20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Sneaking out of the palace was the easy part of my newfound plan.
Finding a werewolf in the Hallowstags would be the difficult task of the night.
Talking with my mother helped, yet didn’t. Celestine said a war was coming with Verin, and that uniting with Tor was my father’s way to gain the allegiance of their kingdom. Being with Rune would create a further divide.
I opened my mouth a few times to make my choice, knowing my mother would support me either way. But something inside me knotted up each time I tried to speak. I wasn’t ready. I needed more.
More of what? I hadn’t a clue. Information, feelings, time?
My first instinct was to see Rune, even if he was in werewolf form and that side of him tried to kill me.
The woods were silent, which heightened my senses with each step through the forest. Just when my nerves relaxed to the eerie silence, a low growl would bounce off the tree trunks, and I’d tighten the grip around my sword.
An owl hooted nearby, startling me. After a few moments of acclimating to the owl, I lowered my sword.
“Rune,” I whispered.
The Hallowstags were big, stretching all the way to the Crescent Sister Mountains. It could take hours to find him. Ultimately, my hope was that he found me first to save me the time and trouble.
The full moon was high in the sky when I decided to take a break.
I’d run into a catagaro, the massive catlike beasts, eating a deer.
Got my boot stuck in a bog and nearly lost my arm attempting to drink water from a calm pond.
Then a mermaid approached. She wanted to brush my hair and I didn’t let her, so she grabbed me.
After another hour, I laid in the grass near the roots of a mighty oak and looked at the stars.
All my choices and the weight of my crown disappeared under the magnificence of the galaxy.
I wonder what it would be like to be a star. Just burning in space without care or people’s wellbeing depending on you.
Steps vibrated from the grass below my palms and I shot up, sword ready for whatever or whoever stepped into the light.
“I told you boys I knew where she was. Piece of cake.”
That voice. So familiar.
Foxface himself stepped closer. Which that, in itself, would have been annoying enough, but then two guards wearing black and red armor closed the distance beside him. Three bright and malicious smiles greeted me. I pointed the tip of my sword at them.
“Harron. What the hell are you doing?” I snarled.
As the general’s son, he knew better. These were Verin’s soldiers, enemies to Crysia.
He pushed back his shaggy hair. The corners of his lips tilting a little too high to be natural.
“I was having a drink, you know, fun with my men when these two heard me talking about you, and how I saw you sneak into the woods. They offered me a reward if I found you and I did.” Harron turned to the tallest of the two soldiers.
“Harron, you dumbass. Do you even know what they’ll do to me?” I shouted and the male shrugged.
“Don’t care. I’ll be rich and with you out of the picture, that brute will quit pushing me around, telling me I’ll die if I come around you again.”
“Brute? Who are you talking about?” Only one face came to mind, but I needed to hear it.
No talking sense into that idiot.
Harron snapped his fingers. “Ah, I don’t care to remember his name. Goodbye, Sapphira.”
The tall soldier pulled an apple-sized brown sack from a pocket in his pants and tossed it to the fox fae.
“Harron,” I called out as he turned to leave me with these two.
“Fine, come on boys,” I said with a resigned sigh to the soldiers. “I hope you were warned. I fight for fun.”
Digging my feet into the earth, I readied for an attack with my sword.
But fast, heavy steps sent ripples across the ground. They travelled up my body. Something was coming, racing, with powerful steps. Branches snapped, the thundering rampage of something big, something eviscerating everything in its path.
A piercing scream came from the darkness followed by a gurgle and a thud.
The two soldiers whirled around, backs to each other.
“We’ve gotta grab her. Verin’s orders.”
“Fuck orders. I told you we shouldn’t have come into these woods. We should have waited till she—”
The tallest soldier was snatched into the shadow of a tree by long furry, fingerlike claws.
“Shit. Gray!” The lone man in armor stepped closer to me but then realized I’d stab him if he took another step. Torn between a beast and me, he ran for it.
He only got four steps in before a massive creature standing on two legs grabbed him by the throat.
I stared, frozen. Breathing wasn’t an option anymore.
This had to be Rune.
If the nearly eight-foot furry black wolf standing on two feet in front of me wasn’t the prince, then I was fucked.
The beast snarled. Light from the full moon illuminated every small detail from the blood dripping off its sharp teeth, the bulging muscles under soft looking fur, and three scars on the right side of its face.
Rune.
He roared into the face of the soldier. Sharp claws wrapped around the red helmet, dagger-like nails digging into flesh as he peeled it off, exposing the petrified male beneath.
“Ah—” His screams were silenced by a set of powerful jaws snapping his head from his body.
I gasped, and the werewolf bared its teeth at me. Icy blue eyes narrowed, and the body in his claws was thrown ten feet away. The trunk of the young tree snapped from the force of the armored male slamming into it.
“Rune,” I whispered as the werewolf took an earth-shattering step, then another.
I scrambled back, finding resistance against the trunk of the tree.
“Rune. It’s Sapphira.”
The beast snarled and stopped six inches from me. A thick tail swished behind him, and I exhaled slowly. This had to what Celestine was talking about. I’d hunted Rune in the woods and needed to show no fear.
“Sapphira.” My voice shook even as I raised my head to look the beast in the eye.
A massive snout and teeth lowered. Rune’s hefty breaths puffed against my face, then my collarbone.
Those violent claws wrapped around me, my heart thundering my chest, keeping me still, as his wet snout pressed against my neck.
Thick fur covered my face, but not before I saw his pointed ears flattening. That was a good sign, right?
I closed my eyes, letting the beast do his thing, that nagging sensation in my head, my core called to me.
A flash of polished fingers touching a furry chest. The earth shaking. Then…
The images vanished and overwhelming sensations, a trembling in my hands to reach out and touch Rune propelled me forward.
Nothing happened at first. His hot breaths paused against my skin.
Then his bones started cracking.