“Seems elves are stronger than orcs!” I had no idea why I said that, but when his hand reached out for me, his face contorted into pure excruciating pain, I lurched backward.
I had to get out of here, so I ran toward the crowds, searching for Linet. I found her in the corner with a group of friends.
“Linet, there’s something wrong with Luronk over there.” I pointed back to where he lay on his side. “He tried to hurt me,” I said. “He’s not normal.”
Her nose scrunched up, and she hiccupped while her friends giggled at her. “Rain, child, you look divine and how did you get your skin to glisten like that?”
“Your costume is incredible,” another woman said, while another poked my ears.
“They look so real.”
“Please, listen. I think he’ll hurt me.” I clutched Linet’s hand.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said, prying my fingers from hers. “He’s just playing the part. We all are.” She turned to the blonde dressed as a cat in a black outfit and ears. “Did you hear about Isabelle? I hear she’s pregnant with her lover’s child. I wonder if her husband even suspects it’s not his baby?”
My pulse was a tempest in my veins, and I twisted to look behind me. Luronk was climbing to his feet. Terror slammed into me, and my muscles tensed. Without another thought, I pushed past the women and ran to two men. “Please, will you help me? Someone is trying to kill me,” I pleaded, hating the fear in my voice, but when I stared at Luronk, I found him standing, adjusting himself, readying to follow after me.
They stared at me, then at him. “Oh, you youngsters love role playing, don’t you?” said one. “Go have fun.”
“No, I’m serious.” I reached out for them, but they brushed me aside and walked away. No one else at the party said a word. We were out in the middle of the woods, and I suspected that if Luronk were to drag me out of here kicking and screaming, the spectators would enjoy the show believing we were acting according to our costumes. Except this nightmare I’d found myself in was real.
I had grown elf ears and now an orc wanted me dead. I couldn’t sit here and hope for the best. Back home I had knives to defend myself, or better yet, I’d visit my neighbor. Her husband was a lumberjack, so he owned an ax.
I ran in the opposite direction from the party and along the darkening path through the woods. The same way I had walked here. The pebbly soil crunched under my sandals. I pushed hard, the balmy breeze doing nothing to cool me down as my skin crawled.
The path curved to the left, and I careened in that direction, hating that there were no lights in this part of the forest, but already I spotted the golden street lamps in the far distance, indicating the town. I lived on the outskirts of civilization, meaning my house was a lot closer.
Legs pumping, I ran faster than I ever had before, when a guttural shout shattered the silence behind me.
Terror jolted through me, and I looked back, terrified at what I’d see.
At the corner of the path stood a hulking figure. Shadows swallowed his features, but even with the distance between us, I could see his shoulders lifting and falling from his rapid breaths. And he was now bigger than I remembered. How was this even possible?
Numbness owned my brain, and I couldn’t think.
“Rain,” he bellowed loudly, his voice carrying over to me. “Don’t make this harder than it should be.”
The scream on my throat rushed forward, and I whirled away from Luronk. Oh god, please don’t let me die. Please!
Two
I ran along the worn track as fast as I could, my lungs on fire as I sucked in each racing breath. Far in the distance behind me, Luronk the orc dropped to all fours, resembling an oversized boar. And the moment he charged toward me, ice flooded my veins.
Sheer terror froze me in place just as a sudden, excruciating ache sliced through my shoulder blades, deep enough for me to believe someone had stabbed me with a blade. But I reached a hand over my shoulder and found no weapon in my back.
But a monster was coming my way. Wisps of hot air wafted from the orc’s nostrils. His grunts stole the silence, and shadows slid across his body, making him look bigger than I originally thought. Impossible.
Run.
Faster.
Or die.
I turned and bolted in the opposite direction. The growing ache across my back intensified, just as it had at the Harvest festival. Had someone poisoned me? Because that was the one explanation that made any sense to explain what the hell was going on.
A searing fire sliced through my body, my dress pulling taut across my chest as if someone tugged me backward by the fabric.
