They set off the next morning, long after Gareth had expected. As it turned out, traveling with a herd of children meant everything took longer. The sun was at least halfway toward its zenith by the time they finally set off. Like everyone else, Dela was at a run all morning. Gareth tried to pull her aside repeatedly, always missing her by a minute or two.
Finally, with the children and the feeble on the horses, they were setting off and Gareth hoped to corner her. He handed off his reins to the man next to him and went in search of the short blonde. It wasn’t hard to find her, what with her hair practically glowing in the morning sunlight.
“Hey,” he said, grimacing with his eloquence.
“Hi.”
“You okay?”
She glanced up at him, an emotion he couldn’t place crossing her features. “Yes, sure. Why?”
“I saw you looking at me last night.”
“I looked at a lot of people last night.”
“You know what I mean.”
She tried to play innocent, but Gareth could see her discomfort growing. Then she spoke, and his discomfort grew right alongside her.
“You seem to be really good with pregnant women,” Dela said without looking at him.
Gareth felt his stomach drop into his feet. He stared at the ground, unable to meet her eyes, knowing all the while that the longer he looked away the more she would wonder.
“Uh, yeah, you know…” His brain scrambled for a plausible lie. “I’m a Hunter. I have to know what women need.”
“What women need?” Dela asked with a forced chuckle.
Gareth felt his cheeks heat with a blush. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d blushed for a girl. He cleared his throat. “Not quite what I mean.” His eyes flicked to her face where he found another blush. At least he wasn’t alone.
Dela remained silent.
“Seriously though, why were you staring at me?”
“Like I said. I was surprised to see you so good with a pregnant woman.”
Gareth’s stomach turned. What was he supposed to say back? He wasn’t ready to tell her the truth. Within a matter of days, she would be in the Harem House. His past wouldn’t matter to her there, surrounded by adoring men.
His stomach turned again but for a different reason.
“You won’t tell me the truth, will you?” she asked, cutting into his private thoughts.
It took him a minute to realize what she had said. He looked at her, finding her eyes on him for the first time. “No.”
They fell back into silence.
Finally, when Gareth couldn’t take the pressure of her presence, he stomped away, back to where his horse trod along, the pregnant woman perched on top.
Dela released the breath she hadn’t meant to hold. She knew, deep inside her heart, that Gareth was keeping something painful from her, but what it was she couldn’t fathom. It somehow connected with the pregnant woman… or at least a pregnant woman. She frowned. Had he once had a wife?
“What were you two talking about so seriously?” asked Lath, bouncing up beside her in his habitual way.
She smiled up at him. Dela couldn’t help but smile when Lath was near her. He brought a sort of joy with him she had never felt with any other person. As Lath’s question sunk in, she saw her opportunity.
“Has Gareth ever been married?”
“Uh… married? No.”
Dela’s intuition sparked. “Not married… but engaged?”
Lath scratched at the back of his neck, looking as though he had fire ants in his trousers. “It’s not really my story to tell.”
“So he was engaged.”
Lath’s silence was confirmation enough.
“What happened?”
With a long sigh, Lath gave in. “A few years ago I broke my ankle. We were laid up in town for months. While there, Gareth got… involved with a girl in the Harem House. He ended up getting her pregnant. Not being a virgin, she was kicked out of the Harem House. Gareth promised to marry her so that she wouldn’t have to go to the whorehouse. I guess I would have, too, though I never really thought about it ‘till now.”
“What happened?” she asked when he didn’t resume his story.
“She died.”
Dela cringed. Considering Gareth’s reaction to her questioning, she had assumed it was something horrid. Still, some small piece of her had hoped for a happy ending. Fool!
“And he loved her?”
“No… but he saw a future with her. And then it was gone. Look, this isn’t my story to tell. Not really. Please don’t talk to him about it. Just let it be.”
“I get it. Sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”
Before he could say anything more, someone called him away to look at a horse, giving Dela time to consider his words. Like so many moments before, tears pressed against the back of her eyes. She had never been a weepy child, but then again she had never been this tired and battered.
