He protests when I walk him into the rain, shaking out his mane. He stands still for me though, and I get on, kicking his sides. He bolts. The rain stings my face as we ride, hitting my skin unforgivingly. My eyes can hardly stay open from the pain, but I push through.
Hank pushes through too, taking me back to the castle as fast as he can. He huffs and neighs his protests. His breaths puff into the air each time he digs his hooves into the mud.
I’m furious, but now that I’m almost to the castle, the only thing I can think about is how I forgot to get the damn pig from Fletcher. Now, I’m pissed off and have nothing for dinner.
Great.
Chapter Three
Sylvie
I stretch as the morning sun spills through the windows along with the salty breeze. I kept them open for the night. It’s better than the smell of breakfast. I’ve never smelled anything better than the sea. Yawning, I roll out of bed and let my feet hit the cool floor, nearly making me yelp. Well, that would wake anyone up. I hate being cold, but worse than that; I hate my feet and hands being cold. If it were up to me, I’d live in a place where it never snows.
Dreams.
“Sylvie, are you awake?” My mother knocks softly on the door. “We have guests arriving soon. Be sure you’re ready.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, then rub my eyes, wishing I could have more time to myself. “I’m awake, Mother. I’ll be down in a moment.”
“Breakfast is ready. Your father is waiting. We have news.”
News. News is never good.
“Can’t wait,” I tell her with false sincerity.
She says nothing else and leaves me in peace, her feet so light they make no noise as she strolls back down the hall. I can imagine her now, proper, head held high, hands clasped in front of her as she sashays like a true lady.
Something I am most definitely not. And I hear about it every time I try to sashay or whatever the ladies are doing these days. I drop my head in my hands, thinking about ways I can get out of this day with the news sharing and lectures that are to come.
“Ow!” I rub my arm. Something sharp just hit me. I bend down, picking up the small dark pebble between my fingers and bring it in front of my eyes. “What in the world?” I ask right as another one flies through the window and smacks me right between the eyes.
“Ouch!” I rub the space between my brows, trying to ease the ache.
Getting my thoughts together, I hit my fist on the bed, push myself up, and rush toward the window in an angry fury. “There are a hundred pleasant ways to wake up, and being hit in the head with a pebble is not one of them,” I yell, sticking my head out of the window.
“It takes a pebble to wake you up!” my best friend Aya shouts back at me with another throw of a pebble—that I effectively dodge.
“Don’t be violent,” I hiss as quietly as I can, while still trying to be as loud as I can, all without letting my parents know anything is going on.
“Get down here! I saw the guests arrive. And you are going to want to see what is going on. “
She doesn’t have to say anymore. I lift my finger, telling her to give me a minute and grab one of my gowns that just tie in front and clip my hair back. I run back to the window to see Aya gesturing me to hurry up with a slight stomp of her foot. She’s always so impatient. With a roll of my eyes, I slip my leg out the window and jump onto the roof.
I slide down just enough to grab onto the edge, climb down until my foot hits a crook in the stone, start propelling myself down, and then jump. My feet hit the ground, and already, Aya is at my side, taking my hand and pulling me away from the castle.
“What are you doing?” I ask as we hurry toward the treeline.
“We need to get out of sight. Your parents will see if we don’t hurry.”
“Aya, what do you need to tell me?” I’m growing more curious by the second. Once we break through the treeline, I have to duck to miss a branch. I trip over a few fallen branches, but I finally get my bearings when Aya lets go of my hand.
“Oh, this was a great idea. Exactly what I needed.” I take a deep breath of the pines around me and twirl, appreciating the beauty surrounding me. “Oh, the trees are so green, and the sun is so warm.”
I love days after a nice rain. Everything seems to come to life. And the smell? Goddess, I love the way the earth smells after it has been drenched with water. It’s fresher. Everything is bolder, brighter, and more alive. It’s the only way I know how to explain it.
