Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PENNY
“Ididn’t mean it! You don’t really have to give me a ride!” I yell in my retreat, just in case this was a super smart bullicorn that speaks human.
Holy moly, am I in trouble. That thing is about to stab me through my chest. I’ll never get married or have children or live out my days having hot sex with my hot husbands.
I can hear his hooves pounding the ground right behind me and know my time is almost up.
And just as I’m sure this is the end for me, something wraps around my waist right before I’m yanked into the air, instantly silencing my scream as the wind is knocked out of me.
What just happened? I tilt my head and realize I’m staring at the back of a horse’s head, and we’re galloping through the forest now. Did this horse just save my life? Is he a magic horse?
Realizing I still feel something from around my waist, I glance down to see it’s an arm. A very solid, muscular arm. I tilt my head up and see a chiseled jaw and a pair of frowning lips. I don’t exactly have the best angle from where I’m sitting.
He doesn’t make eye contact with me, and when he glances over his own shoulder to look behind us, he turns back and presses into me as he commands, “Hold tight, we’ll lose him in the forest.”
I turn back and grip the front of the saddle as the mystery man presses into me from behind. Within seconds, we’re whipping and winding through the trees. If he wasn’t keeping me pressed between his body and the horse, I’m sure I would have slid off by now.
About ten minutes later, he slows the horse down and sits up. We trot slowly for a couple minutes until he pulls us to a stop near a stream. He jumps off the horse and reaches up and grabs me by the waist, pulling me down and placing me gently on the ground in front of him.
When he doesn’t release me, I finally get a chance to look up into his face.
He has gorgeous hazel eyes that stare at me with such intensity that it has me biting my lip.
His light brown hair sits a little long as it peeks out from under his hat.
But my favorite part? Are the small patches of silver in his hair.
Damn. This guy had silver fox written all over him.
I wouldn’t guess him to be over forty, but something about him really spoke to me.
I mean, I’m twenty eight and if he’s forty, it’s only a twelve year difference. He has such a dominating presence about him. I can’t help but wonder if he likes to be called sir in the bedroom.
Damn it. I’m an engaged woman now, twice over. I’m not allowed to think about other men anymore. What was I, some sort of hussy? I’m almost glad Ryker and Braxton aren’t here to witness my reaction to this stranger.
He wears a dark brown brimmed hat, a cross between a cowboy and Tilley hat, and a green tunic with a deep v, showing off some tantalizing brown and silver chest hair beneath.
“—If you were my woman, I’d spank your ass pink for pulling a stunt like that. Hey, are you even listening to me?”
Oh, had he been talking to me this whole time? While I had I just been ogling him like an idiot? And did he just say he’d spank me?
“Uhh, sorry, what did you say?”
He frowns before answering, “I said, what were you thinking? You almost got yourself killed back there. Were you really trying to pet a caledon?”
“A caledon?”
“Yes, that creature you were trying to pet like a puppy, it was a caledon. Now tell me, what were you thinking?”
“I… I didn’t know it was dangerous. I thought maybe I could ride it.” I shrug, realizing how stupid that sounds now. At the time, it seemed like a good way to get to the village, but in hindsight, it had been pretty dumb.
“Ride it?” He stares at me, bewildered. “You wanted to… ride it?” And now he’s looking at me like I’m stupid.
“I didn’t know it was dangerous, I’m not from around here. I’ve never seen a bullicorn before.”
“Bullicorn?” He frowns at me.
“Yeah, you know, a mix between a bull and a unicorn?”
I can’t read the expression on his face now, and he drops his eyes to look at his hands on my waist. He lets go suddenly, as if I’ve burned him, and takes a quick step backwards.
“What were you doing out there alone? Where are your men?”
“Oh, well, after I fell down the mountain, I figured I’d walk to the village and meet them there.”
He rubs his fingers into his forehead, as if he’s getting a headache. “Did you just say… you fell down the mountain?”
“Umm … yes?”