As it turned out, she was not the only one with a past marred by death and guilt. She wanted to go talk to him, to do something to make his heart lighter, but Lath had urged her to remain silent, and so she stayed where she was in the caravan. After all, talking to him about it would only ease her conscious. Not his. It was selfish to seek out the discussion of their similarly guilty pasts. Dela squeezed her eyes shut. Problem was, she was self-centered enough to try it. She didn't know if she had the fortitude to keep silent when she needed the camaraderie of mutual suffering. Dela forced her feet to march on, counting her steps to distract her mind.
They marched on, only stopping once to rest the horses and feed the children. By late afternoon, Dela’s feet hurt and her various bruises itched and ached from healing. She wanted a bath and a bed at Josie’s, but based on their risen numbers, she would be lucky for a dip in the crick with the boys and a horse blanket in the barn. And from what she could tell, they had at least one more day of travel at the speed they were going.
As the sun began to kiss the horizon, they reached the last signs of the city and supposed safety—or at least, that was what Dela had assumed until arrows began raining down on them. The women screamed and the horses screeched, while the various men all shouted orders to those around them. Dela ducked down while trying to catch a glimpse of their attackers through the maelstrom of legs and bodies.
The horse nearest her began to turn in circles, nearly knocking her over with its rump. Dela ducked out of the way, landing hard on her healing ankle. She grunted and stumbled onto her rump, the horse’s hooves barely missing her feet. At the same moment, an arrow buried itself into the earth, not an inch away from her outstretched fingers, making a soft thud amongst the louder screaming. Still, Dela heard it with a clarity that scared her. In record time, she scrambled to her feet and dove toward the edge of their scattering group.
She pulled out her own dagger, but it wasn’t much good against people hiding in the underbrush with bows and arrows. To use it, she would have to get closer. A lot closer. As she reached the edge of her group, another volley of arrows rose in the sky. Dela rolled into a ball, nearly skewering herself with her own knife. As the arrows thumped into the ground around her, she blessed her lucky stars. At the same time, she heard gunfire. Dela winced with each shot.
She didn’t hear gunfire often anymore. Bullets were too few and too precious to shoot off willy-nilly, but in their current predicament, she fully supported the choice to use them. As their enemies ducked to avoid the gunshot, Dela jumped up and ran for the underbrush, ignoring the ache in her ankle.
Dela heard a cry from behind her, sounding vaguely like her name, but she ignored it. She lunged into the nearest bush, receiving a few nasty scratches in return. Her feet tripped over a protruding root and she fell face first into a thick bush, only to collide with one of her enemies. He tried to turn his bow and arrow on her, but she fell too quickly, hitting his arm and causing him to drop the weapon.
To her astonishment, her enemy was no more than a boy barely into pube
rty. He shoved her aside with more strength than she had expected, grabbed his dropped weapon, and bolted away from the fight. Dela scrambled to her hands and knees, groping in the dried underbrush for her knife. Branches and dead leaves pricked her fingers until she felt the cool touch of metal. She grabbed the handle and bolted after the boy, her mind too engaged to realize she needed to go after one of the men still shooting at her companions.
Instead, she charged forward without a thought, ducking under low hanging branches and kicking up dirt all around her. She choked on the dust but continued forward. Dela heard a faint voice in the back of her head telling her how much of an idiot she was being, but it didn’t stop her.
These people were attacking her people—not just her Hunters, but the women and ranchers as well. It had been her actions, her endeavors that brought them all together and resulted in the women being freed. They were hers now, and she would protect them with the fierceness of a lioness protecting her cubs.
The little voice inside her head repeated its insults, telling her she was an idiot for taking on such a protective stance over people who didn’t even know her name, but again, she ignored the voice of wisdom and plowed forward.
Finally, ducking around a tree, she came upon the boy. Her approach was anything but silent, and the boy was already turned, an arrow in each hand as though he intended to use them like knives. At first, she wanted to scoff at the idea, but then the light caught the sharp edge of the arrowhead. Dela adjusted her knife, just as her father had taught her. She knew the basics—which end to plunge into your enemy and stuff like that—but she was not well practiced.
