Clara asked after him.
“He is fine. Eager to see you.”
“When will he be released?”
“A fore-night, no more,” Sarah said.
Clara nodded. She tried to not rely on Charles overly much, but she could admit, if only to herself, that the Prince terrified her, very much. She cast a glance at the door then looked to Olive, who nodded.
Olive walked quickly to the door, stepping into the doorway. Looking each way, she closed it softly, throwing the lock simultaneously with its closure. Clara felt the breath slide out of her body in bold relief, she could possibly sleep.
Sarah smiled. “Let me lie on your couch beside your portal which overlooks the Great Forest Outside. I will stay here this night, standing watch over you.”
Clara wanted to tell her no, Sarah was terribly stubborn. Not unlike Clara herself. She smiled at Sarah and Olive fetched a bundle of bed linen for the fainting couch.
Clara needed to relieve herself and brush her hair. She swept the covers aside and Olive was suddenly there. Clara quietly told the girl her needs and they walked over to the necessary together. Afterward, Clara sat down in front of the vanity and Olive stood behind her brushing her hair. Sarah flanked her. Slowly, Clara lifted her eyes up from her lap and met the ones in her face; if one could call the reflection which greeted her a recognizable likeness.
Clara stared at the swollen cheek, a lump of reddened flesh the size of one of her beloved tangerines, buried beneath an angry welt. Her lips were twice the size of normal, with a sore, open and bleeding on one side where it had been cut open. A bruise formed, seemingly out of nowhere, underneath her left eye, a shadow mark, making her turquoise eyes appear to float above the marks the Prince had laid.
She looked at herself and every abuse the Queen had ever made swam to the surface of her consciousness and her soul could bear no more. A strangled cry rose from deep in her throat and hot tears which scalded her wounds slid down her face. Her crying, for once, was not silent. Her two friends attended her as she cried tears of loss and grief.
Some for her people and many for herself.
CHAPTER 14
If Charles had anything left in his stomach it would be dispatched immediately. However, he did a fine job of it in the Queen's chamber. If the situation with Clara had not been so grievous, he would have taken a certain grim satisfaction in begriming her room so thoroughly. As it were, he could not.
Being helpless to protect Clara as the Prince savaged her had been the very worst experience of Charles' life. It left nary a doubt as to Prince Frederic's intentions toward her and their execution. He meant to deal with her as a possession he had a right to abuse, neglect, then throw away when the time came for such things.
It was enough to make one take one's chances Outside.
The idea rippled in his head like a stone on the Great Lake: he and Clara could make a fresh start Outside. Sarah had touched on the idea when she briefly visited him in his cell. He was warming to it moment by moment.
The guards had provided his supper (fit for a king; he knew it was Billy's doing). One of the guards had whispered in Charles' ear that it was a very good thing to have beaten on the Prince.
Charles agreed.
Not that he wished to be in the cell. It was all for appearances as Ada was deep in her cup and the Prince and King would avail her this last night before their departure one day hence for the Kingdom of Kentucky. Charles was very likely to get into deeper problems than his current situation. His sincerest wish was not for Prince Frederic's abuse, but his demise.
Sarah's idea mimicked his but it set Clara's escape squarely in another sphere. But they would never follow her Outside. They must set their eyes upon the Outside. Another sphere was too close for the long reach of the Queen's arms. Charles brooded.
Finally, he laid down on his back with his arms crossed beneath his head, thinking of Clara. It was very good that Prince Frederic would be journeying to the Kingdom of Kentucky after Charles was released. He knew that once he saw Clara's face, no force of nature would be enough to stop him from permanent abuse of the Prince.
The hour late, Charles felt himself fall into sleep, plotting escape and protection. Remorse for his actions stealing itself amongst his dreams like a seed which germinates.
****
Bracus watched the glowing pile of embers at his feet as they burnt down to ash. His eyes burned with the need to sleep but his mind wandered over and over again with thoughts of the Princess. He could not shake the feeling something was terribly wrong. He needed to satisfy his disquiet. He would return to the spot in the forest where he could view her; make sure that all was well. Bracus had not sat this long as captain of his clan's Band for nothing. He had learned through hard experience to recognize and seize upon his intuition. Three weeks seemed an interminable time to wait. He must be patient, anything else would give away his feelings. Bracus was not one to show his emotions. Philip was the only male he spoke to of that which weighed upon him.
He looked over at his brother, lying prone, deep snores resonating from his chest and pushing his throat slits wide. Bracus smiled.
Standing, he swung his foot out, making hard contact with the sole of Philip's foot. Philip sucked in a huge wallop of air and kicked out with the same foot, slamming it into Bracus' shin. Bracus stumbled backward from the impact, pinwheeling his arms for balance, regaining it, and finding a blade at his throat. “What say you, brother?”
Bracus smiled, Philip, asleep but aware, a marvelous thing. “Testing you, my brother. I wished to see if you were still warrior enough to notice me.”
“Aye, I am,” Philip said, pressing the point of the blade deeper into Bracus' neck until a drop of blood made its way down the blade.
Suddenly, Philip looked down to see Bracus' blade pressed against his vulnerable side.