He drops his hands as his eyes roam over me.
“And what exactly were you doing that caused you to do that?”
Did he think I did it on purpose? “I was just looking down at the valley and the forest. After the avalanche trapped us inside the mountain, we spent the past day stuck in there, and I was excited to get out. I mean, I’ve only been in this realm for a couple of days, but I was surrounded by just snow and ice for most of it. ”
He stares at me blankly for all of three seconds before placing his hands on his hip and dropping his head back and staring at the sky.
“Why me?” he sighs.
“Why you, what?”
“Why do I always seem to meet the crazy ones?”
I recoil at his words, placing my hand over my heart. Why do his words hurt so much? There’s nothing wrong with being a little… crazy. But then I remember the last time somebody had called me that, and I try not to relive my emotions from it.
I’m sure he didn’t mean it like they did.
Losing my twin brother at sixteen, that sucked. Losing my parents to a car accident at age eighteen was horrible. In the span of a couple of years, I had lost my entire family. The only person I had left was Ria.
I started throwing myself into more extreme sports and hobbies. The adrenaline somehow making the pain go away, even if just for a short while. I knew it probably wasn’t the healthiest way to cope, but I figured it was better than drugs or alcohol.
It was a few months after my parents had died that I made a few new friends on a skydiving excursion.
Mike had been pretty flirtatious and asked me to hang out with him and his friends afterwards.
We had a fire on the beach and sat around all night talking until the sun came up. It was so much fun… until it wasn’t.
I’m not sure what caused me to say it, maybe the lack of sleep, or the adrenaline rush, or finally thinking that I was feeling something again other than pain.
But when Mike suggested we keep the party going, I may have suggested that we should elope.
I mean, I was just kidding, but it was like a switch flipped in him.
He and his friends started laughing at me, calling me bat shit crazy.
He said that the whole night meant nothing to him, he was just trying to get laid.
I barely knew the guy and I don’t know why it hurt so much, even now, ten years later, I still remember that day with such pain. Something about him calling me crazy after spending such a great night together, it just got to me.
So now, standing here staring at my handsome savior, I had to remind myself that he wasn’t Mike.
“Sugar, are you daydreaming again?”
“Oh, sorry, what did you say?”
He sighs, dropping his hands as he comes back to stand in front of me.
“I said I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. But you just gave me a lot of information that was kind of…”
“Crazy?” I finish for him.
“Is all of that true?”
I nod my head. “Yep. Pretty much.”
He drops his hands as he paces in front of me again, rubbing his fingers through his clean-shaven jaw.
“Let me get this straight. You came here from another… realm. Only a couple of days ago. You somehow found yourself on a snowy mountain top, then got trapped inside of it.” He looks at me and I nod.
“Before finding your way out just to fall down the side of the mountain and get chased down by a caledon? Did I forget anything?”
“Ummm…” I say nervously, looking anywhere but at him.
“Come on, Sugar, tell me.”
“Well, when I first arrived, I was in the mating hunt before I snuck off and hitched a ride on the back of a… a… a skyreacher. It was the skyreacher that dropped us on the mountain.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, before turning to me again.
“And these husbands of yours came with you from the other world? How many of them are there?”
“Oh, no, we’re not married yet. We actually just got engaged last night,” I say excitedly, rolling my weight between my toes and my heels.
“And I met Ryker when he saved me from taking off on the skyreacher alone by throwing himself on with me. He was dumped on the mountain with me. And then we met Braxton when he saved us from a giant saber-toothed snow tiger thing.”
“Wait—” He holds out a hand to me and closes his eyes for a second.
“You only have two mates?” I nod.
“And they’re not brothers?” I shake my head.
“And you just met them two days ago?”
“Yeeeeeeees,” I answer slowly, not sure where he’s going with this questioning.
He steps up right in front of me before leaning forward so his head is level with mine. His eyes dart back and forth between mine as he frowns, whispering, “Who are you?”