The boy lunged forward, swinging his make-shift dagger downward. Dela ducked, tripping over a rock in her haste, and tumbled to the ground. The boy fell upon her, trying to drive the point of his arrow into her chest. She raised her forearm, blocking his strike and fighting to keep the arrow away from her tender flesh, but he was stronger and had the upper hand of being on top. Slowly, the arrowhead inched downward. She adjusted her arm, more diverting the boy’s hand aside than holding it aloft. He growled as he pushed harder, sending the arrow into Dela’s shoulder. She groaned in pain as he sunk it deeper, willing herself not to scream. The last thing she needed was to draw more men to their fight.
Suddenly, Dela remembered her knife—dropped to the ground in her effort to fend off his attack. She groped blindly for the knife at her side. When she felt the faintest hint of metal, she grabbed it and drove it into his neck. Her blood mixed with his, having cut her palm and fingers by grabbing it by the sharp blade. Still, the tip of the blade sunk into his soft flesh and blood spurted over both of them. The boy groped at the wound, futilely trying to stem the flow of blood from his artery. Before Dela could push him off of her, he slumped forward, hitting the arrow sunk into her shoulder and breaking it off until only a small stump of wood protruded from the wound.
Dela grunted with the impact, her breath pushed from her body. Had she had any air in her lungs, she would have screamed from the pain. It took her a moment to remember how to breathe, and when she did, her breathing came in staggered sobs. Slowly, she pushed his body away from her, rolling it over onto the bracken of the shrubby forest. She released her hold on her dagger’s blade, wincing with the added pain as she became aware of the deep cuts.
With her good arm, Dela pushed herself up into a sitting position. She used the boy’s shirt to clean her dagger before cutting off a clean strip of the boy's shirt—or, at least, a strip without fresh blood on it. She wrapped the cloth around her hand and curled her fingers to slow the bleeding of the cuts. There wasn’t anything she could do about the wound on her shoulder until someone got the arrowhead out. Her lips trembled and tears welled in her eyes as she struggled to her feet, her dagger still grasped in her left hand. It didn’t help that each limb was injured—her left with the arrowhead and her right with the cuts.
Once on her feet, she slid the dagger into its sheath. Turning, she headed back in the general direction of the attack, hoping she hadn’t gotten herself turned around in the scuffle. She eyed her shadow, giving her the location of the sun even through the sparse tree-cover. Keeping the sunshine on her left shoulder, she headed back.
Just as she began to hear the tell-tale sound of a large scuffle, a horse burst from the intervening underbrush. Atop it sat the pregnant woman Gareth had been caring for. Dela’s eyes widened as she took in the unusual sight. The pregnant woman gripped the saddle horn, barely keeping her swollen body astride. A pained look twisted her face into a grimace.
A new rush of adrenaline coursed through her body, and Dela spun on her feet, taking off after the horse. She knew she had no hope of keeping up with the charging horse, but she intended on tracking it, never mind the fact she had next to no tracking skills. She ran, pressing her arm against her side in an attempt to stabilize her injured shoulder. Dela focused on the sound of the horse’s hooves as she lost sight of it. To her astonishment, the pregnant woman astride didn’t make a sound.
Dela rounded a thick bunch of prickly growth to find the horse slowing to a trot, bouncing his passenger until Dela feared she would bounce the baby right out. Despite the jarring gait, the pregnant woman managed to grab the reins again and drag them backward. The horse came to a sudden stop, throwing its passenger forward with such force Dela half expected the woman to fly end over end past the horse’s head.
She raced up to the horse’s side and grabbed the lead before the animal could even notice her approach. “You okay?”
The woman just stared at her, looking as though she wasn’t quite certain of her surroundings. Her eyes glazed over as they flicked about. Her lips thinned as a grimace passed over her features, her hand going to her swollen belly. Dela’s eyes followed her hands. Even through the woman’s thin smock, Dela could see a ripple pass over the stretched skin. With it, the woman let out a low groan.
