3. Where We’re the Prey
3. WHERE WE’RE THE PREY
~ ELOWYN ~
What sounded like a twig snapped somewhere off to my left, and I spun in the saddle to look, the sharp movement tugging on the wound above my heart. I hissed at the stab of pain before remembering not to, then swallowed a groan as my companions predictably divided their attention between the twig and me.
“What was that?” I asked from where I sat atop Bolt, short for Lightning Bolt, hoping to return their attention to where it belonged. We were deep in the Wilds, which Pru, Reed, Finnian, and Roan also referred to as Sorumbra, the name given these savage, shadowy lands by the fae who lived far removed from the pomp and artifice of Embermere’s court.
As soon as it became evident I’d survive this most recent near-death event, and my healing finally accelerated, my alertness returned—and not a moment too soon. My days of fevered unconsciousness with scant moments of lucidity saw us through the outskirts of the royal city of Embermere, past the dense forests that separated it from the clan lands, and then through the territory of Amarantos—Rush’s seat of power. I hadn’t been aware enough to protest our route, or Roan’s insistence that we’d be safest passing through Rush’s territory, that as his mate, even if his subjects weren’t yet aware of our connection, there should be some innate protection offered me as the unofficial drakess of Amarantos.
Drakess to Rush’s drake ... The notion was ludicrous, and I would have argued that Rush doing his damnedest to kill me negated any mate dragonshit.
But we had bigger problems. Once my usual alertness returned, I didn’t need anyone to point out the dangers that surrounded us within the Wilds. I could sense the many perils as a constant tautness across my skin, a prickling up and down the entire length of my spine, as if someone—or some thing —were always watching us. Invisible observers far more brutal than the queen’s severed eyeball spies took note of our every move. I was certain of it.
“Does anybody see anything?” I prompted again, this time my voice in a hush, more cognizant that despite the fact that most of us were trained fighters, that Pru and Reed were survivors, and that Saffron was a freaking dragon, in the Sorumbra we were the prey.
Dense thickets merged into even thicker copses of old, wide trees. Occasional fields, ponds, and swamps interrupted them. But despite our efforts to skirt the shadows and remain out of sight, nothing we did was secret, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were trespassing. Unwanted . That we should turn right around and head back to the danger we knew instead of all this unknown lurking just beyond the next bend.
I hadn’t witnessed any of the ferocious monsters that had Finnian and Roan so uncharacteristically tense, but my every instinct warned me against what prowled these endless stretches of woods.
I’d only managed to sit upright in the saddle for two days now, but if something attacked I’d defend with whatever strength I had. Out here, the line between life and death was tangibly thin.
“Just a spotted armacoon,” Reed announced as he emerged from behind a mass of thorny bushes. The spotted armacoon, I’d learned, was very much like its cousin the spiked armacoon, in that both animals were the size of a sneakle, encased in impenetrable hard shells, with long snouts, wickedly sharp teeth, and piss-poor attitudes. The spotted armacoon sported rounded nubs instead of the hand-long spikes that made its cousin the more lethal dance partner.
Reed clutched his bow, but his arrows remained in the quiver across his back. “An adolescent,” he said by way of explanation for his otherwise empty hands.
Reed had turned out to be quite the hunter. Before heading to the palace in search of a better future for himself, he’d lived—half wild, I was gathering—in the forests between Embermere and the clans. An orphan after his mother died young, he’d fended for himself, catching and foraging for his food.
Out here, we ate whatever we could find, and Reed did much of the finding. Unlike the queen, however, he abided by a moral code for killing. Even with the beasts that tracked us, constantly seeking our vulnerabilities, Reed refused to hunt any young or pregnant or nursing females.
He had none of the queen’s “precious” pedigree, and already he’d proven himself to be a thousand times more honorable than she.
A hiss came from the underbrush, and Reed chuckled, though the amusement didn’t reach his tight eyes. “Let me amend that. A very angry adolescent spotted armacoon.”
Xeno drew to stand beside Bolt and me. As a dragon shifter, he’d completely healed in the time it had taken my body to simply suture together a wound three fingers long. There were no remaining signs of whatever torment the queen had inflicted on him while holding him prisoner in the fae dungeon beyond the constant shadow that darkened his otherwise light eyes.