My heart thumped in my chest, and tears bubbled in my eyes. I had to keep running. Dad had once told me to always return home if I faced danger. There I’d be safe, he’d say, reminding me of the heavy locks on the doors he’d installed, the bars on the windows, the secured roof to stop intruders. Plus, he’d filled his workshop with knives and weapons for use in such emergencies. With no law enforcement in town, home was the best option. So I kept rushing through the forest when all I wanted was to curl up into a ball and hide.
Loud thuds closed in behind me, followed by a piercing growl from the orc.
A choked cry for help forced itself up my throat and I dashed faster than I’d thought possible. The path zigzagged left and right, and just as I zipped out of sight from Luronk, I darted into the dense woodland, trampling foliage, taking a shortcut to my house.
The town was too far, and I’d never make it there alive. Returning to the party was useless, considering no one had taken my threat seriously.
I jumped over a narrow brook and careened past an enormous oak tree, knowing the woods inside out. Once home, I could lock myself inside. I’d lived alone with Dad all my life, and he’d shown me to defend myself against intruders. But first, I had to reach home.
So I sprinted faster, swerving around trees, ducking under low-hanging branches.
Behind me, a dark shape flittered along the track. His snarls left me covered in shivers. How had I ended up in this situation? By accepting an invitation to dance, and now I was running for my life from the monster. Lesson learned. Staying home was the better option.
The sharp sting returned threefold across my spine. Pain. So much of it rattled through me that I missed a step and tripped over a shrub. I fell forward with nothing to grab on to to stop my tumble. Jutting my arms in front of me, I crashed to the ground face-first. My knees scratched against the ground, and it stung. But there was no blood, yet I spasmed, and it felt as if my dress was shrinking, taut around my chest.
I rolled onto my side, needing to get up and move. But I could barely breathe from the fabric tightening. What was going on? My brain was racing, screaming. I moved quicker.
But if I couldn’t breathe, I wouldn’t get far. With shaky fingers, I unbuttoned my elf princess outfit down the front as I staggered to my feet, needing to get air into my lungs. I ripped the material open and down my arms as something was pulling it backward. Inhaling deeply, I stood out in the open only in my underwear and a long sleeveless top. But something broke free from my right shoulder blade as if bursting out of my skin. I cried out in anguish but shut my mouth at once. I spun on the spot and reached an arm over my shoulder to find a white wing at least three feet wide sticking out of my back.
My knees weakened beneath me, and panic built in my gut like an unstoppable avalanche. I reached over to touch the wing that seemed to be made of the finest spiderwebs. Finely woven, it glinted in the night a silvery hue, feeling like the smoothest of silks under my fingertips. I reached for my other shoulder blade, but there was no wing. So just one? Weird. No, what was weird was the whole idea of transforming into god-knew-what. Even though it seemed like a lift-time to find I now had a wing, I had wasted barely a few seconds, and I had to move.
My breaths came too fast, and my thoughts seized up in confusion. Dread swallowed me. I had grown long ears at the party, now this? What was I tur
ning into and why? I reached for my ears, but they were back to normal. Was I hallucinating? I flicked my wing as easily as moving an arm.
Luronk had called me “elf” at the party. He’d said he was my enemy and he’d finish me. Now, he was out here hunting me. My stomach riled with fear. I had to move, so I grabbed my dress off the ground and darted toward my house.
The crunch of foliage came from somewhere behind me. A quick scan showed no one yet, but that didn’t mean a thing. I leaped into a sprint and ran toward my home half-dressed and with one wing. What a sight I must have been. But when a sharp pain snapped across my shoulder blade, I looked back to find the wing gone. Nothing on the other side either. Oh, what was going on with me?
I dug into the pocket of my dress, finding the bronze keys, and grabbed them, ready to get into the house.