“Okay. Can you stay on the horse? I’ll get us back to the others,” Dela said, giving up on the woman talking.
“No,” she moaned. “It’s coming.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“It’s coming?” Dela wasn’t sure what the woman meant, then, in a painful realization, she understood. Her eyes flicked to the woman’s swollen belly. “No. No. It can’t be coming now. Just hold on until I get us back.”
The woman shook her head, already leaning forward to try to get off the horse. Dela raced to her side, hoping to force the woman to stay put. Instead, she slid from the saddle, right into Dela’s waiting arms. When her feet hit the ground, her knees gave out. Dela caught her out of reflex, screaming as her shoulder stained around the broken arrow. Instead of showing concern, the woman let out her own sound of agony.
Dela shifted, draping the woman’s arm over her shoulders, and began leading her toward the little copse of trees and shrubs. At the edge, she spotted a tiny clearing of brown grass. She helped the gravid woman to the ground, thankful they had shade. It was minimal comfort, but it was something. The minute Dela had the woman on the ground, the woman hiked her knees up and pulled her dress to her hips, revealing her most private parts. Dela’s eyes grew wide and pressure built behind them.
I can’t do this, she thought as she stared at the wet hair parted to reveal a tiny lump covered in some sort of slimy coating. Dela wanted to look away, but her eyes remained transfixed on the horrid sight, some part of her brain aware that it was a new life coming into the world. At that thought, wonder overwhelmed her fears, and she dropped to her knees.
“I don’t know what to do.” The words came out of her mouth on their own.
The woman had grabbed her own knees, sweat pouring down her face. It was turning red, and Dela began to worry the woman couldn’t breathe, and then the moment seemed to pass and she relaxed a little.
“What do you see?” the woman panted.
“Uh… I think that’s the head, but there’s something slimy all over it.”
“That’s a membrane sack. You need to break i
t.”
Dela’s hand reached for her knife.
“No! With… with your fingers.” She was panting, and Dela could tell the pain was building all over again.
Dela looked down at her hands, both covered in blood and muck. She didn’t know much about the human body, but she knew clean was good. I can’t touch her like this.
“Do it,” grunted the woman, her eyes squeezed shut in pain.
Dela closed her mind down and, almost blindly, reached for the protrusion between her legs. She touched it and grimaced. It was the most disgusting thing she had ever touched before. It felt like the underside of a slug. She gathered a bit of it between her fingers and pinched. When it didn’t immediately break, she gave it a little twist. The sack burst, sending a flood of slimy liquid over her hand. Dela’s throat convulsed, and she struggled to keep her stomach from purging all over the poor woman.
With the membrane broken, the baby slid forward, distracting Dela from her gag reflex. She prepared to catch it when the movement suddenly stopped. Dela glanced up at the mother, thinking something horrible had happened to cause the baby’s progress to stop so suddenly, but the mother didn’t look worried. She was breathing quickly, as though she feared her head would go underwater at any minute.
In truth, it was only a minute before the woman held her breath again, grunting as she leaned forward. Dela glanced back down to find the baby’s head slipping free from the woman’s vagina. Once again, the progress stopped and Dela cringed at the sight of a pink head poking free from its cage. It was only a second before it began to move, slowly rotating as it did.
“Uhhh… it’s moving. It’s spinning.”
“It’s su—osed to. One… one…” The woman gasped as the convulsion stopped. “One shoulder at a time.”
And with that, she was trapped in the strange seizure again. Dela cupped the baby’s head and tried to do as she was told. Thankfully, it seemed to happen on its own. One shoulder popped free as the baby rotated, the other one quickly following. Before she knew it, the baby slipped free, nearly sliding right out of Dela’s hands. She caught it just before it hit the hard ground. A cord attached it to the mother. Dela’s eyes ran down the cord to the tiny baby lying in her hands.
Dela's Hunters (The Harem House Book 1) Page 15