Dark Stallion

by Dark Stallion (lit)

  He paused long enough to spare a glance back when before they entered the passage. It didn’t comfort him. Behind them, he could see armed warriors charging after them.

  “Gods! It was too much to hope they would not notice that Emma had broken their prison!” he muttered gustily. “It looks like half their army is behind us.”

  “And the gods only know how many in front!” Colwin added.

  “I didn’t know anything else to try! The ones already there are supposed to be looking for the hoonans, right?” Emma said worriedly.

  Aydin shook his head at her. “That was not a complaint, dearling, only an observation. They might be distracted enough not to see us, but I don’t think we can count on it.”

  Emma’s excitement about succeeding in breaking them out waned. “What do we do now?”

  “Keep going and hope that we can get past the guards at the other end. I am not in favor of going back when they had it in mind to execute us! And I doubt there is another way in or out of this valley.”

  Emma felt a little sick. “I knew it was a very bad thing!”

  “It is still a very bad thing.” Aydin moved alongside Colwin and reached for her, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly for a moment. “Listen to me Emma and do as I say,” he said gruffly.

  She nodded, nuzzling her face against his throat.

  “Promise me.”

  She pulled away, trying to see his face in the darkness. “You’re scaring me, Adyin.”

  He swallowed audibly. “Promise.”

  Emma bit her lip. She wasn’t going to promise him anything until she knew what he wanted her to do because she had a feeling it wasn’t something she would want to do. “I promise,” she lied, knowing he wouldn’t say anything else until she did.

  “If this goes badly for us, you must go to the king for protection.”

  Emma swallowed with an effort. “Don’t talk like that! We got out, didn’t we?”

  “He wants you, Emma. He can protect you.”

  “Aydin!”

  “I mean it, Emma. I want to know that you will be safe, no matter what happens.”

  Emma thought for several moments that she was going to burst into tears. “We can’t give up now!” she said forlornly.

  “We have not given up. We will not. We will fight.”

  With their bare hands against armed men? She knew then that it was hopeless, that he was saying he didn’t mean to allow them to capture him again. She tightened her arms around him. “Promise me you won’t do anything to get yourself killed. I love you, Aydin!”

  He kissed her. For a moment, she thought he meant that he loved her, too. Then she realized he was saying goodbye. It took all she could do to sniff her tears back. She clung to him a moment longer when he pulled away, but holding on to him, she realized, wouldn’t save him—wouldn’t save Colwin.

  There had to be something they could do! She wasn’t ready to give up. She didn’t want Dresden even if he did want her, and she thought Adyin only thought so because he cared about her.

  Almost the moment he settled her on Colwin’s back again, they launched into a run. They raced along the passage full tilt until they reached the area where it narrowed until they could barely squeeze through single file. Even then they barely slowed, though.

  “Wait!” Emma gasped as a sudden thought struck her. “You should shift! Both of you! They’ll hear the clatter of your hooves on the stone. I could hear the sounds echoing around us when we came in. They won’t hear us if you do that and they’re focused on an attack from the outside. We’d at least have a chance of slipping past them.”

  “They will certainly catch us if we shift,” Colwin said. “We have an army advancing from behind. We cannot run nearly as fast on two legs, and you cannot.”

  Emma thought that over. It occurred to her that she’d picked up more from the old movies she’d watched as a kid than she’d realized. “I know another way!” she said excitedly. “It won’t take but a few minutes. Stop and help me down!”

  “We need to keep moving,” Aydin said impatiently.

  “But we can muffle the sound of your hooves with my skirt!”

  She thought Aydin had ignored her, but as soon as the passage widened again, he helped her down. She snatched the skirt off and handed it to Aydin, who tore it in half. Handing the one to Colwin, he tore his own piece into strips and sat down to tie the strips around his hooves. “I need help. I cannot reach the back,” he muttered in disgust.