They grinned at each other, stalemate...again. They lowered their blades and sheathed them. The other Band members were now fully awake after a night of heated discussion of sphere-dwellers that had waned into exhaustion.
The guard looked at the brothers' warily. His captain and his brother, Philip, even larger than Bracus. They would bear watching. He ruminated about that which had engaged them this night: acquisition of the female, the Princess. They did not know his plan differed from theirs so hugely. They would soon enough. The sphere, all the spheres, needed to be broken open, their peoples mingling. He sat thinking. The clans would be the obvious rulers of the people, clan and sphere-dweller alike. It was most logical, considering the sphere-dwellers' inferior physical status and obvious lack of prowess, and abundance of females. Things would go as planned.
As he planned.
Bracus looked around him in amusement, the entire Band had dozed by the fire, only Jack absent. They all looked at him and Philip, eyes glittering in the light cast by the fire. Bracus looked at the sky, a few hours before dawn. He would stand first watch and Stephen second. Bracus announced the watch status, having allowed some laziness beside the fire. However, important developments straight from the president's lips needed to be conveyed and deliberated upon. Of that, Bracus felt sure.
Stephen rose, placing the flat of his palm upon the small of his back, arching and stretching as a cat.
Matthew gave his taunt stomach a glancing blow and Stephen crouched, at the ready. “See how you tarry?”
Stephen jabbed him back in the vulnerable solar-plexus.
“Guards!” Bracus hissed and they looked at him. “Now is not the time to seek romance with each other.” They glowered at him. No matter, there would be time enough for sparring when the female was within the safety of the clan. Until such time, he wished for the Band to be ever vigilant.
Stephen gave up and trudged to his post, not easily seen by the fire. No matter, there was a fence made from the towering trees which ran the length of the clan's primary compound and was not easily transgressed. Bracus, for one, enjoyed running the perimeter. He told himself he liked the
exercise to remain in top shape for warring amongst other clans and the dreaded fragment. The truth was that he wished to secure the clan's perimeter each day. He never ran at the same time, wishing no one mindful of his routines.
Bracus had changed his mind, choosing to take second shift. This would allow him time to be at the sphere when dawn saw the new day. He would then creep toward the sphere, stealthily, and look once more at the female. He needed to calm his skin which itched with the wrongness of something he could not name.
He approached Stephen. “I will run, then return one hour past dawn.” They looked at the sky, judging the time. Stephen nodded. That struck Bracus as odd. Stephen was one to be vocal, always. But he had been unusually subdued this night. Bracus prided himself on being acutely aware of his Band's mental state. It was critical, their lives had depended on it... would always depend on it. He realized he may be letting his disquiet permeate his thought process too deeply. He shook it away, moving toward the perimeter, his throat slits relaxing in preparation for exertion.
CHAPTER 15
Clara slowly opened her eyes, or should she say eye. As it was, the bruising underneath her eyeball, exacerbated by her tears had swollen up from the underneath, distorting her vision. Clara swung her legs around until they hovered over the floor, dropping down and immediately she steadied herself as her vision swam before her, streamers of color running out in different directions. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Finally, when she was steadier, she shuffled over to her looking glass and gasped at what she saw there. Although the primary damage had settled down a bit, the swelling below the eye and her lip made it apparent that she had been struck, badly.
There would be no attending the fields this day. She could not suffer the questions, sympathetic glances, and cool the tempers of those that wished to avenge her.
Dawn bore its champagne light through the sphere, the slightly obscure nature of it burnishing the room softly so it glowed. Clara turned away from her pathetic reflection and wandered again to the window that was actually the sphere wall and pressed her body against it, her nightgown flowing around her legs. She could just make out the stand of trees and had a sudden wish that she could see the savage. Not the one that looked like he wished her harm but the other.
Sighing, she looked at the Forest Outside and he appeared. Just as she remembered and her heart sped, the pulse fairly leaping the prison of her throat. But she was unafraid. He gazed at her from the stand of trees, then looking around him, he carefully set aside his bow, arrow and quiver...he was disarming.
Bracus lay his weapons aside, as to not intimidate the Princess. If he were attacked, in the open, at dawn, his daggers would do very well.
His throat slits opened wide, taking in the extra oxygen he needed as he sprinted the short distance toward the sphere. He arrived and stopped before the Princess, her face he could see as through dark water, shimmering and slightly obscure, the material of the dome a milky cloak.
Clara stood stock still, her pulse hammered and her hands grew damp, a fine tremor taking up residence as she watched that muscular form and long legs eat up the distance between them. He was a thing of beauty to watch in motion.
As before he stopped and she saw his face change in expression from fierceness to rage and she stepped away from the window, her hand to her throat, what had angered him so mightily? She had done nothing.
What Bracus saw caused his heart to stutter in his chest. She had been beaten. A black rage, the likes of which he had never known washed over him, making the blood rush through his body and roar in his ears, he tipped his head back and shouted to the heavens, his concern over circumspection forgotten in the face of her injuries. Who could have dared touch her in this way?
He would kill them he vowed, as sure as he stood before her.
Clara jumped when Bracus shouted his rage.
