down on them.
Why would the Thunderbirds drop her like a live rabbit into the nest of a hungry hatchling eagle?
She stifled a sob as she raced on.
Her heart beat in her temples as she tried to pull the air past the fingers of dread closing her throat. She gulped, gasped, wept as she ran. She understood now why her mother had not wanted to send her to Bess Suncatcher. Why she had asked which one would go to the raven. She had known.
Why had Alon said he was the son of Bess Suncatcher? He wasn’t, couldn’t be.
The brush slashed across her legs as she fled. Still in human form, she ran with the speed of a bear, thirty miles an hour, charging through the woods, snapping branches the thickness of her wrist as if they were swizzle sticks.
Was he still behind her?
She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw nothing.
How far had she come? Far enough for the adrenaline to ebb, deserting her now, turning her knees to water. The drum of her heart yielded to the buzz she recognized as dangerous. She’d run too far, too hard. Her body demanded rest. She could hear nothing but the unnatural hum in her ears brought on by a lack of oxygen to her brain. Samantha glanced about, slowing, gripping the tree trunk before her for support.
Where was he now?
Sweat soaked her clothing, trickled down her back and beaded upon her face. She used her sleeve to wipe her forehead, and she realized her fingers were tingling.
But she’d escaped him.
“Samantha?”
She jumped, spun and faced him. He stood some four feet before her, in a grove of ferns that brushed his bare hips. From what she could see he was naked. His mouth now dipped down in an expression of disapproval. Why wasn’t he sweating? Where were his clothes? She must have sprinted six miles, and yet his breathing was normal. He had not a hair out of place, as if he’d just dropped from the sky. She glanced up.
Had he?
“Leave me alone.” She managed the words between gasps for breath.
He stepped closer, leaving the ferns and giving her an eyeful. His skin was flawless, he was extremely well-endowed and his abs were as taut and defined as a male cover model’s.
Samantha crouched. If she couldn’t escape, she’d attack. She swung at him with one arm, a blow that would have sent any ordinary man flying, but he absorbed it without even rocking on his feet. Instead, it was she who ricocheted backward, something that had never happened to her before.
She turned and fled again, back the way she had come, the surge of adrenaline buoying her up, giving her energy. How had he caught her? Why hadn’t she heard him coming?
This time she ran until she dropped, falling to her knees behind the cover of a downed tree. She waited, listening, but could hear nothing but the roar of her blood and that warning buzz in her ears. She wondered if she might faint.
She crouched, trembling like the rabbit she had become. Gradually the sounds of the forest returned—bird song, the whine of insects, the wind in the treetops.
She placed her hands on the rough, damp bark and lifted her head like a prairie dog searching for her pursuer.
He appeared a moment later, his hair looking mussed as he drew on a gray T-shirt and slipped into his long-sleeved dove-gray shirt. When he’d fastened the second-to-last button and tucked the shirt’s hem into his gray jeans, she noticed his feet were bare.
He stared directly at her as if he knew where she hid. She was on her feet and running again before he spoke, but she heard him calling for her to stop. She’d die running first.
The sudden weight of something striking her lower back hurdled her forward. His arms wrapped about her and they toppled together onto the loam of needles. He took the brunt of the fall but then rolled her so fast the world blurred for an instant.
Samantha found herself lying on her back, staring up at Alon, who now straddled her hips. He’d hooked his lower legs across her shins, pinning them to the earth. He had already gained possession of her left wrist. She took a swing at him with her right, but he blocked the blow with disquieting ease, securing her other hand. He trapped her wrists above her head. His wide torso was now poised above hers, his breathing slow and steady, as she