Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,24

practice, they had gradually learned to coordinate their strides despite the chain, avoiding any further painful falls.

But he never stopped. Never rested. They alternately ran and walked, until Sam felt she had reached the limit of her endurance. The knotted muscles of her legs ached and the soles of her feet felt as if they’d been flattened. Her throat burned with thirst.

This deep in the woods, the trees loomed thicker on every side. Branches caught at her hair. Brambles and underbrush ripped at her skirts. Roots jutted out of nowhere to trip her. The interlacing leaves far overhead blocked the sun almost completely, but the shade no longer felt like a cooling balm, but a cold, clammy shroud.

She couldn’t help but think that Cannock Chase more than lived up to its sinister reputation, its shadows a darker black, even the sharp scent of evergreens and damp earth somehow menacing, overpowering her senses. As if the very air here were different. Ancient and wild and not meant for man.

The unsettling impression lingered, though she told herself it was merely fatigue making her imagine it all. Fatigue caused by her ruthless companion.

The words he had spoken earlier kept running through her head. It was them or me. Faced with that choice, I generally choose me.

That was painfully obvious. He didn’t care about anyone but himself. Every time she tripped, every time she asked to rest, he would tug her back to her feet and order her to keep moving. Pushing her relentlessly onward. He was pitiless, cold-hearted...

A new emotion crowded in on the fear and resentment she felt toward him. A simmering dislike.

Even as she had that thought, her slipper hit a patch of damp leaves and she slid. He grabbed her with both hands, but they both lost their balance and fell.

He muttered a curse. She lay in the sticky, wet leaves, gasping for air, her limbs shaking with exhaustion.

“I... c... can’t,” she panted, shaking her head, tears stinging her eyes. “C-can’t... go... any f-further.”

This time, instead of arguing or coercing as she had expected, he relented, making no move to get up. She closed her eyes in relief. The noise of their labored breathing filled the silence around them, the only sound for a long time.

When she could finally catch her breath, she slowly sat up, biting her lower lip to stop a groan. She leaned against the closest tree trunk. The rough bark dug into her suntanned arm but she didn’t care. Eyes closed, she mopped at the perspiration that trickled down her face, her neck, using a corner of her ruined silk skirt. She raked her hopelessly tangled hair back from her face, tried to comb her fingers through it, gave up.

Opening her eyes, she looked warily at her companion. He still lay on his side in the leaves, eyes closed, features pale and strained. His shoulder was bleeding. Badly. The makeshift bandage he had fashioned from his sleeve was woefully inadequate. Blood stained the back of his shirt red.

As if he felt her regard, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. When their gazes met, her heart thudded harder against her ribs.

Stretched out on the forest floor, with his disheveled black hair and glittering green eyes and bloodied shoulder, he looked like he belonged here in this wild place. Fit in with the other untamed things. A wounded predator. Dark and fierce... and capable of all sorts of unpredictable behavior.

Please, God, help me.

His gaze skimmed downward, coming to rest on her legs. He was still breathing harshly. “Come here.”

Sam stiffened. His voice sounded weaker than before, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Shifting her eyes quickly left and right, she sought some weapon she might use to protect herself. A rock. A branch. Anything.

“I said come here,” he repeated impatiently.

When she didn’t comply, he reached out and grabbed her foot.

“What are you doing?” She tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “Unhand me!”

“Gladly,” he said tiredly—yet he hung on to her, pushing himself up on one elbow. Snagging her ruined slipper with his other hand, he flipped it off her foot. “I’d like nothing better than to unhand you, unchain you, and be done with you.”

Instead of attacking her, he attacked the shackle around her leg.

Sam gave up her struggle, even though she knew she could kick her way free. One blow to his wounded shoulder and he would let her loose. But he was already in a foul mood and she didn’t want to