1. Chapter 1

Faster.

She had to be faster if she was to beat Lord Hedstrom back to the manor house.

Her legs pumping, her dress and boots gripped in her right hand, Nemity dodged trees on the trail through the woods.

The last time she'd been late to one of their meetings, he'd threatened to make her move to his castle on the coast. On the coast.

Far from Springfell Manor. That would be disastrous.

Stuck with the sea wind biting her skin every time she set foot outside of the dreadful place. She'd be a prisoner inside the cavernous, cold stones. Not that Thomas hadn't modernized it, warmed it where he could. But still, the castle was a monolith to a time long ago. Most people loved Ravenstone Castle.

She had a differing opinion.

The last thing she could let happen was to be late. To have Thomas watching for her at the top of the south lawn with his foot tapping. Always tapping his foot, he was.

If he was already at Springfell, she was sure his ire had reached overwhelming proportions.

Especially after what had just happened a week ago.

If she could just be a little quicker, she could maybe—maybe—beat him into the manor. And if she was even luckier, her shift would dry as she ran so her dress wouldn't stick oddly to her body when she threw it on.

She jumped to her right at the tree with the lump on its left side and a sharp twig jabbed into her heel. Squeaking in shock, she hopped, the pain sizzling up her leg.

Damn her boots that took far too long to lace up. She thought she'd be faster in bare feet—and she usually was—but now this.

She stopped for a moment and flipped the sole of her right foot upward.

Blood was already flowing from the sharp end of the stick currently embedded in her heel. No time to take it out properly. Leaning her shoulder into the nearest tree, she grabbed the stick and yanked it out of her heel, hoping the cracking sound she heard didn't mean part of the stick decided to find a new home in her foot.

Shaking her head, she hobbled forward a few steps, then started into a full run again, ignoring the pain grinding into her heel with every other step.

Not too much farther.

Up and over the lane near the entrance to Springfell and she could make the last stretch along the forest to the bottom of the south lawn in record time.

She darted out of the line of woods onto the roadway and instantly tumbled over, landing on her back as a giant black horse sent its front hooves flailing in the air above her head.

"Pharaoh!" A deep voice grunted out. A man atop the horse fought the beast backward and the front hooves landed only a breath away from her arm—a breath away from crushing her.

The horse lifted into another rear.

"Dammit, Pharaoh." The man on the saddle swore as he yanked back on the horse, keeping the flailing hooves from stomping down on her. Pulling the reins hard, he made the horse hop a step away from her. Angry, the beast pawed back and forth in place, still aggravated.

"Bloody hell, woman." The man was a giant. A giant on a giant horse glaring down at her.

Nemity scrambled backward on the road, her fingers clawing at the dirt and rock as she tried to distance herself from the flurry of hooves that could squash her. She glanced up at the man. A man that looked like he was about to descend death upon her.

"I am a good screamer." Scrambling for her feet, her words spat out, panicked. "My screams will carry far. People are waiting for me."

A stupid thing to say. But what did one say to looming death?

And it was true—her screams would easily carry all the way to the manor. She was a good screamer. Been blessed with wide, healthy lungs.

"Pardon." The one word barked out as the dark-haired giant eyed her curiously, his colorless eyes running up and down her body. Her wet, soaked shift clung awkwardly to her skin. Probably transparent in all the wrong spots.

Unseemly of him, as a gentleman would look away.

This man was no gentleman, his stare eating into every speck of her body and refusing to look away.

His hand flung out, motioning forward. "The lane is yours."

She started, her look whipping over her shoulder at the lane through the forest. She looked back to him. "No need. I'm just passing through."

The lane was slow. She needed the shortcut through the woods at the moment.

His eyebrows cocked, making him appear extra angry as he looked into the line of trees where she had emerged, then to the forest on the opposite side of the road. "Just passing through?"

"Yes." She nodded.

Best to just end this whole interaction before it turned into more than a passing moment. Time had been against her since she'd left the waterfall pool, and it had conspired with fate to make her even later.

Her dress still tangled around her arm, she grabbed her scattered boots from the roadway and darted off the opposite side of the lane. Hobbling and only able to put weight onto the ball of her right foot for the splinters that were surely embedded into her heel, her run was reduced to an awkward trot as she weaved through the rest of the trail back to the manor house.

Lord Hedstrom was going to murder her.