she realized the Horde hadn’t been baiting Greed at all.

They’d been trying to capture her.

“How did you know I was even there?” she hissed, dodging him when he tried to grab her. She slipped between his legs and rolled upright on the other side, not even looking at the exit of the tent.

Out there, there were a hundred people waiting to fight her. In here? There was only one.

He turned with a growl, realizing far too quickly that she wanted to deal with him herself. He grinned again, this time with a flash of yellow teeth. “I’m no fool. I know that Greed is too powerful for me to fight on my own, which is why I plan to take him out at the knees. Destroy his army, his home, and there will be nothing left for him. Not even his pretty new toy, who will be ruined by the time I give her back to him.”

“You’ve trapped me twice before and it didn’t stick.”

“No, but this time I’m prepared with chains. I have people on all sides of this tent, so you aren’t getting out.” He reached for her again, but it was like trying to capture an eel with his bare hands. He caught the back of her shirt, but she slipped out of it before he could reel her in.

It worked to her advantage. The sight of her barely clothed torso was enough to make him freeze for the briefest second. The salacious grin on his face made her skin feel like she was covered in ants.

But it was enough.

“I refuse to tell you anything,” she said, making sure her words were loud. “You will have to torture me first.”

“I can make that happen.”

He lunged and this time she used his own weight against him. Varya wrapped an arm around his neck and flung her legs up. It gave her a small amount of purchase on his own body as she wheeled him around, wrapping her legs firmly around his throat and squeezing tight as both of them thudded hard into the sand.

He grappled with her, his powerful hands grabbing her thighs and trying to wrench them open. But she had the better angle, seated upon his shoulders on the ground with his head awkwardly at an angle. He tried to roll them. She twisted against him, using the momentum and fear that he must feel against him. She rolled if he wanted, like a snake she’d trapped against her limbs. But she never let up. Squeezing tighter, harder, until his face turned a deep purple and his eyes bulged as he stared up at her.

“I don’t like people who try to take what is not freely given,” she hissed. “Now you’re going to make a noise for your men to hear. You’re going to think you’re letting them know that you’re in danger, but all they’ll hear is a man in the midst of passion. Yes?”

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