A snort erupted from the surrounding woods as I burst out of the forest and darted onto a main road where my house stood, doubling as a store. Following the road would take me straight into town, its lights twinkling in the far distance, but it was too far. Instead, I scrambled home, the back of my legs crawling with the jitters.
The only identification this was a store was the wooden sign painted with the words, Crispin’s Cordwainer hanging over the door. Iron bars covered the windows, a security Dad had insisted on living at the edge of town. I had hated them growing up, feeling as if we lived in a prison, but after his death, they were a security blanket. And now… Thank you, Dad. Now they would protect me.
I raised the keys in my hand to the lock.
“Rain.” A guttural voice screeched my name as if his throat were made of rocks, rubbing together when he spoke.
The hairs on my arms stood, and I fumbled with the keys as I twisted my head to look behind me.
Across the road where I’d been moments earlier stood Luronk lifting himself from all fours, as enormous as a bear and his eyes glinting in the moonlight. His upper lip curled, revealing sharp canine teeth.
If I would ever die of fright, this was the time my heart would give out. It slammed into my ribcage, my body betraying me as it shook like a leaf. Sweat dripped down my spine.
You will always be safe in the house. Dad’s words drifted through my thoughts.
I jammed the key into the lock.
Heavy footsteps rushed closer.
I turned the key.
Grunts escalated.
I shrieked and shoved my shoulder into the door to open it as it had a habit of getting stuck.
A shadow fell over me.
The door gave in and I stumbled in, fear rattling me as all I pictured was myself dead. I swung around and drove the heavy door shut as a bulky mass raced toward me. With all the locks shut, a great bang slammed against the door, the whole house trembling.
I recoiled, my whole body wracked with raw sobs. Luronk could break in any moment, but a second bang never came. A dark shadow instead stalked outside the window, stopping there before gripping the iron bars, shaking them. But then he flinched backward as if he’d touched fire.
Still, I couldn’t catch my breath and fright consumed every inch of my body, swelling with terror. I stood as still as possible. Dad had always said don’t make a noise, and I’d become invisible.
Luronk’s shadow lingered outside the window. Sweat drenched my skin, my heart pounding in my ears. How long would he stay out there before he found a way in?
Around me my small store drowned in darkness, a counter against the back wall with two shelves where I displayed shoes, but right now there were only two pairs which I had fixed for a customer, and I had no weapon. But my shoemaker tools would do, except I didn’t keep them here in the store.
When the front porch wooden panels squeaked, I flinched. A paralyzing dread spread through me like ice because I was trapped, except I had the advantage. I had hiding spots in this home.
But first, weapons, and Dad kept an array of knives and tools downstairs in his workshop.
I rushed out the rear door of the store and burst into the hallway, leaving the lights off, and swung left toward the basement door, pulling it open. I charged down there, but only halfway did it hit me there was candle flickering down in the workshop. I must have left a candle burning when I’d worked on mending a broken pair of shoes for a customer. God, that was all I needed. To have burned down my house by not blowing out the candle.
Without pause, I jumped the last couple of steps to the landing with a thud and turned toward the oversized, underground cellar.
But when I came face to face with three men, I rocked on the spot and cried out from pure shock.
They stood around Dad’s workbench, their eyes wide and clearly just as surprised. Each wore black pants and a tanned leather apron, nothing underneath but their muscles. So many of them. These were young men, maybe in their mid or late twenties.
“W-Who are you?” I recoiled, remembering I wasn’t exactly wearing much myself. “What are you doing here?”
The blond with the bluest eyes stepped forward, carrying a hammer. I grasped the railing on the steps, my mind racing to think of what to do next. Outside waited a monster ready to tear me apart. Down here was a trio of men who could overpower me without breaking a sweat, and I doubted there was a room in the house that could keep me safe from them.
Show no fear, Dad had said when facing a wild boar or a wolf in the woods. I guessed that applied here too.
The stranger set his hammer down on the table and ran his hands down the apron. The fabric was tattered across the chest. Wait, I’d seen that before.
