What could go wrong?
****
Anna watched Joseph approach. His grim expression told her he knew of Evelyn's kidnapping, but when his eyes caught hers, his face lightened. She could not help returning his smile. He might be a male who would treat her well. She had been here a half year and had yet to be threatened. She felt like a coward, leaving her clan, leaving the other females in peril. There were more females in her sea clan, and not all of their Band was bad, but there was a great deal of fighting over the females.
She’d had a hard life in her clan. The endless chores and violence had been constant. She was finally becoming accustomed to the easy cadence of this clan where everyone worked together as a unit, gathering, cooking, and maintaining the dwellings. Anna feel a part of something larger, and it lifted her heart.
As Joseph approached, Anna felt that stirring and tried to squelch it. His hold on her deepening like fingers in flesh. He moved her soul and she tried with everything she was to resist that pull. Her disappointment in other males kept her from allowing too much hope for this one.
Joseph was very glad to see Anna. Her tentative smile acted as a salve to his weariness and stress over Evelyn’s plight. The child had surely seen the murder of her father then been torn from the woods by the fragment.
He longed to sweep Anna up into his arms but knew that would scatter their tentative bond like dandelion seed on the wind.
Instead, he looked down into her face, still closed to him, and squeezed her shoulder. “I am glad to see you well.”
“And I you.” Anna stepped closer, her heart beating like a trapped thing.
Joseph held his ground. It was almost too much to hope for. After his months of working his way closer to her, yearning at every turn for her acceptance, she had made a move toward him.
He held himself still. She must wish it. He would force nothing.
Anna placed first one hand on his waist and then the other, feeling the supple skin over hardened muscle. She stepped closer, her head a breath away from touching his chest. Fear and bravery combined in a heady rush.
Joseph could stand it no more. She was touching him, and he had to touch her back. His hands found purchase on the small of her back. He pulled her to his body, molding it to his, and she gave a soft moan of pleasure, surprising them both. As she began to pull away, he held her tighter and she stiffened.
Anna was immediately frightened. She had initiated the contact, but she did not know what to do about it. His arms tightened about her like steel bands, his heart beating strong and fast in her ear.
“Do not... do not go. Let me hold you but a moment longer.”
Anna clenched her teeth, willing her body to relax. This was Joseph. He had treated her with kindness and been tender with her each day she had been here. She had to learn to trust him. She was so utterly lonely that she tasted it like bitter fruit.
She would force herself to trust.
Joseph felt her relax in his arms, and it was the single best feeling he had ever had the pleasure of knowing. This is what life was about. There must be something beyond mere existing, and he meant to grab it. He kissed the top of her head, which smelled of soap, of everything that was clean and pure.
Joseph held Anna tighter.
CHAPTER 29
Charles and Clarence were tired. They’d not had time to appreciate their escape into the Outside. Twigs, grass, large branches hindered, tore, and slowed their progress. Charles had only books on tracking techniques with which to guide them, and this was the savages' world. Charles felt that weakness like a paralysis.
They pressed on.
Presently, they passed an odd looking pole, worn smooth, as long as the banquet table in the Gathering Room, with two shorter poles anchoring it. He noted manure scattered about the area.
Clarence squatted down, looking closer at its construction. A drop of sweat ran down his face from temple to chin, falling to the ground on top of droppings where lazy flies hovered. That was another thing that Charles could not get accustomed to: the sheer volume of insects and other small creatures roaming freely, untroubled by their presence.
“It is a pole to tether a horse,” Clarence stated.
“How do you know?”
“There is one for Trading Day that visiting spheres use to tether their horses.”
Charles looked at it. The mystery of the savages continued to deepen.
He and Clarence scouted the area taking deep pulls of water from their flasks. Soon, it would not be enough. They would have to find a water source.
Then they heard it: water. Charles could not believe their luck.
Ten minutes later, they found the source of the water. A small creek flowed through the deepest part of the forest, but what gave them pause were the depressions beside the creek. People had rested there.
Clara had been here.
Charles knew this because her crown lay sparkling in the dim light.
He picked it up, searching the filigree gallery. Where was she? he thought, clenching the crown, its delicate metal biting the tender flesh of his palm.