He approached again, his face edged with hard anger and beckoned for her to come closer. She shook her head.
Bracus could taste her fear, it wafted out to him on the wind. He looked more closely at the one eye he could see, the other almost completely shut from the blow she had suffered. Her beautiful lips, full and ripe when he'd last laid eyes on her, now were distended and bloodied. He felt his hands curl into fists. But he restrained his expression. He knew that this trauma she had suffered would make her uneasy with his show of emotion. Instead, he indicated he had no weapons then pointed to the area of her face that was injured, throwing his hands wide he gave the universal gesture for, who? Then he leaned forward, his face almost pressed to the sphere and mouthed, “who did this to you?”
Clara would have been a fool to not understand that he wished to know what had happened. Her fear began to slide away. He was not the enemy her People thought them to be. For all his fierceness and huge stature, he was not intrinsically evil. Clara opened her mouth to speak and Charles walked in the room.
Bracus' head snapped to attention as a young male entered the Princess's room, and he growled low in his throat. Was this the male that had hurt her?
Charles came into Clara's chamber and immediately spied the savage outside her window. What in the bloody hell? He ran to her.
Clara felt herself being lifted from behind and shrieked, the memories of the night before fresh. She bucked and fought, fighting for all she was worth, the savage's roar of rage ringing in her ears. She could feel herself hyperventilating. Please, dear Guardian, I do not wish to be beaten, Clara all but sobbed.
“It is I Clara! It is Charles, be still, it is I!” Charles shouted.
But it was no use, Clara was a still bundle in his arms.
She had fainted.
Bracus looked at the scene before him, the male held the Princess with tenderness, belying how she had fought him. The male looked up at Bracus and he looked back with dark intent, he would kill the one that had done this.
Bracus had seen how the poor female tried to fight him off. And now she lay still and vulnerable in his arms. Every protective instinct he harbored screamed to be released, his hands as evil hammers of abuse at his side. There would be another day that he would exact his revenge. Three weeks hence was too long to wait for acquisition, the need to rescue her was now.
Where were her protectors? He looked at the male...he would pay dearly. With a final look at the Princess, he raced up the incline, bound for the stand of trees, his throat slits pouring oxygen into his circulatory system. Bracus needed it, he would run the entire way back to his clan, where he would alert the Band to this change.
Charles saw the savage look at him with murderous intent and realized that he thought that Charles' was responsible for the abuse he saw on Clara's face. Not that it mattered what a savage thought but it bothered Charles that another would think he could harm Clara. He was a huge male, inches taller than Charles, with the strange gills she spoke of, opening and closing with his breathing. But it was his eyes that transfixed Charles, eyes which narrowed, memorizing Charles' face. He looked one last time at Clara then turned, flying up the incline to the Forest of Trees Outside, his form slipping into the wood, disappearing from sight.
Charles stared for a moment after the savage, glad that the sphere protected him, as he had seen his beating upon the savage's face. His fixation on Clara made Charles uneasy. The savages' existence was a problem. Surely Clara could see that? And what of his plan to escape with her? To get her away from this abuse and safely Outside, but the savages were there.
Clara stirred in his arms and he lifted her up easily, she weighed nothing. He lay her down gently, a fragile burden, her face swollen and marked. His chest grew tight again, thinking of Prince Frederick and what he was unable to stop him from doing.
Clara opened her eyes and saw Charles. She quickly looked at the window for the savage.
“He is gone,” Charles said.
Clara sank back in her pillow and Charles reached out to her face, gently running a finger over her lip, picturing the Prince. “I could kill him, you kn
ow.”
Clara captured his finger. “Do not,” as she lay his hand against her uninjured cheek.
“I do have a plan, dear Clara.”
“Is it the same one that Sarah has?” Clara whispered.
“It is. We will reconvene later, when you feel better and establish a time line.”
Charles looked at her face. “I am so sorry. He beat you because of me and I could do nothing.”
“He needed no excuse, it would have happened eventually.”
“Why do you say this?”
“He is of the Queen's ilk. He enjoys punishing for its own sake.”
They were silent for a moment.
Charles looked off at the window, his face darkening. “Why does the savage return to you?”
“I do not know,” Clara said, giving a small shrug, but added, “he does not mean me harm.”
“He looked like he meant me harm!”
Clara had a horrible thought. “I fought you...”
“Yes, I am sorry I took you by surprise, I thought that... I do not know what I thought. I saw him looming over you and lost myself. After last night, I feel just a tad bit more protective than before. It makes no sense, as he cannot breach the sphere...”
“He thinks that you harmed me.”
Charles nodded, remembering the savage's eyes.
“It cannot be good, I feel there is a purpose for these visits he makes. I do not know for what reason but there is one.” Clara sat up in bed with a clear sense of foreboding wrapping itself around her, stealing into her bones and she grew cold. Charles folded her into his arms and she allowed herself to be held. His strong arms tightened about her and Clara could feel his heartbeat, strong and steady. The smell of his maleness and the warmth of him a comfort she was used to.
Destiny's Dark Fantasy Boxed Set (Eight Book Bundle) Page 75