She grasped the bark of the oak, pressing her body into the tree as if it could suck her into safety. But all she felt was unyielding roughness. She couldn't stay here.

Crouching, curling her fingers around a heavy stick, she eased from the safe shadow of the tree and into the liquid silver of moonlight. The sharp snap of a twig beneath her boot sent her bolting on now-silent feet into another nearby shadow…

She could hear him breathing.

And feel the reverberations of his heartbeat.

It thumped loud, steady, strong, pumping into her ears, pulsing through her body as if it were her own organ.

Victoria moved again, her skirts flapping around her ankles as she dashed away from the sound of her pursuer. She tore through the underbrush, dodging from tree to tree and leaping over fallen logs as though she were a mare given her head.

His solid footfalls came closer and faster as she ran.

A branch tore at her face. Brush snagged her skirts.

She ran and ran and ran in the white moonlight, clutching her stick, and still he came, his heartbeat as steady as his tramping feet.

Before she realized it, Victoria stumbled down a small incline and splashed into a creek. The prop of the stick kept her from falling as she slogged through the thigh-high water, her skirts becoming leaden, weighing her down, slowing her until she could barely take another step.

A cry of rage from behind tore her attention as she staggered up the small incline on the other side of the creek.

As she climbed out, she turned and saw him standing there on the opposite bank. She couldn't see his face… but his eyes gleamed in the dark, and fury and frustration emanated from his body. But he did not follow her.

He did not cross the running water.

Victoria jolted awake, her heart thrumming madly in her chest.

Sunlight, not moonbeams, blazed through the window.