Page 84 of Hellbound

A low hum rumbled from his throat. “Don’t worry, I’m closer than they think.” His smirk grew as her blush did.

It set her teeth on edge.

The third trial was another week away, but without Tivan’s clue, she had no idea what awaited her. At least the night’s previous hunt had satisfied Vornaya’s hunger and cleared her mind.

Till then, she had to keep her head down and stay out of the captain’s sight.

23

Aweek of restless waiting had done little to calm her nerves. She had barely left Beranek manor, choosing to fill the days with sparring sessions with Varka until her muscles screamed. When her body was exhausted, she haunted the library, poring over old castle blueprints, looking for any and all vulnerabilities she could commit to memory.

Now she lounged against the stone wall of the dungeon, hands knitted behind her head, deliberately avoiding Tivan’s smug gaze as she awaited the briefing for the third challenge. Whatever asinine task Bohdan had devised this time, she was as ready as she could be.

She cracked one eye open as her fellow competitors filtered into the room.

Tivan was tailed by a blonde man who incessantly wrung out then smoothed his tunic, and finally a man with a shaved head who strode to the front of the room with wide steps.

The remaining four.

“Let’s get on with this, shall we?” Bohdan’s fingers snapped softly from his seated position at the desk. “Today, we’ll be visiting a location that the Envorsen are well acquainted with.” A dozen crimson uniforms entered the room.

She could hear the burlap bag rustle and before it was pulled over her head, she quickly spun on the balls of her feet, away from the guard behind her.

“What is going on?” she snarled, but Bohdan merely shook his head.

“The Envorsen will be transporting you blindfolded to the location. The more you struggle, the more drained of energy you’ll be for the third challenge.”

A growl scratched in Ksenia’s throat as she allowed the guard to pull the bag over her head and bind her hands.

Voices crawled around her, and her face mottled red.

“Who gets the honors?”

“At least she’ll be pleasant to carry.”

“Watch the bag though, I heard she bites.”

Their banter was cut short—a single, slow tap of a finger upon the desk cut through the noise.

An ice-cold trickle started at the top of her head and made its way down her spine.

“I will transport Senka, since you all lack decorum.”

Gods, she hated herself.

She could feel the curve of his smile behind her, and tension snapped through her spine.

She expected a hard shove from him and braced to fall, flinching when he scooped one strong arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back.

Blood rushed to her face and neck, and now she was extremely thankful for the bag. Her heart hammered in her rib cage, begging to be released from this torture.

Instead, she was forced to succumb. Bohdan’s pulse was steady where her cheek pressed against his chest. Her nose filled with his scent: sharp sage with a hearty note of pomegranate.

There was a fluid and rolling quality to his gait, like water flowing downhill, inevitable and smooth. She could sense the change in their elevation; her body bouncing slightly in his arms as they descended a staircase.

The scuff of his boots on stone led to a crunch of gravel, then the soft padding over grass.

The creak of carriage wheels perked her ears along with the stamping of horses’ hooves. The air transitioned from hay and dust to the crispness before a storm.