  Emma was blind in the darkness. She had to find her way by feel, but she tied the strips as quickly as she could and turned to help Colwin. “It feels strange,” Colwin remarked when they started off again.

  “Yes,” Aydin agreed, “but Emma is right. It does muffle the noise.”

  Not as much as she’d hoped, but she thought it still might give them a chance.

  “No more talk. The passage narrowed near the center,” Aydin warned them.

  Emma tightened her arms around Colwin. “Colwin?” she whispered.

  He glanced back at her.

  “I love you, too. Be careful.”

  “Just hold tight, love. I do not want you to bounce off if I have to run like hell.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dawn broke before they reached the end of the passage and Emma’s hopes withered as the darkness around them began to lift. She’d been trying to convince herself that her eyes had just adjusted to the darkness, but she finally had to accept that they’d lost the night and the chance to escape with it.

  Colwin and Aydin both slowed when they realized they were nearing the outer opening of the passage and began to scan the walls above them. Emma thought at first that they were staring up at the patches of sky they could glimpse occasionally, but she finally realized they were looking for the position of the guards.

  Her heart nearly failed her when she spied one herself. She tensed all over as Colwin moved below him, relaxing fractionally when Aydin also passed the opening above them. The cloth was far more effective in preventing their hooves from ringing against the stone when they walked cautiously and Emma began to be more hopeful despite the nearly insurmountable odds she knew they were facing.

  They stopped completely when they reached the opening. Adyin signaled Colwin to move as close to the wall as he could and moved to the opening taking quick glances outside, moving to a new position and checking again.

  Emma felt the tension inside her mount until she began to feel faint from trying to hold her breath to keep from breathing hard enough to be overheard. Finally, Aydin moved toward them and spoke in a low voice. “I think I have found their positions. I will go out first. If you hear a shout, charge through and make a sharp right, following the creek. I will try to hold them off. If you do not hear a call, give me a count of twenty and then follow as quietly as you can—to the right. I do not want to chance running into the hoonans when we have no weapons.”

  Colwin nodded grimly.

  Emma let go of him long enough to wipe her sweaty palms on her tunic and then looped her arms around him again, locking her fingers together. She bit her lip as Aydin slipped outside, held her breath, prayed, trying to count in her head. She managed to suck in a breath when she’d counted to twenty and they didn’t hear anything.

  Colwin moved to the opening and studied the area outside until he spotted Aydin. She tightened her arms around Colwin frantically when he slipped from the passage and began moving carefully among the rocks, pausing every few moments to search for the men the king had sent to guard the passage.

  She wished abruptly that she’d stolen tunics for them to match those worn by the king’s guard, but discarded it with the reflection that she might as well have wished for an airplane or a helicopter. She would’ve had as much luck getting either one.

  They’d managed to move maybe twenty feet from the passage when Emma heard the shout she’d been dreading. Her blood turned to ice water. Colwin jolted, glanced swiftly around and then bolted from cover
. They’d nearly reached the stream when Emma realized that bellows were coming at them from every direction.

  Opening her eyes, she whipped a terrified look around them. She sucked in breath on a scream when she saw a wall of hoonans racing toward them from the woods on the other side of the tiny stream. When she whipped a look behind them, she saw a wall of centaurs charging in their direction.

  “Oh my god! Col! We’re surrounded!”

  “Hell!” he bellowed, struggling to run faster over the rocky ground, trying to kick off the rags she’d tied to his feet at the same time.

  “It’s her!” one of the hoonans bellowed.

  “Oh shit! Of god!” Emma exclaimed.

  Aydin charged toward them, intercepting the hoonan who’d made a grab for her.

  Colwin bounded away and slammed into another centaur. They struggled. Colwin had managed to grab his sword hand. Emma stared at the blade as it whipped back and forth with their movements and finally lurched forward. Grabbing the handle above his fist, she sank her teeth into his knuckles as hard as she could.

  He uttered a roar of pain and let go of the sword.