“Is that my father’s?” He had several similar aprons, and when I glanced over to the hooks on the wall where he used to keep them, they were empty.
The blond man stared at me, tilting his head, and I looked up to meet his stare. High cheekbones with a dimple in each cheek. I had never seen such a handsome man in my entire life. Yet he carried an elegance about him as if he didn’t belong in this world and had come from somewhere angelic. With strong biceps that belonged on a warrior, he stood there watching me.
What was he thinking? How he’d tie me up and have his way with me? Of course not! Why was I even thinking such thoughts?
The other two stepped alongside him, also broad-shouldered, and both as gorgeous as the first. One had hair as white as snow, and he wore it over a shoulder, reaching his waist. The third man had short hair, black as a raven, green eyes like the forest on a spring morning.
But something lay behind all their gazes. An eagerness, or was it hunger? God, what if they were working with Luronk? I stepped away.
The world around me seemed to tilt, as too much was happening too fast.
Maybe I’d hit my head, and really, I remained somewhere in the woods, dreaming this. There was no reason for three men to be in my home.
“Have you finally made a choice?” the blond man asked, his voice deep, carrying a husky tone.
“What are you talking about? Why are you here?” My world spun, but I gripped the wooden railing, holding myself up.
“Don’t think she’s here for us,” said the white-haired man, his honeyed voice like a feather tracing the length of my spine. Who were these men?
“Of course she is,” the third man with a tattoo across his temple said. “This has already taken too long. She’s laid eyes on us. Tonight, she must decide.”
The three of them stared my way again, expecting, waiting, yet my breaths raged through my lungs. Nothing made sense. And all I could think about was why the edges of my eyes were darkening. How my legs wobbled beneath me, and in an instant, the world faded and I fell forward. My last vision was of the blond man rushing toward me with arms stretched out.
Three
The softest caress stroked my brow, cool against my skin. Just like the lullaby in my ears. Someone hummed a tune and at first, I thought it was a bird.
I opened my eyes, licking my dried lips, my mouth feeling as if I’d been sucking on a copper coin.
Looking down at me were the
deepest blue eyes framed by golden hair, seeming to glow beneath the candlelight. It took a few moments for everything to register, to remember what had happened. And how I now laid in my bed. Unease curled deep in my gut as it had before, spearing through me.
I breathed deeply as this stranger’s attention remained upon me, and I braced myself for an explanation that might cause me to faint again. Because so far the night had been anything but normal. On the bright side, I wasn’t tied up somewhere being tortured. Though I couldn’t ignore how my body reacted in his presence, the butterflies in my stomach, my eyes lingering on the massive square muscles of his shoulders.
“You feeling all right?” he asked, and I couldn’t find my voice at first, instead lifting my head to scan the room. We were alone, and I still wore only my underwear and top. I snatched the blanket and dragged it over my body, but he didn’t even blink.
“For the love of Haven Realm, tell me what is going on.” I shuffled higher on the bed, my back plastered to the wall, grasping the blanket against my chest as if it would protect me.
“You’re safe for now, little one.” He stood tall over me like a guardian. “I’m Luca from the Sundrax family. I am an expert archer, I hunt for food, and I’m a master swordsman. My eight brothers have each found their life partner, and I am the last to still make my father proud.”
All right, I wasn’t expecting such a formal introduction. “I’m Rain. I run a shoe store and enjoy the outdoors.” The words sounded awkward to me, yet his words about finding a partner alarmed me and hell they should. I wasn’t a fool to ignore the correlations that this ridiculously sexy man implied he was looking for his life mate. Was I some kind of conquest?
When he didn’t say anything, I said, “Look, I don’t know how this works in your family or wherever you’re from, but here you need to court a woman you’re attracted to, take her to dinner, get to know her. Not break into her home. You should leave!” Maybe speaking to his rational mind might get him to see the huge misunderstanding here. I had enough problems without strangers in my house talking about finding a wife.
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 11
