The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala Read Online Free Page B

numb, but a flex of my fingers reassured me I still grasped the hilt.
    “One kiss,” he repeated, “and if you still don’t want to come with me, if nothing happens, I’ll let you go.”
    Seemed like a bad bargain on his part, but I wouldn’t point that out.
    “Fine.”
    “No arguing?”
    I shrugged as best I could. “Whatever gets me closer to freedom. Either you’ll keep your word or you won’t. Either way, I’ve given up nothing of importance. And I seriously doubt your kisses are that spectacular.”
    “No?” he murmured, lowering his head. “We’ll see.”
    Mesmerized, I watched his lips descend to mine. The blood still pulsed, oozing out of the cut, fresh and bright over the dried tracks. Despite his nonchalant words, I felt the tension shimmering through him. This was the moment Ursula had described, when lust clouds one’s thinking.
    “Blood,” I murmured the moment before he touched me.
    “What?” His voice rumbled through me, soft, gravelly.
    “You have blood on your lips.”
    “I know. That’s the point.” With a certain grim determination, his mouth fastened on mine, though I tried to turn my head at the last moment. A bright flash of pain and I realized he’d bitten my lip.
    “Thrice-damn you!” I tore my mouth away, struggling.
    “Watch,” he ordered, holding me still.
    On his lips, the blood seemed to shimmer, then move of its own accord. A tiny bird formed, darkening from the scarlet of fresh blood to black.
    Then flew away.
    Aghast, enthralled, horrified, I watched it go, an impossible pinprick disappearing against the sky.
    “That’s impossible,” I whispered.
    The man’s joyful and triumphant smile crashed into disappointment at my words. “You really know nothing at all.”
    “Then let me up and you can explain.”
    Resigned, he nodded and moved just enough to loosen the grip on my hand.
    Not my dagger hand, but the one between us that he’d pressed to my bosom. I pushed my fist through his hand, up in a short jab to his larynx. He jerked back, howling, and his blood spattered my face, warm salt on my tongue. I pulled my dagger hand free and plunged the knife into the only target I could reach, his muscular shoulder.
    The knife stuck and I had no time to tug it free. I yanked away. He grabbed my ankle and I stomped down on his wrist with my boot and ran.
    Straight to Fiona, who waited right there, thank Moranu.
    The dogs gave chase and I couldn’t separate their excited barks from the man’s angry howls. I heard him ordering them to stand down, as if they’d understand his words.
    I scrambled onto Fiona, expecting the sharp bite of the hounds at any moment, but they only spun around my horse, sniffing and yipping. I dared to look for the man.
    He knelt in the grass, rage, pain, and blood distorting his fine-boned face, black hair a wild cape around him.
    “This isn’t over between us, Andromeda,” he punched the words at me through his pained throat. “Don’t think for a moment that you’ve escaped me. I am your fate. I have the taste of your blood now. Run now if you’re afraid, but I will come after you. I will always find you. You will be mine.”
    “Never!” I shouted at him.
    “Always.”
    It sounded like a vow.

2
    I kicked Fiona into a gallop, tearing back across the meadow, leaving that man behind to his threats and his dogs. My mind whirled in a windstorm of reaction, my thoughts racing as fast as the trees whipping by, yet making no more sense, as if it all moved too fast for me to get a good look.
    After a time, my heart and lungs slowed their panicked pumping. Fiona read my gradual relaxation and slowed our wild flight. My stomach hurt, I noticed, cold and congealed, and a headache throbbed in my temples. We limped home, Fiona no doubt banged up from her sudden roll. My arm stung where the man had scratched me, but I thought I had escaped pretty much unscathed. When we drew near enough to see Ordnung’s searing white towers, I dismounted and