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Chapter One:

The Escape

"Run…run…run faster…" was all that was running through Anastasia's head as she tore off running as fast as her feet could carry her through the dense woods outside the horrible castle she was forced to call home. She was on her way to freedom and was going to fight to the death to get there if she had to.

Her long brown hair was falling all around her as she kept the same fast pace to lose the knights and hunters chasing her. She could feel deep tears start to form at the edges of her bright blue eyes that she fought to hold back. She was not going back to that castle…she could not last another day in there.

Her family was gypsies, and she looked just like them with her olive toned skin and her very slender figure. Her mother and father were summoned to the king to perform for him at a party he was having in honor of a new treaty he had signed with a nearby town. Her parents also brought her and her other siblings to help them however they needed. When they were there at the party though, something happened that she will never forgive her parents for ever in her life.

The king saw Esmeralda and pulled her mother to the side. He talked to her about how much it would cost to buy her 17 year old daughter. Esmeralda although the love her mother said she had for her would be enough for the answer to be nothing…she was wrong. Apparently 100 gold coins was the magic value for her life that sealed her poor fate of being a sex slave to a horrible monster that wore the crown of a "great" King.

Within a few months of living in that castle, she could not count the number of times the King has used her to fulfill his sexual needs. She knew that when the same guard would come to her prison cell below the castle floor that she was going to see the King. All she knew was that she needed to get out before she was unable to anymore.

Esmeralda looked back to see that the knights that were chasing her seemed to have gotten lost and the same went for the hunters. But she still knew that she had to keep running. If she stopped now, all that hard work would be wasted on a suicide mission with no results for it to even matter to anyone. She ran for another good two miles before she could not take another step. Her sandals that she was forced to call shoes from the only ones she was given by the King where filled with holes on the bottom, and her skirt was torn in many places from being snagged on bushes.

She finally had to stop moving as she fell to the ground breathing heavy and fast. She knew she had to find some sort of shelter that would also hide her away from any on-lookers. She looked around while she tried to catch her breath in her small lungs. She saw a tree that had fallen from a lightning storm. "Perfect…" She said as she basically crawled to it on her hands and knees. The fallen branches and leaves would be able to hide her so she could try to sleep till the sun was up. They would also keep her warm through the brisk fall night. She knew that at night in the forests, it got cold in a heartbeat before you had the chance to bundle up. In her current state, she would only have leaves and branches to help her get through the harsh early winter night.

She crawled into the hiding spot making sure to cover it so no one could tell there was a young adult hiding from possible torture in her future if they caught her. The leaves in the dark night would be a good source of hiding, but not so much warmth. She knew the only way to get the most heat would be start a fire. She knew that would be more harmful than helpful so she sucked it up and tried to get some rest.

As she closed her eyes, images of the King holding her down, pushing her on her back, slapping her across the face flashed over and over again to the point of where she wanted to scream her heart out and cry until she could not see straight. Why had she been cursed with this life? Why had her family betrayed her for merely 100 coins? She hoped that her family liked their decision. They were horrible monsters only with the desires to make their life better at the sake of losing the daughter that was not good for anything at her young age. She crawled up into an even smaller ball and rocked back and forth to push the images, thoughts, voices, and noises out of her head with no luck at accomplishing that at all. She knew that she would not make it to morning. The dark feeling of the impending doom was starting to make her realize all the sounds of the bustling forest night.

Bang! Bang! Bang! A horrible knocking sound against his entirely wood door awoke Dimitri from a relaxing sleep. He knew this was not good if they had to wake up the best huntsmen in the cities from his nights slumber. He sat up in bed as he tried to stand up. He had a blanket over him as he opened the door. "This better be good…" He said with a stern tone to his voice.

"The king has lost a servant girl. She has run away and he wants to you hunt her down to bring her back alive…" The poor sentry told him scared to say anything to offend Dimitri. He let out a sigh. "Tell his majesty that I will be right on it."

He said as he closed the door in the man's face to get dressed. He knew the poor guy would not leave the doorway until Dimitri would leave his own chambers. He found his clothes and managed to get them all on before having to look to find his quiver of arrows and his best bow.

After walking out of his chamber door inside the huge castle, he looked at the poor guy with a sigh. "Where did she escape from and which way was she heading when you all lost her?" He asked not really caring if it insulted the poor man. The sentry explained that she was now in the Dogwood Forest and was on the run when they lost her trail. "Thank you…you are relived." He said as he made it to the castle gates, signaling the guards to let him through. He had a lot of work to do if he was going to catch the slave to be brought back.

With his dark locks of hair falling over his face as black as the night sky, it hardly effected his ability to see with his green hazel eyes nearly everything in the dark that an untrained person would not see as odd. His toned figure did seem to tense up a little because of the temperature of the harsh winter air, but also seemed to be no effect on him. He looked down at the ground for clues on where the poor girl would be. According to the sentry the one he was looking for was Anastasia, the gypsy child the king bought from her family basically by force so he could do his horrible deeds to the girl. Every time he would watch the girl being lead from her cell he knew that she was heading to her personal hell. Many different times, she would even try her hardest to fight back however she possibly could with little to no luck at all. He truly wished that he didn't find her; he did not want to be the one to bring her back there.

After looking for a few moments he managed to find a set of female looking footprints to follow. He knew that the trail would be lost soon so he had to see how far it would lead him. He knew that when someone is running they place less pressure on their feet when they step in order to keep up the fast pace. From the looks of the foot marks, he could see that she was practically running for dear life. He did not blame her one bit for doing so. If he was in her place…he would have done the same thing, no questions asked. He would even let himself maybe even be killed before letting him be brought back to that castle. Even as a normal huntsman he did not want to go to that castle on a good day. Everyone always says the king was a great man and a perfect ruler but from watching him around the house, he could see all the lies that they had been saying for years. He would have to keep a watch over his own shoulder to make sure no one was following him or even trying to spy on him to bring to the king to kill him. No place was safe for anyone in that castle.

He continued to follow the poor slave girl's footprints actually hoping that he would personally find her before someone or something else did first. He knew for a fact that if she ended up encountering any of the wild animals around this forest while running for her life with nothing at all on her, she would be lucky to stay alive at all. He then started to see that the footsteps getting closer together as if she was slowing down. Maybe she pushed herself too far and could barely take it anymore. She would have to end up hiding somewhere. He looked around stopping in his tracks so if he did find her, he would not scare her away just yet…she would think he was going to take her back to the castle when actually, that was not why he came to save her at all.