“No. We aren’t hiking or going for a walk. I must show you something. I’m assuming your mother talked to you this morning?” She lifts a perfectly shaped brow at me, her copper-colored eyes alight with something that surely will change my happy mood.
“What do you know?” I’m not sure how Aya figures out things so quickly, but if anyone needs to know anything about anyone, Aya is the person to go to.
“Come here,” she crooks her finger at me and crouches behind a tree. “I know the reason why your mother wanted you to come down for breakfast.”
“It’s eerie that you know my schedule and my family so well. Maybe you should be their daughter.”
“I’ll pass. Your parents are far too much for me.” She shakes her head. “Forget that. We are getting distracted. Look.” She pushes a branch out of the way, and I see my parents talking to an older man. Next to him is a younger man. Must be his son. He looks like the older one, but better looking.
“Is that…”
“That is who they hope your future husband shall be.”
I gasp. “That’s what the news is this morning? He is the news?” My blood starts to boil. I shouldn’t be surprised that my mother and father did this. Again. It seems over the last few months they are shoving suitors in my face. They want me to get married and have children, but I don’t want that. I don’t want to just be the woman who is obligated to be with a man because her parents forced her hand.
Then I’ll be caged in. I’ll be in a marriage where the man doesn’t really love me, and I’ll wither away, my dream of having a man sweep me away on his ship would die. I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready for my soul to die. My life would be over, and my spirit would be trapped. I won’t live like that. I refuse to live like that. I won’t.
“At least he is cute, kind of. In a pampered kind of way, if you like that sort of thing.”
“Pampered? Aya, he looks soft. He doesn’t look like he has seen a hard day’s work in, well, ever. I don’t see myself with him. Why is he here? We must get him to leave.”
“That’s easy. We’ll just not have you go back for breakfast. That will get them really angry, and the pampered prince and his father will go back to where they came from, and they will be angry that the Alands wasted their time.” She deepens her voice to mock my father’s. It makes me giggle.
I settle down on the grass and blow a piece of hair out of my face. “I can’t stand that I have no control over my life.”
“It’s only because you’re nobility.” Aya removes her hand from the branch, and it bounces back in place, covering up the news my parents want to discuss with me over breakfast.
I groan, flopping on my back. I stare at the sky, the trees stretching higher until the tips blend in with the blue. “I don’t want to be nobility. I want to be normal. I want to meet men in a normal way. I want to fall in love when I want, not over some contract made over a goblet of mead my father will drink with his father. There’s no spark. There’s no nothing. It’s just… business. Love isn’t supposed to be business.”
Aya lays down next to me. She hooks her arm through mine and stares up at the sky. We lay in silence for a few minutes, watching the birds fly over us. In the distance, if I concentrate hard enough, I can hear the ocean splash against the shore. “I know. I know what you want. The dream you have. I love your dreams, Sylvie. I love that you want to live so much, and I hate that you can’t. We can’t have those things. That’s not our life. That’s not how things work for us.�
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“Aya, your parents are far more forgiving than mine. They would never let you marry someone you don’t love.”
She lets out a laugh somewhere between sympathetic and sad. “My family isn’t as well off as yours, obviously. But they are trying to get me to meet princes or warriors, you know, men that are well off. My parents mean well. They want what is best for me. They don’t want me to struggle like they have.”
I roll over to my side and grip her hand in mine, “Aya, is it bad? Do you need help? You know my father will give it.”
“My parents are too proud to be charity cases. They hope I marry someone rich, so everyone is taken care of. So my fate is sealed, no matter what you think.”
“Oh, Aya, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t know before. I only found out last night. I ran out in the middle of the night and slept in our old treehouse that we made. I wasn’t happy. I understand what they want, but I’m not happy about it. Happiness may not be in the cards for us, Sylvie.”
I fall onto my back again and sigh. “That isn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.”
“Sylvie! Sylvie Aland, you better come home this instant!” my mother’s voice shrills through the forest, causing my ears to ring.