He and Clarence looked at each other.
“Perhaps she left it as a sign she had come this way?” Clarence speculated.
Charles nodded. “Possibly. But I think it more likely that it escaped her notice. After all, it is not every day that one is kidnapped by a merciless group of primitives.” Obviously, however, they were not as primitive as the People of the Sphere had presumed.
They forged onward, following the hoof prints, praying to the Guardians that rain would not come and wipe away all traces of the proof of their passage.
Clarence and Charles counted five horses. When they stopped to look closely at the prints, there was one set that left a deeper impression. Charles said, “This must be the horse that carried two riders.”
Clarence looked up at him, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. The open meadow allowed the heat and brightness of the sun to permeate his every pore. And they had thought that the heat of the sphere unbearable! This was altogether a different type of heat.
Clara was alive. These prints were fresh. Hope swelled inside Charles.
Clarence grinned. They would be able to retrieve the Princess after all.
They bedded down for the night at the meadow's edge. The stars began to appear in the twilight, winking at them from a dressing of inky velvet.
It was a view Charles had never seen, one he wished he could share with Clara.
****
Clara awoke, completely disoriented, and slowly her memories assaulted her: the aborted escape, the attempted rape, her “rescue” by the Band, her new place here amongst the clan-dwellers. She opened her eyes, unsure of what time it was. The light filtering into the room spoke of twilight. Mayhap she had slept four or five hours. Her stomach told her with a low rumble that she had missed lunch .
Suddenly, Clara thought of the oysters. She would never eat oysters again. Another wave of homesickness washed over Clara, and her eyes stung with tears. She reminded herself that living was better than the alternative that awaited her in the sphere.
It was a mantra that she tired of.
She swung her feet to the floor. The bed was not as high as the one inside the sphere. Clara gulped back her weak feelings of isolation. Spying a washbasin with a pitcher, she walked over to it, used the water on her hands, and splashed some on her face.
She dressed quickly, wishing she could have her grooming implements. She knew she looked a fright. With that lovely assessment, she quietly stole out of the room and came upon the remainder of the Band sitting around the eating table, their long legs splayed out before them. Neither Lillian nor or Bracus was present.
She schooled her expression. Unknown males did not instill confidence and trust., She had seen them kill the Prince’s guards.
The guard looked at the Princess and thought how interesting it was that she was a master of her expressions. One so young should show everything
on her face. Yet she was self-contained in a way that was fascinating to him. No matter. He was sure that, as their acquaintance progressed, he would elicit emotions. Oh yes, he was positive of that.
The Band rose as she came into the room, and she fought not to react to their sheer size. They were so huge, filling the room. Instead, she bit the inside of her lip, and the pain filled her with the wakefulness necessary to be sharp-witted. She repeated to herself that if they had meant to harm her, they’d had ample opportunity, and she could have done naught to defend herself.
She took a deep breath. “Good evening.”
“Princess.” The guard smiled in a way that would have made a lesser woman squirm.
Lillian came in, and relief took residence in Clara’s breast like a welcome friend.
“Oh! Clara, you are awake.”
“Yes, I feel much more myself.” She smiled gratefully.
Lillian said, “Please, join us in the community dining area, and we will have some food. I am sure you are starving.”
“That would be wonderful.”
Joseph smiled at her, and another woman came in. Her simple clothing was like that for all the females of the clan. But her demeanor was unique. She moved with a caution that was completely absent in Lillian, and her features looked a bit different from the others.
The other two guards, Matthew and Stephen followed her out. Clara felt eyes boring into her back and wished that Bracus was here so she could mention her feeling about the guard. Her shoulders slumped a little as she thought of her unknown future.
When they had all exited the cottage, Joseph turned and introduced Anna to Clara.
She looked at Clara with ancient eyes in a young face, a mirror of her own.
“Anna is from a sea clan, far east of here,” Joseph said.
Clara looked at her with interest, and large brown eyes regarded Clara with equal parts caution and curiosity.
“It is very good to make your acquaintance,” Clara said.
“And I, yours.” Anna gave a small curtsey.
Clara knew not how long she would remain here, but it would be very good to have a bit of female companionship without the entrapments of being royal.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a fragrant smell.