  She had it. She wasn’t certain what to do with it, but she finally decided to use it as a club and slammed the flat of the blade down on the other centaur’s head. His eyes rolled around in his head. He stumbled. When he did, Colwin released his hold and grabbed the blade from her.

  He nearly unseated her when he reared upward and kicked the man with his forelegs.

  “Hold on, gods damn, Emma!” he roared at her when she dug trenches across his belly trying to maintain her grip on him.

  Aydin surged past them. “Run!” he bellowed.

  Colwin charged forward, swinging the blade they’d captured to make a path. Aydin had managed to grab a sword, as well, and paced himself to run beside them.

  Emma was so horrified at the screams and spurting blood from every direction, she burrowed her face against Colwin’s back and squeezed her eyes closed. She finally opened them again, cautiously, when she realized the sounds of battle were falling behind them. After looking around on either side of them, she finally craned around to look behind them.

  It looked like hundreds of centaurs, not dozens, battling outside the entrance to the passage. She realized after a moment that the army that had been behind them must have emerged and joined the battle.

  It actually didn’t look like much a battle by that time. The hoonans, finding themselves outnumbered, had broke and run. The centaurs charged after them, cutting them down.

  Fear curled in her belly, but in a few moments the trail they were following turned and cut off her view of the battle.

  Neither Aydin nor Colwin slowed appreciably even when the trail began to descend and became a hazard by itself and it got worse the further they went until they were sliding more than running. Colwin finally slid down completely on his side. When he did, Emma let go of him, launching herself toward the side of the hill. Colwin skidded to a halt and glanced back at her.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Dazed, Emma managed to push herself upright and studied her hands and knees. “I think so,” she said in a quavering voice.

  Colwin made a couple of attempts to climb up to her and ended up sliding further. “Come to me, Emma,” he said finally. “I will catch you.”

  After studying him a moment, Emma decided it might be better not to try to stand up. She picked her way carefully down the slope in a crab walk, freezing every time she felt herself slipping.

  She was so relieved when she finally reached Colwin she grabbed at him a little frantically. He pulled her closer, holding her while he surveyed the hill. Aydin, who’d fared better than they had, had reached a level area below them. “Is she alright?”

  Colwin nodded. “I think so. Scared.”

  “Do you want me to climb up and get you, dearling?” Aydin called to her.

  She did. She wanted him to pick her up and carry her down. “No,” she said a little weakly. “I can do it.”

  She did. She was shaking like a leaf in a strong wind when she managed to scramble down the slope to the trail below, but she managed it without breaking anything or going into a dive and rolling down.

  Aydin and Colwin paused to catch their breath and listen to the sounds of battle in the distance.

  “Do you think they’ll come after us?” Emma asked after a few moments.

  Colwin and Adyin shared a look.

  “I think they are more interested in fighting one another,” Aydin said finally, “but we will keep moving. I would like to find a better place to camp before nightfall.”

  * * * *

  Colwin discovered he couldn’t stop smiling. “She is a wild woman!” he murmured. “Did I tell you that she took this sword? She bit his hand! You have never seen a more surprised centaur!”

  Aydin chuckled. “You told me.”

  “She told me she loved me.”

  Aydin felt his amusement take a nosedive. “Colwin … She thought we would not live to see another day,” he said gruffly.

  Colwin glanced at him, frowning. “You are saying she did not mean it?”

  Aydin shrugged. “I think she believed it in that moment. You know as well as I do that people say and do things in the heat of battle ….”

  Colwin studied him for a long moment. “You did not mean it when you told her you loved her?”

  Aydin swallowed a little convulsively. “I meant it. I did not say it, though. A woman wants to hear the words.” He uttered a sigh of disgust. “I did not want to say it because I did not want her to think about it if we died today.”

  “She helped us to escape. You think she would have risked so much if she did not care about us?” Colwin asked after a few moments.

