Dark Stallion
Page 21
When they finally reached the door and Heather saw moonlight, she was so relieved that she didn’t pay as close attention to her footing as she had been while she had been led blindly through the dark. Because of that, she tripped on something in the door frame, probably the frame, and collided with the area just between the wings on Fade’s back.
Turning around and grabbing her hands to help her balance, Fade said, a smile playing about his lips, “If I didn’t know any better, I would say you want me to hold you in my arms again.”
Heather scowled furiously at him as she straightened herself. He knew good and damned well she had tripped. If he hadn’t been dragging her so fast with his long ass legs, it would have been easier for her to keep up and she probably wouldn’t have fallen into him. She decided that he was enjoying her misery far too much, until she saw his expression. The smile on his face brought a dimple out to play. The moonlight softened his features and illuminated his wings. He really looked like an angel when he smiled.
“We should get moving. I do not know how far we are from my castle,” Fade said, the brief glimpse of joy on his face gone, the warrior returned.
“Castle?”
“Yes. If we are fortunate, we are in the outskirts of the Dark Throne.”
“And, if we’re not?”
Fade didn’t answer.
She decided that it was probably better that he didn’t. If he didn’t want to talk about it, it couldn’t be good. She fell into stride behind him, doing her best to keep up, but the cold and her bare feet were making it nearly impossible.
When they came upon a small copse of trees, Fade decided that it would be a good place to rest for a while. They had traveled some distance in the dark, and he hadn’t seen anything to give him any indication of their location. He normally would have traveled through the night, but he could tell, even though she had not said anything, that the woman was growing weary. He could see that she was now visibly shaking from the cold.
“Sit,” he commanded without vehemence as he pointed to a grassy spot beneath a tree.
Heather did as he said, not having the strength to verbally or physically spar with him.
Fade slipped his shield from his arm and threw his sword into the dirt next to Heather and then began to take his breeches off.
Heather couldn’t believe it. He was just like all the other men she had known!
“If you think for a minute . . . ,” she said through teeth that chattered.
“Hold your tongue, hoonan,” Fade said, giving her a stern look of reproach. He finished taking off his breeches.
Heather noted that his manhood was disappointingly still covered by a small type of loincloth. She was so distracted at the idea of getting a peak at the impressive package she had felt before that she failed to notice him throw his breeches at her. They landed in her face. When they had fallen off of her face of their own accord, she seared him with another evil glare.
It wasn’t the most gracious way she had ever been given something, but she supposed it was kind and generous just the same, and she should be thankful he was letting her cover up with them. She almost felt bad that she had thought he had something else in mind. Her cheeks became warm as a blush infused them. It was silly of her to be embarrassed, but she had thought, especially with their close contact before, that he desired her. It was a ridiculous notion, of course. She was obviously not his kind. Why would he desire her? But, she thought as she watched him stand before her with his hands on his hips in the moonlight, that fact hadn’t kept her from wanting him.
“I will go collect wood for a small fire. You stay here. If anyone approaches run and call for me, use my sword if you have to.”
Turning away from her, Fade made his way through the trees. He returned before long with wood and some plants that resembled elephant ears.
Heather watched as Fade assembled wood for a fire and arranged the plants with sticks at a distance around the fire. “What are the plants for?”
“They are to help conceal the fire. We cannot have the fire for long, so take pleasure from it while you can. If there is anything out there, it will be drawn to the fire.”
Heather shivered beneath his breeches. She had just been worrying about what kind of bugs might live in the forest beside their camp site. She had become so exhausted that she had completely forgotten that there were probably more ferocious things on his world than him.
Fade got the fire going and then stood over it a moment to see if it needed more tending. He noticed out of his peripheral vision that the woman was still trembling from the cold. Concerned that the fire would not be enough to heat her, not knowing anything about her kind, he went over to her and sat beside her.
She looked up at him for a moment, her pale blue eyes seeming to see right through him. He took her by the arm and pulled her into his embrace. Lying down with her by the fire, he encircled them with his wings.
