Chapter 16
Laya was never sure what instinct compelled her to cry out her warning to the hunted man in the alley below her window. Perhaps it was because, even from her safe vantage point, she could feel the desperation that flowed through his mind like a mighty river. She herself had been living as a fugitive for the past five years; she knew his plight only too well, and could empathize with it. She had not felt close to any other human being since her parents had died, but the stranger below somehow evoked strong feelings of kinship, touching emotions she didn’t even know existed.
Even so, she’d never intended to do anything more than warn him of the danger she sensed from the end of the alley. The words escaped her mouth involuntarily, and almost too late. But it was unthinkable that
