My hands trembled, and a fiery pang stabbed beneath my ribs. I tried to ignore it and focused on controlling the horse.

Until startling, pained cries rent the air.

The cries of a dying dog.

My heart stopped as a second agonized yelp echoed through the forest before fracturing into whimpers. Then silence.

The hounds. Mercy God, what happened to them?

What would happen to my father?

Panic surged, freezing muscles and locking joints. Only my pulse hammered wildly as the horse raced onward, hurdling fallen trees and putting more distance between me and my entire world.

I couldn’t leave him.

No matter what happens, keep going.

I trusted him implicitly and had never disobeyed him. Never.

My jaw clenched. He’d told me once to trust my instinct, and right now it was screaming at me to go back.

I pulled on the reins, and with a savage howl, I turned the horse about.

How many minutes had passed? How many kilometers? Too damned many, and I experienced every one of them in breathless agony as I galloped back to my father.

Nearing the beach, I approached slowly. The sound of the crashing surf reached my ears, bringing with it the din of voices. Stern, commanding voices.

Dozens of them.

My heart thundered toward hysteria as I nudged the horse closer, quietly picking along the brushwood and squinting through the trees.

When the sea came into view, I slapped a hand over my mouth.

Redcoats.

They swarmed the shore, their distinctive regimental facings gleaming white against the darkening sky. Armed with rifles, some mounted horses. Others invaded on foot as they overtook my father with fists and guns and sheer numbers.

There were too many to count, and he went down fighting and spitting blood.

Sticky nausea filled in my belly, clotting with fear and helplessness. My lungs ached to contain the wheeze of my breaths, and my fingers and toes shook uncontrollably. Why the rest of me refused to move, I couldn’t fathom. I was paralyzed.

When his body fell limp beneath their strikes, they grabbed his arms and lugged him toward a waiting cart. His head lolled between his shoulders. The deerskin coverings on his feet dragged through the sand, and something inside me broke.

His jackboots lay just beyond the tree line, and a few paces from there was his cutlass, the blade sharp, lethal, beckoning.

With visions of rescue and bloodshed in my head, I inched the horse toward my father’s weapon.

Until a twig snapped behind me.

“Benedicta.” The familiar masculine voice sent a chill through my veins.

No, no, no! God damn me and the devil, too!

How would I explain my presence here, sitting astride a stolen mount, while planning an attack on the king’s soldiers? I would be arrested alongside my father, unable to save him.