  “I would like to believe that, but there is no understanding the way a woman’s mind works. She has felt guilty that we were being pursued. It might have been nothing more than that—determination to make sure we did not pay for taking her.”

  “You think that she still wants to return to her own world and she will leave us as soon as we return to the village,” Colwin said flatly.

  “I do not know. I only know that I would rather not think about it at all,” Aydin said tiredly.

  “Lay with her,” Colwin urged him after a few moments. “I am in better shape than you are. I will take first watch.”

  Aydin studied him but finally nodded instead of arguing. He thought Colwin was right and, in any case, he was so exhausted himself he thought it just as likely he would fall asleep as Colwin.

  * * * *

  Emma didn’t realize she’s dozed off until Aydin roused her when he settled beside her. She didn’t have to search for the objective that had been her reason for struggling to stay awake. It surfaced in her mind the moment she roused and she turned over onto her side, burrowing closer to Aydin.

  Actually, she’d expected Colwin to be first to sleep. Aydin usually took first watch, but she didn’t particularly care about the order as long as she got what she wanted—needed.

  She’d come too close to losing them today for her comfort. A deep need had been churning through her almost from the time they’d been captured by King Dresden’s men, to hold them close and be held by them to assure herself that nothing would happen to them, that she couldn’t lose them. Nothing that incomprehensibly awful could happen.

  She nuzzled her face against the center of his chest, dragging in a deep breath and savoring his scent, the warmth of his skin, the reassuring beat of his heart. “Make love to me, Aydin,” she murmured against his skin, nibbling lightly at his flesh with her lips.

  The hand he’d settled lightly along her waist tightened. His cock rose between them. Emma felt her lips curl in pleasure.

  He settled his cheek on top of her head. “You are too tired and sore, love. Rest.”

  Emma tipped her head up and nibbled a trail up his neck. “I need to feel you inside of me, Aydin. Please?”

  Aydin had thought he was exhauste
d, but his cock clearly wasn’t, he thought wryly, and her plea woke the rest of him. It set his heart to pounding. He didn’t think he could’ve ignored it if he’d been half dead. He wasn’t certain if he could please her. He wasn’t sure he would be able to do much more than push his cock inside of her and then sprawl atop her like a dead thing, but he was more than willing to try.

  Settling a hand lightly along her jaw, he guided her face upward to match his mouth to hers and kissed her, gently, trying to keep from hurting her poor face worse. Even so, it took no more than the taste of her eagerness on his tongue and the heat of mouth to stir everything inside of him.

  He pulled away after a moment, tugging her tunic up. She sat up and pulled it off over her head. He caught her just beneath her breasts and dragged her close enough to capture a pert, pink nipple in his mouth, relishing the feel of her nipple on his tongue, the soft yielding of her breast, and her little sighs of pleasure with equal measure.

  Her skin smelled of flowers. He debated for a few moments whether he actually liked that scent when it made it difficult to detect her own sweet scent. He dismissed it as he moved from one breast to the other, building upon his arousal and hers until he began to feel impatient to wedge his flesh inside of her tight, hot passage.

  Settling her on the pallet, he stroked her soft skin with his hands and his lips, trying to decide if she was as eager to move on as he was. When she shifted her legs apart, grasped his hand and guided it downward to her nether lips, his doubts fled. She was hot and wet for him. Her restless movements were evidence enough, he thought, but the moisture he felt there begged for possession.

  He moved over her, holding himself aloft until she’d opened her legs wide for him and then settled in the cradle of her thighs, guiding his flesh to her sweet spot, the gateway to heaven.

  It gave him a glimpse of heaven and hell trying to work his flesh inside of her without risking hurting her, but it was the sweetest torment he’d ever felt. From the moment her flesh began to close tightly around his, squeezing, he hardly knew from one moment to the next whether he was dying of pleasure or just dying. His heart squeezed as her flesh squeezed his and then began to hammer against his chest wall until felt as if it would explode. Darkness swarmed around him dizzyingly.