“If there’s a young one,” Xeno said, “there’s likely at least one parent around.”
“Not always,” Reed answered, a sadness pulling at his lips I suspected had to do with his mother’s death. “I think this one’s solo, probably why it’s so angry.”
Xeno rubbed an absent touch along Bolt’s neck. The horse was a stunning animal with a shiny black pelt and a single, jagged silver line that sliced across his flank. Strong and muscled, he’d been the one to bear me all these weeks before I could sit upright.
Xeno looked at Finnian, who as always was at the front of our group. “How much longer till we stop for the night?”
Finnian’s jaw was hard as he scanned the path up ahead—a too-narrow gap between brambles. There were no easy, worn trails through the Wilds. Not many people came this way, and when they did, they didn’t want others knowing what routes they took.
Traveling with me wounded, and little Saffron still shell-shocked, we were too conspicuous. There were too many of us, and we moved too slowly.
Finnian ran the back of his sleeve across his sweaty forehead and switched his machete from one hand to the other. “We should be within a few days of the coastline by now. We can stop and make camp for the night at the next clearing we reach.”
“No, no, no,” Pru muttered, and I turned the other way, gentler on my still aching wound this time, to find her standing next to Roan, astride his pony.
The goblin was shaking her head as fervently as if she still feared the queen’s retributions. “No, Lord Finnian, not yet,” she pleaded.
“Why not, Primrose?” Roan asked.
When I’d come to, I’d shocked everyone, including Reed, by calling the goblin not only a given name but also an endearment. Roan had been the first to take to calling her by her true first name.
Pru peered up at him with those big, black eyes. “Not here, Lord Roan.”
“Just Roan, remember.”
I snorted at the memory of how long I’d insisted she call me by name, and how rarely she still did.
Pru twisted her fingers together nervously, clutching at her dingy frock, now a more ready match to everyone else’s clothing. There’d been no baths since we departed.
“Pru doesn’t feel good about it here, not good.”
Pru hadn’t once felt at ease about any spot we’d stopped.
“I understand,” Roan said gently. “But we are in the Sorumbra. “There’s no feeling good about any of it.”
Pru shook her head violently, the stringy strands of her hair flicking her cheeks with each turn. “No, not the same. Something bad lives here.” She pounded a small fist against her bony chest. “Pru feels it, right here.”
Roan stared at her, deliberating as he tugged on the length of his stout beard. But from the front, Finnian said, “Then we keep going for now.”
Pru sighed in relief so stark her slim frame rose and fell. No one complained to have to keep going. Everyone here knew to value their instincts. In the Wilds, we listened to them even more closely. Any twinge of our gut, however faint, was a message we strove to interpret, and quickly.
We had to work to ensure our every next breath.
Finnian asked a vine to move, and when it refused he hacked it out of the way. It creaked in protest before rapidly retreating, causing Saffron to whine too.
“He’s still not himself,” Xeno commented, peering at the dragonling who rode the horse behind mine, though that much was obvious. “I don’t know how to help him out of it.”
Once more, I turned gingerly in my saddle.
Saffron was hunched, clutching the horn of the saddle with two clawed feet, as if at any moment his horse might fling him. His eyes were downturned, his wings held tightly to his back as he curled in on himself. Even the usually bright gold of his scales appeared muted, as if the light inside him had gone out.
The spots where manacles had rubbed his flesh raw had scabbed over, and new scales were in the process of unfurling. And yet the little dragon appeared as cowed as he had in the queen’s presence—and that of the pygmy ogres, her torturers of preference.
“Aw, Saffron,” I cooed. “You poor thing. You wanna ride up here with me?” The days in Nightguard where I’d been concerned about spoiling him were long gone.
“Wyn, no,” Xeno protested right away. “You’re still recovering.”
“I’ll be fine.” I smiled at Saffron, who considered me tentatively from under heavy lashes.
“You almost died . How you didn’t is a fucking miracle bestowed by the dragons.”
“Yes, Xeno, trust me, I noticed. I can’t go an entire minute without remembering.”
Even without turning to look at him, I could feel his jaw clenching. I wasn’t the only one who could scarcely go an hour without recalling Rush’s betrayal.
