The sun was painting the horizon with its last fading rays when Mathena struggled to shake the painful cobwebs out of her head. Freaking hell. She felt as if she’d been hit by a cement truck. At last, ignoring the bursts of agony in the back of her head, she forced open her reluctant eyes. Well, sh*t. She should have kept them closed. Not that pretending this was all a horrible nightmare would change the fact that she was currently tied to a tree with chains that held enough silver to sap her strength and leave raw burns on her skin. Or that she’d been moved from the cabin to one of the small islands covered in trees and underbrush that dotted the middle of the river. Still fuzzy, Mathena watched as Samuel stepped out of the canvas tent stuck in the center of the small clearing.She swallow