I sit up with a jolt and hold my breath. “Crap.”
“Don’t move. Don’t breathe. She’ll go away, and the pampered prince will go away on his own in time.”
“Sylvie!” she shouts again.
“Let’s run away. Far away from here,” I whisper, careful to keep my voice low enough, so it doesn’t echo back to my mother.
“We could try. Maybe we can go down to the edge of the border and see if we can see any of those hot Viking warriors patrolling again. What do you say?” Aya flips onto her stomach and kicks her legs in the air, holding her chin up with her hands, looking mischievous as ever.
I nudge her arm despite my grin. “You’re so bad.”
“No, those Vikings are bad. And hot. So hot. And so… Viking,” she says on a dreamy sigh.
“Oh my goddess, you have been there without me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She averts her eyes away from mine, breaking small twigs with her fingers.
I narrow my eyes at her. “You have. And I thought we agreed to stop doing that because it is too dangerous? Those warriors are dangerous. If they saw us, they could take us. Use us.”
“Yes, use. Would that be so bad?”
I toss my head back and laugh, my shoulders shaking from the tone of her voice. It’s so lustful. The kind of voice that would make a proper lady blush. “You are impossible!”
“Oh, I know. The one with the crazy look in his eyes makes my heart jump. He is scary sexy.”
“Aya, scary is the keyword there. Scary. Violent. He probably isn’t nice. I know who you are talking about. And that man is mad. He has madness in his eyes.”
“Aye, he does,” she nods.
Aya has always been one to appreciate men. She’s still a virgin, like me, but I think there are days, like today, where she is tired of being one. She’s lonely. We are lonely, but at least we have each other.
“There is something seriously wrong with you,” I tease.
“I want him to be the thing wrong with me. And besides, I’ve seen your eyes linger on the other one. Come on, let’s go.”
But I know when we get there, we will hide behind the trees like we always do, and she won’t ever talk to him, always just watching him behind the bushes. There’s one that I find attractive too. He always gives a look like he could kill. And I know he can.
It frightens me, and yet it still turns me on.
“Sylvie! You shall not keep me waiting any longer!” my mother yells.
I bite my lip, debating if I should go back, but the thought of talking to that pampered prince makes me sick. “Fine, but this is the last time. They may not even be there.”
“Don’t worry; they are always there.” She helps me up from my seated position with a bright smile on her face.
I ignore the feeling in my gut, the flicker of anticipation making itself known. I tell myself it isn’t because of the serious looking Viking. The one who has caught my eye. A man like that could be dangerous, but the voice in the back of my head tells me that’s exactly what I want and need.
If I know what’s good for me, I’ll ignore it, like I’ve been doing for the last few months.
Chapter Four
Trident
“You felt someone watching us the other day, right? That wasn’t just me being my usual paranoid self, right?” Jericho asks on our ride back to the castle from the border. “I felt eyes, Trident. A pair, maybe two. Aye, eyes.”
I glance over at Jericho, who is nodding and agreeing with himself. The damn fool. “How do you know how many eyes?”
“Just know. I felt it. You couldn’t feel it? It was there. They were there. Looking at us. Watching us. Dangerous? Nay, but what do they want?” he asks, more to himself than me, I presume.
“You can tell if they are dangerous?” I laugh. “Come on, Jericho. You should have told the day you felt them. They could be planning an attack. We should let Lord Grimkael know.”
“Nay, warriors wouldn’t watch, they would just attack. I do not know who it is, but I have a feeling they are harmless. Curious? Aye. It isn’t the first time I’ve felt them—the eyes.”
I kick Hank’s sides to make him go faster and get in front of Jericho to stop him. “What do you mean this isn’t the first time? There have been other times? Why haven’t you told me?”
He shrugs. “I thought you knew.”