“Then with more reason,” Xeno implored, “take it easy. Let yourself finish healing.”
I swiveled to face him. “And how long should I ‘take it easy’ so I can heal? Huh? It’s been, what? Three weeks?”
“Something like that.”
Xeno was as sharp as a glinting blade. He knew exactly how long it had been, trying to underplay the length of my recovery.
“I should’ve healed by now. We’re in the middle of what amounts to a war zone,” I whisper-shouted at my oldest friend. “I can’t afford to keep tiptoeing around like I’m made of glass.”
“And I can’t afford to have you hurt anymore,” he growled. “You pretty much died, Wyn. I’m gonna say it again ’cause I’m not sure you’re getting how insane that is. Dead . And then what would I have done without you?”
The edge on my frustration softened, not really directed at him in the first place. I placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, my grip still too gentle for someone who’d trained every day of her life never to be this weak.
“It’ll be okay,” I told him. “ I’ll be okay.” I almost added, I promise , but held back. Since the queen had found out I existed, there were no guarantees.
“You’d better be.”
“I will be,” I echoed. “And for that, you need to let me do me, be myself.”
Xeno’s jaw flexed. “But ... you were literally hallucinating and talking gibberish just days ago. Mere days. You were hanging on by a thread. I still have no idea how you’re not falling out of that saddle.”
“I’m not ’cause I’m forged of the same stuff you are.”
Leading a pair of riderless horses, Reed and Pru edged around us to follow Finnian, but Roan and his pony waited. We had to hurry.
I added, “Remember all the shit Zako put me through?”
Xeno snorted. “How could I forget? You were busting your ass as hard as any of us protectors.”
“Exactly. So...” I waited until he met my stare. “I’ve got this, okay?” Hearing the words aloud helped, because in truth I wasn’t sure how much I had this at all. A part of me I refused to examine yet felt broken in such a way that I might never find my way back to my whole self again.
But Xeno didn’t need to know that.
He sighed, seemingly resigned. “You never did like anyone telling you what to do.”
I barked a low, somewhat bitter laugh. “And yet that’s all anyone ever did in Nightguard.”
Xeno pursed his lips but didn’t respond. He was a dragon shifter, a lauded protector. I ... hadn’t been. Based on my assigned tasks alone, I’d been a servant.
Once more, I glanced at Saffron. “Come on, boy,” I encouraged. “You wanna ride with me? Fly on over.” The dragonling hadn’t even attempted the awkward flight of a fledgling since his capture.
“Fuck, no,” Xeno said. “He’ll claw you all over. He’ll?—”
But Saffron had unfurled his wings and stood, wavering uncomfortably atop the horse.
Xeno and I watched. Even Roan stilled to observe.
“Come on, boy,” I said. “It’s only a short jump.” I was the length of a horse away. “You can do it. Just?—”
Saffron launched himself at me with none of the characteristic grace of his kind. He slammed into me in a mess of claws, sharp joints, and wings.
The air whooshed out of me at the impact, and I tottered precariously in the saddle for several seconds ... but eventually managed to grip the horn with one hand so fiercely that it stuck, and the dragonling with the other, clutching him close to my chest.
Xeno’s strong hands fluttered in the air around us, trying to help.
“See?” I told him above the dragon’s head. “I’ve got this.” Then I smiled, perhaps my first genuine smile since being stabbed in the heart.
Xeno knew as well as I did that I was at least partially full of shit. But being the good friend he was, he didn’t comment beyond a doubting ah-ha , leading Bolt after the others instead.
However, Roan chuckled gruffly and said, “Ya almost went ass over teakettle there, lassie. But glad to see your spark startin’ to come back. Rush would never forgive himself if he’d taken that from ya.”
And just like that, any urge to smile was gone. Scowling as I stared blindly at Reed and Pru in front, I willed myself to forget about what Rush had done. Hell, to forget about him entirely so I could forge whatever life I could out here in the savage wilderness that sought to gobble me up whole.
But even as I set the intention, the mangled mass of my healing heart already knew: I’d never be able to forget Rush.
There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be rid of his mark on me, bond or no damn bond.