Chapter 25 #3
“It was,” Esme said to her with a smile before continuing, “Then out of fucking nowhere, an arrow lands right in between us and scares the wits out of us. We jumped off our saddles and hid behind some tree trunks.”
“Someone was up in the tree,” I supplied. “High vantage point, good shot. Not to mention the skill it would take to climb up that high.”
Esme hummed in agreement, then said, “Ford was able to get a good shot in. I don’t think it hit her, just knocked her off the branch. I caught a glimpse of her right as she was falling. From her point of view and where I was hiding, she had a clear shot at me.”
“You didn’t tell me that.” My words were spoken with inhuman force. To be expected, seeing as the Bond was thrashing around in my head like a rabid animal.
“I didn’t really have a chance to,” Esme said, voice lowering to a tone that was just for us.
Albeit true, having promptly mauled each other the second we were alone, the Bond still didn’t appreciate it, going off on a rampage in my head about its desire to draw prompt and copious amounts of blood from the person who’d almost harmed Esme.
I couldn’t say I entirely disagreed.
“She didn’t take the shot, maybe because she didn’t have time to reload her bow or because she didn’t want to, I don’t know,” Esme continued louder. “I’m just shocked she was able to get up after that fall. Must have been fifteen, twenty feet.”
“She might have had companions,” I offered. Someone was definitely following us, firing arrows as they went.
Esme considered, tilting her head to the side in a way that made me want to kiss her. “If she was well-trained, she was probably able to catch her fall.”
I could tell that the rest of the table was waiting for us to continue, so I pushed on, even though I could feel my stomach churning with nausea.
“We ran back towards the tree line. Sky and Shadow had taken off, but we knew they’d meet us there.
” From pure instinct and a healthy dose of hope.
“Someone was firing shots at us as we ran. It was windy, but it sounded like they were on foot. Too soft to be a horse.”
I realized a beat late that I’d turned to look at Esme in confirmation. Not an unfamiliar occurrence, in fact, a rather familiar one. It seemed so ridiculous, then, that I’d thought the Bond had passed us over.
Behind that thought came a softer, more startling one. There had been a bond between us, made of understated, quiet little threads built from years of partnership. Maybe even reluctant friendship.
Esme noticed my slight change in demeanor, evidence in itself that she knew me better than she probably cared to admit, but didn’t press.
“Yeah, on foot,” she said with a dip of her chin.
Then, back to the group, “Once we got to Sky and Shadow, we took off. They kept shooting, definitely with a full bow and arrow. A massive one at that, they were covering some serious distance. They probably got, what, four shots in?”
It was Esme’s turn to look to me for confirmation. “Yes.” Two I heard fall behind us, one that landed too close to Shadow for my comfort, and the other…
Esme and I looked down at my hand at the same time, covered in small scars and callouses, but noticeably missing a large gash from catching an arrow midair.
Then, my hand was wrapped in both of Esme’s, lifted towards her mouth. She cupped her face with my palm, planting a single, solid kiss right over where the arrow had cut into my skin.
WOOOOO, the Bond yelled, louder than my frazzled mind could tolerate.
“Excuse me?” Freya prodded softly, though the tone of her voice was more so her natural volume rather than a gentle interruption.
Esme, however, reacted as if Freya had just said that she was going to kill me in front of her. She brought my hand to her chest, curling it protectively between her hands and let out a growled, Watch it, towards her oldest friend.
Even though Freya hadn’t experienced the Bond, she handled the situation like it was an old friend of hers, saying with that same softness, “You were communicating silently. We don’t know what happened, which was why I’d said excuse me. He’s safe.”
The second those last few words left Freya, Esme’s near-painful grip on my hand loosened. After a few rapid blinks, I could see the Bond clear from her eyes. Esme slowly lowered my hand to her lap, but kept it well-secured between her hands.
She opened her mouth to supply Freya with an answer, but nothing came out. I saw Soren’s eyebrow rise, clearly prepared to make a snide comment about Esme’s gaping.
I wasn’t sure whether it was the hard look I gave him or his own memories of what a fresh Bond felt like, but he restrained whatever quip was building on his tongue.
“One of the arrows was on a clear path towards Esme,” I said, though the words felt like they were scraping their way out of my throat past barbed wire. I really didn’t know how I would have reacted if the shot had hit its target. “I managed to catch it.”
It took several seconds for the statement to register. To be fair, I had said that last part quite casually.
It was Bellamy who spoke. “And have you been known to snatch arrows out of the air before this?”
I barked a laugh, then said, “No. That was a first for me.”
“You have the Bond to thank, then,” Soren said sardonically, even though he’d experienced the supernatural influence of the Bond himself, having carried Bellamy’s dead weight on the back of a galloping horse for miles, only to collapse in exhaustion and an indeterminate number of injuries the second she was safe.
I grumbled out my agreement. “Damn thing shredded my hand.” Esme jerked next to me, squeezing my hand even tighter. Turning my palm upwards, I threaded our fingers together, squeezing tight. If not to show her that everything was in working order and I still had my strength.
“That explains the blood,” Freya said. She was looking down at her lap when she said it, fiddling with something in her grasp, so it took her a second to realize that everyone was expecting her to expand on that statement.
When she looked up and saw everyone staring, her cheeks colored with a blush.
“Oh, um, I rode out with Starlight after you guys left. Bellamy went to go find Soren. Elijah followed me.” Freya paused for a second, swallowing between sentences.
If my eyes weren’t deceiving me, it looked like her cheeks deepened in color even further.
“We found the arrows. I know you said you cut your hand then found one of the arrows, but the arrow was really embedded into the ground.”
“Well, that is going to be a little hard to explain,” I quipped. Hard to pass it off that I dropped it when it was cemented like that.
“Oh, no, it’s okay,” Freya said, furrowing her brow in confusion. “I told him that whoever shot the arrow must have injured their hand. It would have transferred blood when the reached for the arrow to load the bow. You said someone fell, so I said it was likely them.”
I didn’t remember sharing that bit of information with Freya, but it was clearly a good thing. Let alone her pulling a rather seamless excuse out of thin air to explain it.
It was good, but it might not be enough. “We were pretty damn far at that point—”
“Which again, I want to know what bow they were working with. That would have been an insane shot,” Esme cut in, making my expression lighten from pure wonder at her ability to find humor at a time like this. It was a trait I respected tenfold and desperately needed to adopt myself.