Page 14 of In Violent Waves

What could the King of the Wilds want from her?

King Auris’ warning rang in her ears. They would use her in ways beyond her worst nightmares. She had to get out of here, and fast.

Although he was a nightmare, he didn’t deem her as one with his narrow stance and arrogant sneer. It would be easy to catch him off guard right about now.

And with that thought, she did.

Swinging at him with an open hand, she raked her short nails across his face.

In shock, he released her arm. Lyra fled. Running on bumbling legs away from the Northern Star. Each step was excruciating, a thousand knives slicing her feet and legs.

Tears blurred her vision and stung her eyes. But she kept moving, kept running back to the safety of the water.

Air was stuck in the back of her throat as she breathed through her open mouth.

Mud and trampled grass squelched beneath her boots.

A hole in the earth had her ankle rolling painfully to the side. The searing pain cut her to the bone, and she cried out.

She was not fast enough.

Something rough wrapped around her other ankle and yanked. She flew face-first to the ground before muscular arms flipped her face up and a solid body settled on top of her.

“Enough,” he snarled in her face.

He looked savage. Fury rolled off him in waves and had her sinking farther into the earth to escape him.

Her heart fluttered like that of the tiny hummingbirds she had read about, and she panted through her mouth. Her breath stirred the hair around his face, and he recoiled from her, pressing a hand to her mouth as he worked to untie the rope that had wrapped around her ankle.

“Stop that.”

He glared down at her, and his lowered brow cast his eyes in shadow. “Do not run from me again.”

She felt the skin of her wrist burn and looked down.

A rope.

The rope that he caught her with had been tied around her wrist, the other side attached to him. Like a leash.

She snarled at the travesty, the very humiliation of it all.

Wilder leaned down, close enough that she could feel the stir of his soft breath. No one had ever touched her this closely before.

She hated this man.

“Like the leash?Pet.”

Fury speared through her, snuffing out every intelligent thought of self-preservation, and drove her head forward into his face.

The contact echoed loudly in the quiet night. Pain blackened her vision in spots.

If her head had been pounding before, using it as a battering ram hadn’t helped.

Wilder grimaced.

Scarlet blood coated his teeth, and he wrapped a large hand around her throat, squeezing enough to make her breathing difficult.

“Do that again, and I will wring your neck.” He squeezed a fraction more for emphasis, and her eyes bulged.