Hunted (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #2) by Lindsay Buroker

Author:Lindsay Buroker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, short story, young adult, steampunk, ya, fantasy adventure, historical fantasy, bounty hunters, yukon, novellas, ya fantasy, young adult fantasy, fantasy novella
Publisher: Lindsay Buroker

PART IV

Kali woke to something pressing against her mouth. Her first thought was of Cedar giving her a kiss, but that fantasy evaporated quickly. The pressure was too hard. It smothered her nose as well as her mouth and cut off her air. Someone’s hand. She tried to unleash her teeth, to gnash down on it. The grip merely tightened.

She tried to sit up, but failed to rise an inch. Hands forced her shoulders down, and something across her legs pinned them to the ground.

Darkness still blanketed the forest, but she figured out what was going on. Cedar had gone to investigate the other camp, and Sebastian was taking the moment to truss her up for...whatever stupid plan he had now.

She writhed and bucked in the blankets, though only to disguise her real goal: she found the two smoke nuts in her pockets and yanked them free.

“Hurry, pick her up,” Sebastian whispered.

Trying to be quiet was he? He must fear Cedar would hear and return. Good.

Now if Cedar’s fancy blanket weren’t constricting her almost as much as her assailants, she might be able to do something. The men—at least four of them—hefted her into the air with the Euklisia Rug still tangled about her. She gripped a smoke nut in each hand, thumbs poised to press up on the trigger tabs.

“In the tent?” a man with a guttural accent rasped.

They started moving her, stumbling over the rocky ground as they went. Maybe they would be more distracted now.

“No, we don’t want her lover to be able to get to her,” Sebastian said. “We need to—argh!”

Kali grinned fiercely as she bit down on his hand, glad he was the one who’d sport tooth marks. He snarled and let go.

“Cedar!” she bellowed.

One of the hands gripping her shoulder let go to reach for her mouth. The maneuver dipped her down, so her head almost cracked against the rocks.

Sensing she had her moment, Kali yanked her arms from beneath the blanket, flicked a trigger tab, and dropped one of the smoke nuts. She twisted and used her free hand to grab the closest thing to her face. A belt. Perfect.

Something slammed into her back. She almost dropped her second smoke nut, but she managed to yank on the belt and stuff the device down the owner’s trousers.

Unfortunately, she was as close to the smoke weapons as the men. Kali burrowed back into the cocoon of blankets, squeezed her eyes shut, and dug for the knife at her belt.

“What did she—”

“Damn it, move!” Sebastian yelled. “It’s one of her things!”

Whoever held her legs dropped them. Kali thrashed, though she made sure not to leave the padded shelter of the blankets. The last man with a grip on her lost it, and she hit the ground, a hard nodule gouging into her side. She rolled away, not wanting to smother her own artillery.

She did not hear the click that heralded the release of the metallic shards, but yelps of pain told the story. Though she was rolling away as fast as she could, several projectiles struck the side of her blanket.

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