Before long, Heather fell asleep in the warmth radiating from Fade. He got up and threw dirt over the fire until it was extinguished and then went back and laid down by Heather, suddenly feeling reluctant to let her go.
* * * *
Heather woke up when she was pulled abruptly to her feet by her arm and hair. She was not a morning person, but the particular wake up call would have made the most congenial morning person evil. She screamed in pain and outrage as she tried to find the hand in her hair and stumble upright. She was thankful she had slipped his breeches on in the night because she hadn’t expected to wake up and be surrounded by soldiers.
Fade had heard the soldiers approach. When he had seen that they were his men he had breathed a sigh of relief. He had allowed the woman to sleep a little longer, since she had seemed so tired the day before. But all was not well, Fade discovered when the troops were within feet of him. They exchanged glances, and he could hear their whispering.
“We’ll get the coward traitor,” whispered one soldier to another.
Fade wasn’t sure what they were accusing him of, but he knew that, with the woman, he had no chance of escape when he was surrounded by so many elven troops. He allowed the men to take him without struggle, hoping that once they got to the castle he would be able to convince the king that whatever he was being accused of was false. It wasn’t until they grabbed the woman so roughly that he made any attempt to struggle. He quietly cursed at the two men holding him when Heather screamed at her rough treatment.
The soldiers escorted them many miles to the Dark Throne. Once there, Fade and Heather were not taken before the king, they were thrown in the dungeon.
This was an unexpected turn of events. Fade had anticipated talking to the king, but, as the soldiers that had deposited them in the dungeon left, he overheard their conversation and knew he could not stay in the dungeon.
“Wait until King Calder sees that we have caught Fade and the sorceress and without one man being injured. He will surely behead him for abandoning the battle and killing his father,” the guards whispered to one another.
Looking at Heather in the cage opposite him, Fade began to formulate a plan. He waited until the guards were completely out of the dungeon, most having gone to report to other duties, and some having gone to inform the king of the success of their mission. Now that they had a little time before the king himself came, they should use the opportunity to escape.
Not daring to waste a moment, Fade grabbed two bars of his cage and pulled them apart with all his might. The bars seemed to give him little resistance, bending apart until the gap between them was large enough for him to fit through.
Heather, who had been examining her blistered feet until that moment, looked on with awe.
Fade’s long legs ate up the distance between his cell and Heather’s. He made quick work of bending the bars on her cage as well. He held out his hands to her, and she got up and into his embrace.
“What are we . . . ?” Heather didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence.
The sound of Fade’s win
gs flapping filled the air, and then he took off through the dungeon to the door.
Heather cringed when she saw the dungeon door coming into view, sure that they would both be crippled on impact.
But Fade turned in flight and rammed the door with his shoulders as he craned his head protectively over Heather. The door flew off of its hinges and slammed into the floor. The guards posted not far away began to shoot and throw their swords at him, but they were too late. Fade had already flown past their reach and had shot out a large stained-glass window in one of the castle towers.
They flew for what seemed like hours to Heather. She was amazed that Fade held such power but hadn’t used it before. Why would someone with so much strength and ability not use it to its full potential all of the time? That question only raised another. Why hadn’t she seen any of the others of his kind with wings? She was sure that they were his kind. He had mentioned that he was prince of the Dark Throne, and that was where they had been taken. And for that matter, since that was where they had been headed before they were captured and escorted there, why had they treated him like a criminal? If he was their prince, why had he been thrown in the dungeon? There were a lot of unanswered questions. Like, where the hell were they going now?
Fade saw the castle his mother had left him in the distance. It was a much more modest sized estate than the Dark Throne, and it had fallen into disrepair since her untimely death. He had often come here to find solace. It had always been his private retreat, and he was glad now that no one else had known about his time here.
Setting Heather down in the courtyard of the castle, Fade folded his wings behind him once again.
“Now,” Fade said with a growl, taking Heather by the arm and bringing her up hard against his body, “you have some explaining to do.”
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