“Are you going to choose Darcon?”
Her heart stuttered before taking off at a gallop. She wasn’t sure how Roggern was going to react if she answered honestly, but Autumn didn’t want to lie.
“I think so. I’m sorry.”
She’d stopped walking, so he turned back to face her with a shrug.
“It’s okay. I’d rather not have to fight him, and it’s clear I’d have to with the way he looks at you.”
Her brows rose as she stared up at him. She didn’t know Roggern as well as the others because the alpha tended to be busy fishing most of the day, but she was still surprised by his easy acceptance.
“Aesir is going to be an issue. I doubt he’ll believe that you chose Darcon over his pretty face.”
His lips quirked, pulling an amused huff from her as the tension caused by his question drained away. Aesir wasn’t a bad guy, but he was too stuck on himself for her taste. She’d never trust him to stay true.
“Will he be angry?”
Her cautious nature led her to worry that there would be a fight when she announced her choice. She hated hurting anyone’s feelings and she didn’t want them to be upset, but she couldn’t fight the way she felt.
She breathed easier when Roggern shook his head.
“Not likely. He’ll pout a bit, but he’s not the type to lash out. Kull either. Kantor you may have to watch out for. He has a temper.”
Autumn noticed a flicker of shadow behind Roggern before a new voice reached her.
“That he does.”
Roggern’s eyes widened as his back went stiff. She didn’t realize what was wrong until he let out a cough that had blood spewing from his mouth.
She took a step back as Roggern fell to his knees and she was finally able to see who had spoken. She’d only seen him the one time, but Vargan had left an impression.
The alpha smiled at her as he wiped the blade of his dagger on his pantleg. Her breath came in quick gasps, her mind trying to catch up with the suddenness of what happened.
“Hello Autumn. I was going to take Iris so my brother couldn’t have her, but you’ll do just as well since she’s out of reach. Come along like a good girl.”
While Darcon calling her a good girl caused heat to bloom inside her, having Vargan use the term made bile rise in her throat, choking off the building scream. She looked to Roggern, but the man had pitched forward, barely holding himself up with one hand as he coughed up more sprays of blood and struggled to draw a breath.
Tears burned her eyes as her heart clenched. He didn’t deserve to die gasping for air from a coward’s sneaky blow.
Vargan stepping toward her jerked Autumn’s attention back to him, and his words finally clicked into place in her head. He was planning to take her if she didn’t get away.
Her feet started moving before she made the conscious decision to run. She and Roggern had covered a lot of ground while they’d walked along in silence, and while the cliff face had lowered to only a couple horse-lengths above her head, she wouldn’t be able to climb it without a path.
Turning to sprint back toward the shoreline, Autumn hoped Vargan’s slovenly nature meant she’d have a chance of getting away, but he was still an alpha. Longer legs meant he could cover more ground, and she barely made it to the curve of the hill that protected them from the open beach before the sudden jerk on her cloak sent her flying backward to sprawl in the sand.
The impact drove the air from her lungs, a spike of pain lancing up her spine from her tailbone. Forcing herself to roll to her belly, Autumn tried to get her feet back under her before a large hand gripped the back of her neck.
The scream she’d held back finally broke free.
She swung at the arm gripping her as Vargan used it to lift her to her feet. Pulled up until her toes barely scraped the ground, he managed to get his other arm around her waist, pinning one arm down as he crushed her to his chest.
The erection digging into her backside sent a shudder through her as she sucked in a breath to let out another scream. Fingers releasing her neck, he slipped his hand around to clamp it over her lips.
As large as his palm was, it covered her face from chin to brow. Only a thin trickle of air made it to her mashed nose, the little finger curled under her jaw prevented her from opening her mouth to bite him.
Sparkles danced at the edge of her vision as her lungs screamed for relief, but Vargan held her firmly in place.
“That was naughty, Autumn. I thought you were a good girl. Naughty girls get punished.”
Tears leaked from her eyes to puddle where his grip creased her cheeks. A thin whimper slipped free as her hands scrabbled against the male behind her, hoping to find purchase and cause him to release.
“Too bad we don’t have much time before people start looking for you. It’ll have to wait.”
Her vision began to darken around the edges, her burning lungs demanding oxygen as her heart thundered in her ears.
“Take a nice little nap for me now. I need to cover a lot of ground and don’t have time to deal with any fussing.”
Autumn tried to keep her eyes open, hanging on to consciousness with all her might, but darkness swallowed her, body falling limp in the enemy’s hands.
Chapter Thirteen
Darcon
As one of the hunters for the clan, Darcon had the responsibility of making sure he did his best to provide a certain amount of meat each day. It was easy if he ranged farther out where he could take a deer, or if he got lucky enough to find an elk or a moose. Unwilling to range that far from Autumn, he’d been relying on traps to provide his share, but somehow every one of them had been triggered overnight without catching a thing.
Growling under his breath, he stalked through the trees, eyes searching for even a hint of prey. He was usually far more patient when hunting, preferring to go after large game that could take hours to track and kill, but things had been left unfinished with Autumn and he wanted to get back to her as quickly as possible. He was sure one of the others was behind his empty traps.
It had killed him to slip away that morning, but he wouldn’t neglect his duties. He’d hoped to find enough in the traps to be able to return before lunch, but as the hours slipped by with nothing to show for it, his temper soured.
It was past noon before he found a fresh trail and followed it to a reindeer browsing beneath the trees. It was a young doe, and while he was usually cautious about taking females of breeding age, he was too frustrated to care about proper husbandry.
Darcon hadn’t brought his bow since he hadn’t expected to need it, but his blood was burning hot enough to relish a fight. He outweighed the doe, and since she’d already shed her antlers months earlier, all he had to worry about were the hooves. If he was lucky, he’d land a clean blow and she’d go down without giving him trouble.
Slowing his breathing as he crept closer, his eyes scanned the ground for something he could throw. Without a bow or spear, his only option was to try to sneak up on her or startle her into running toward him.
Getting into place against a tree that would help disguise his silhouette, Darcon scraped up a handful of rocks. Pitching them in an arc on the opposite side of the deer, he tried to space them so the sound of them hitting the ground would make her think there was something coming for her.