Chapter Two

When in Doubt, Hit the Escaping Man With a Stick

Whump!

The rock seemed to come out of nowhere, jutting through the snow so that Tristan Harrison only saw it at the last minute. His entire body trembled with the impact, and he sailed several feet through the air before landing hard in the snow.

“Aargh,” he groaned, certain he’d broken something. He wasn’t sure what, but it didn’t matter right now, not with that frantic voice in the back of his mind screaming, Run!

Tristan was back on his feet in a flash. His lungs, straining to keep up with his exertions, he took off through the snow, powering downhill like he had a pack of hungry dogs on his tail.

And he did. Except those hungry dogs happened to be Angus Denning’s men. And unlike regular dogs, Tristan had no way of knowing what exactly Angus or his men would do if they caught him. The possibilities swept across his mind, each worse than its predecessor; between his racing mind and his throbbing heart, it was a wonder his legs hadn’t completely given out beneath him.

How long had he been on the run? A day? Two? He hadn’t bothered to keep track ever since he took off from his village, Elorn, before sunrise. For now, he cared about one thing and one thing only: that Angus and his men should not find him. If they did, it was all over.

Who was he kidding? It was already over. He’d abandoned his nephew back in Elorn when he ran from the village. He’d left the only place he’d ever truly called home. He’d left no doubt in Angus’s mind that he was responsible for the deaths of not one but both of the village chief’s sons.

It occurred to him as he ran that he’d made a big mistake leaving the woods. Out in the open, without trees to duck behind, he was visible to any and all who were after him. Overhead, the sky’s orange hue was slowly darkening to gray. Soon, it would be too dark to move around. Even then, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t be spotted.

Angus’s men had almost caught up with him yesterday. He’d been resting against a tree when he heard the snap of a twig and glanced up to see four of them slowly approaching. Looking back on it, Tristan could have stayed and put up a fight. There was no guarantee that he’d have taken down four large men at once, but he was quite strong himself. He could have taken two of them out with his blades.

No, that would have been counterintuitive. The last thing he needed was blood on his hands, not with everything going on now.

Tristan dug his heels into the ground, pushing himself forward with a desperation he’d never felt before in his fifty-three years. He sidestepped another rock he hadn’t seen before, stumbling to regain his balance. Were Angus’s men getting closer? He didn’t bother to glance over his shoulder. He couldn’t hear them, but that wasn’t enough to make him slow down. He would stop once his gut instructed him to.

Tristan doubted that would be anytime soon. His thighs throbbed in complaint as he dashed downhill. Running would be much easier if he simply shifted into his wolf form, but he’d been avoiding it ever since that night…

Ever since Benedict and Midas were found lying in a pool of their own blood.

The image flashed through his mind just then, and a wave of horror washed over him. He wasn’t responsible for it. He couldn’t be. The curse hadn’t manifested in nearly a hundred years. He couldn’t have slain those young men.

You were barely conscious, Tristan, he reminded himself. You were drunk. You wouldn’t have remembered if you did it, anyway. Besides, you never liked those men. Or Angus, for that matter.

But that didn’t mean he’d killed anyone, did it?

Trying to prove his innocence would be futile. Running was the sensible option.

His current predicament would be amusing if it weren’t so grave. He was a hunter and had been one for decades now. Hunting and tracking came as easily to him as breathing. Yet here he was, running like prey. For the first time, he had become the hunted. And his chances of making it away were quite slim.

A voice broke through his thoughts, somewhat faint in the gentle wind, but Tristan didn’t pause to check where it had come from. No doubt one of Angus’s men. They must be gaining on him. With an extra burst of effort, he increased his pace, trying to avoid losing his balance this time.

At this rate, he might not even get to find a place to hide tonight. Angus and his men didn’t seem to tire. His best option was losing them, but leaving behind false tracks for them to follow would take more time than he had to spare, not to mention they could simply shift and track him down as wolves. Still, a faint spark of hope lingered in the back of Tristan’s mind as he ran for his life.

Ariadne .

It had been years since she threw him out of her home—fifteen years, to be precise—but Tristan remembered exactly where she lived. He doubted she would take kindly to his reappearance, but that was only a secondary concern.

First, he needed to survive. And to do that, he needed to keep running.

He heard the sound of footsteps just then, growing heavier and more rapid by the second.

They were gaining on him!

This time, he dared to crane his neck, nearly losing his balance again in the process. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his pursuer southwest of him, clutching a stick half the size of his arm.

Tristan’s heart slowed suddenly, then picked up the pace, beating an erratic rhythm in his chest. Even in the growing darkness, he could see that it wasn’t one of Angus’s men who was after him. No, this person was much, much smaller.

It was a woman.

Tristan barely had time to process his confusion. The woman reached him in a matter of seconds and swung the stick.

Crack!

A bright light exploded behind his eyes, and he stumbled forward, landing with a soft thud in the snow and rolling several feet before coming to a halt.

“Aargaahh,” he groaned again. Pain throbbed in the back of his skull where he’d been struck.

His mind and heart racing at the same pace, Tristan rolled over onto his back, struggling to comprehend what had just happened to him. He’d been attacked, but not by one of Angus’s men. Instead, a woman had taken him by surprise, knocking him down with nothing but a stick.

The crunch of snow beneath booted feet snapped him back to attention. The woman was drawing nearer, her stick raised as if to strike him again. The large coat she had on fluttered lightly around her slender frame as she advanced.

“Theophilus Hill,” he heard her say. “Did you really think you could get away from me?”

Ignoring the pain that reverberated through his skull with the effort, Tristan sprang to his feet and braced himself, prepared to fight her if he needed to. No sooner had he raised his fists than she dropped the stick and withdrew a pair of gleaming shackles from underneath her coat. Before he could figure out what was going on, she slapped one shackle onto his wrist, slipping the other bracelet onto hers.

His eyes widened. “What the—?”

“It’s over, buster,” she told him. “You’re coming with me.”