Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,44

more commands that I would have no choice but to obey. “He didn’t think you’d come. But I knew better. I’d already learned just how far you were willing to go to protect someone you cared about — someone you loved.” He sneered on the last word.

“She doesn’t love me,” Rylan muttered.

“I beg to differ,” Rafe said. “She’s here, isn’t she? She risked her king to come for you.”

I glanced over to see Rafe reach up and stroke his chin.

“What a difficult decision that must have been. Stay and protect the king who you managed to rescue from my sister’s control or come after the man you nearly killed in your effort to escape me.”

Despite my best intentions, my gaze snapped to his at his words. He knew about what had happened to Vera — he knew that she was —

Before I could even finish my thought, he’d lunged at me, grabbed my arm, and yanked me toward him. I struggled, twisting to free my arm so I could throw him to the ground — he wasn’t much bigger than me, and not nearly as well trained in hand-to-hand combat — but a confused haze settled over my mind, and I went still.

“This is for my sister,” he hissed into my ear, and then fire exploded in my side. An involuntary scream wrenched through my lips as I staggered back. He clutched a bloodied dagger in his hands, his eyes flashing in the dimness.

“Alexa!” I heard Rylan’s shout through a strange roar in my ears as I lifted one hand to my side and it came away coated in blood. My blood. Warmth coated my hip, running down my leg. Pain pulsed through my body with each throbbing beat of my heart. A terrible spreading weakness stole my ability to stand, and I dropped to my knees on the ground.

Dimly, I heard the door open and Rafe’s voice again. “Get that healer down here. Tell him to do only enough to keep her alive.”

And then Rylan was there, kneeling next to me, catching me just as I swayed and crumpled the rest of the way to the ground.

“Alexa,” he whispered, his hands on my face, stroking my hair back. I could feel how they trembled, I could hear the panic in his voice. “Don’t you dare die. Hold on, Alex. Hold on.”

He pushed something against the open wound where Rafe had stabbed me, trying to stanch the blood. My eyelids fluttered shut, and though I tried to open them again, the agony in my side took hold of me and dragged me under.

When I woke again, I was lying on a cot, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. I turned my head, but it was too dark to make out many details other than the fact that I was alone in a barren room. My body ached, and the place where Rafe had stabbed me still throbbed with pain. I tried to sit up, but my head swam and my stomach lurched sickeningly, threatening to make me vomit. I lay still for a few long minutes, waiting for the nausea to pass. My head felt heavy, my mind sluggish and fuzzy. Had they drugged me?

Afraid to move too much, I hesitantly lifted my hand to my belly. I found the tear in my tunic where Rafe’s dagger had penetrated, but when I pushed my fingers through it, rather than my own skin, I felt the rough fabric of a bandage across the wound. His parting words came back to me then — “only enough to keep her alive” — and I wondered what exactly that had meant.

Tears threatened to surface, but I clenched my teeth and forced them back down. I refused to give them the satisfaction of coming in and finding me crying — whoever it was who would be sure to check on me sometime soon. I had to think. There had to be some way to get out of this. I was unable to hurt Rafe, and Rylan was also under his control … but Eljin wasn’t. If I could somehow find him, or get a message to him. He could cause an earthquake, and then conceal himself and come get me —

The door opened, and I turned to see an unfamiliar man walk in. He wore clothing similar to what Vera’s men had been dressed in when she’d come to Damian’s palace — a long tunic with loose pants beneath it, in a light, airy fabric,