“You thought I…” I hold myself back from flying off my horse and strangling him with my hands. “No, Jericho. I didn’t know. Why would I know? I don’t have a sixth sense of foolishness!”
“Really? That’s awful, mate.” Jericho slaps my shoulder as he goes around me.
My goddess, the man has zero sense of when someone is upset with him. “Jericho, no. It isn’t. It’s normal.”
“Normal sucks.” He shrugs. “Anyway, we should tell Lord Grimkael. You’re right. He would have us patrol the border more. You want to spend more time with me? Don’t act like you don’t want to. I’m fun.”
“Fun? Is that what you want to call it?” It truly amazes me that he has no idea just how off the rocker he is.
“Would you rather spend time with someone like Erik, who is a lovestruck puppy with hearts in his eyes? He isn’t focused.”
Goddess, Jericho thinks he is focused?
“Or would you want someone who can tell when they are being watched?” He lifts a brow at me, clearly impressed with himself.
I shake my head with a chuckle. Jericho is the kind of man someone only meets once in their life. He is a very interesting person. The rants and raves that fall out of his mouth make me question just about everything, and don’t get me started on his passion for launching dangerous fireballs. He gets a mad gleam in his eye and cackles when the catapult throws the blazing madness and lands it in an empty field. He does it for fun. I like to go fishing for fun, but not Jericho. He likes to try to blow things up.
I’ll admit, though—the madman’s weapons came quite in handy during our final showdown with the Jackals.
“You’re right, Jericho.”
“I know,” he says, the obvious emphasized in his tone.
“Silly me, thought you didn’t,” I say a bit flat.
He gives a sad smile. “I know, Trident. It’s fine. Thanks for telling me. It makes me feel good that you believe in me to keep you safe. You can count on me.”
Such a nice fool. And not all there in the head. But it takes all kinds. He makes the days a little less boring; I’ll give him that.
“You’re a good man, Jericho.”
He puffs his chest out, proud that someone thinks so highly of him. “Thanks, Trident. You are as well. When we get back, we should go get that pi
g you went on about and have a feast celebrating how wonderful I am.”
Chuckling, I kick Hank’s sides again to let the slow trot turn into a gallop. “You’re on, Jericho. I’ll race you there.”
I click my tongue to tell Hank to go faster and see that mad gleam in Jericho’s eyes before I take off, letting Hank take the lead. Jericho’s horse is a little mad like him. Like Lord Grimkael’s horse, Beast, Jericho’s horse only lets Jericho ride him. He calls his horse, Horse. Why? I have no idea. It makes Jericho laugh, and the horse seems to like it too. Jericho isn’t the most creative fellow when it comes to names, which surprises me because he is very creative with weapons.
I look over my shoulder to see Horse’s huge body rear back, kick his hooves in the air, and shoot forward like, well, one of his owner’s crazy inventions. Soon enough, he catches up with me, and we are side by side. Hooves pounding against the ground, kicking up chunks of dirt in our mad dash to the village. Our horses are breathing hard, their thick neck muscles flexing as they push themselves.
I turn to the right, and Jericho meets my eyes, smirking before he slaps the reins on Horse’s neck. Damn, that horse is quick. Jericho gets the lead on me, and soon, I’m staring at a horse’s ass, tail up as he speeds forward. Dirt is stinging my face from the bits of earth Horse’s hooves beat from the ground.
The final hill before the castle approaches, and it causes Horse to slow down. Ha! He may be fast on flat ground, but he lacks strength. Hank is a beast with strong legs. He climbs the hill with ease, leaving Jericho and Horse in the dust. When I get to the top, the green grass seems greener, and the castle comes to view. Ah, it feels good to be a winner.
“You got lucky,” Jericho protests.
“Lucky? It isn’t my fault your horse lacks the muscle needed to win,” I jab, pulling the reins back to bring Hank to a stop. I jump off his back and start walking him to the stables. He’s sweating, panting hard to get his breathing under control, and I give him a pat on the neck.
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