The Beauty of Darkness by Mary E. Pearson Page B

onto his horse with his other hand in a single violent pull. The pommel of his saddle slammed into my stomach like a fist, punching my breath away, punching over again and over again as I straddled the horse on my stomach. I couldn’t breathe, but I knew, he was riding away. We were disappearing into the ruins. I tried to force air back into my lungs, to roll away, free the arm pinned beneath me, I reached desperately for something to hit him with. Where was my knife? Air. I needed air. His fingers threaded through my hair, yanking my head back. “All I need is your head, Princess. The choice is yours. Submit to me or lose it.”
    I gasped, my lungs finally filling, and I pulled my pinned arm free, something hard still in my grasp. I slashed upward. He struck at my hand, sending the knife flying, but it was too late. The blade had left a spurting line of blood from his collarbone to his ear. He roared with pain, grabbing my arm with one hand and lifting his sword with the other. I had no leverage to move, no way to push off, no way to protect my neck from his blade—and then he was gone.
    Gone.
    Ulrix’s crumpled body lay on the ground. His head tumbled down the incline into a rock. Rafe circled around, sheathing his bloody sword. He rode over, scooping me around the waist and pulling me sideways onto his saddle. His heart pounded against my shoulder.
    His breaths were ragged from the exertion of battle. I turned to look at him. Smeared blood and sweat streamed from his face. He pulled me to him, holding me so tight there was no chance of me slipping off.
    â€œYou’re all right?” he said into my hair.
    My words choked in the back of my throat. “Rafe,” was all I could say.
    His hand stroked my head, crushed my hair, his breaths calming as he held me. “You’re all right,” he repeated, this time it seemed, more to himself than to me.
    *   *   *
    The Rahtan were dead, but our group had sustained more injuries.
    When we got back to the others, Tavish had a gash on his forehead that he waved away as unimportant, wrapping his head with a strip of cloth to keep the blood out of his eyes. Jeb was lying on the ground, his face wet and waxy. My heart clutched, but Kaden assured me it wasn’t fatal. When Jeb’s horse was struck by the blow of a sword, he’d been thrown and his shoulder was dislocated. Jeb shuddered as they cut away his shirt so they could see his injury.
    â€œThat was my favorite shirt, you savages,” he said, trying to smile, but his breaths were strained and only agony registered on his face.
    I dropped to his side, brushing back his hair. “I’ll buy you a dozen more,” I said.
    â€œCruvas linen,” he specified. “It’s the finest.”
    â€œCruvas it is.”
    He grimaced and looked at Rafe. “Get on with it.”
    We all stared at his shoulder. It was more than just a dislocation. Something had ripped inside. The skin swelled purple and blue, and the previous injury that Tavish had stitched was bleeding again.
    Tavish nodded at Orrin and Kaden. They held him down while Rafe rotated Jeb’s arm off to the side, upward slightly, then pulled. Jeb’s scream was full and guttural, echoing through the valley. My stomach turned. Afterward his eyes remained closed, and I thought he had passed out, but when his breath returned, he looked up at me and said, “You didn’t hear that.”
    I wiped his brow. “I heard nothing but savages ripping off a perfectly fine shirt.”
    We made a sling for his shoulder from a dead Rahtan’s bedroll, and Jeb was helped onto one of the Vendan horses, his own now dead in the road and stripped of its belongings. We were on our way again, all of us spattered in blood, Griz favoring his wounded side again, making me fear he had pulled his stitches loose. The dead Rahtan lay scattered, a gruesome scene of butchered men, some of them stripped of