“What is that?”
“What?” Lillian responded over her shoulder.
Clara opened her mouth to elaborate when the guard stepped up beside her. “Meat.”
She was so engrossed by his nearness that she did not watch where she walked and stumbled. She would have fallen if it had not been for him grabbing her elbow. A charge of intense heat climbed up her arm at the point of contact, surging into her head and making the small hairs on her nape stand on end. She saw his eyes widen in shock, and he snatched his hand away, rubbing it where it had touched her. But she knew, although he acted as if shocked by lightning, it had felt good.
They faced each other, and the group stopped, staring at the two of them.
“What has happened?” Lillian asked.
Clara shook her head. She did not know. However, this reaction seemed to be something between her and the Band. But not all, she noticed. Why did it not occur with all of them?
Joseph walked over, looking down at her.
“I stumbled, and he caught my elbow to arrest my fall.” She pointed to the guard. “And I felt a heat...”
“Akin to a burn?” Joseph asked.
Clara nodded. “Not precisely. There was no pain... but a...”
Stephen said, “We do not need to discuss the possibilities of all this right now.” His face and stance were gruff. His arms crossed over his chest.
Joseph's cheeks colored, and he turned to the first and second in command. “I will address this potential with Clara later this evening.”
Matthew said, “Let us do it before much longer as she and Lillian wish to bathe at the springs.”
“Yes, a critical plan, that.” Joseph walked toward the building where they would dine on meat for the first time in Clara's life. She should have been sickened by the prospect of something that had been butchered and cooked for her. But hunger was a strange thing, a needy thing without a conscience. And if she could have the oysters of the sphere, she should partake in what the clan cultivated locally.
Her thoughts turned to the interaction with the guard obviously meant something that she was not aware of. She had certainly never felt that with the males of the sphere. This was something entirely new. Clara walked toward the dining hall, holding her elbow as if it were on fire.
****
Bracus slowed Briar Rose about one half mile away from the area where Evelyn's father had met his end, signaling the Band with his high-pitched call.
They dismounted, and Bracus led his steed to the creek and let her drink her fill, using an additional tether so she could reach the water while he was gone and tied to one of the stout trees.
Jack approached down the steep ravine to find Bracus tying secure knots.
Bracus looked at the big man with his massive arms stretched out, for balance.
“Captain.”
Bracus raised his brows. There, a perfect knot. She would not escape it. “Yes?”
“I cannot shake a feeling of unease about leaving the clan.”
Bracus frowned. It was usually not Jack Blythe who had intuitive leaps. It was Bracus. However, Jack’s mate was with child. It was surely that which caused a greater need to be back at her side.
He told him so.
Jack shook his head stubbornly. “It is more than that. And I must say that I feel I have erred greatly in not telling you. I felt I could not share things I had been told in confidence.”
Bracus studied Jack. This was not helping his focus. It was bad enough that thoughts of Clara crowded his mind. He hoped there was not some other calamity to wrest attention away from rescuing Evelyn from the fragment.
Bracus turned slowly to Jack, his face full of puzzlement. “And you tell me this now?
Jack sighed as Jacob and James joined them. “What say you, Jack?”
Jack looked back at the tall warriors. Their expressions were serious. For once, James was not making a joke at someone's expense. “It is Matthew. I fear that he is not of sound mind.”
Bracus's disquiet increased, his puzzlement deepening. When had Matthew ever given him pause?
“You remember when Matthew came to us?”
Bracus nodded. He would never forget. Matthew had been rescued: starved and mistreated far from their clan by the fragment. It was only the clan's hunting such a distance away that allowed them to stumble upon him.
James steadied himself on the rough evergreen trunk. “What of it? He was ten and two years. It has been a decade since.” He shrugged it off.
“He is Band. That was clear when he was found.” Jacob indicated his throat slits with a casual wave of his hand, his bicep bunching with the movement.
“Out with it.” Bracus silenced the others with a look.
Bracus was acutely aware of the rushing stream at his right. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of the trees. The breeze rustled the branches with the quiet melody of the wind.
He waited in the near-silence of the forest.
“He does not like females,” Jack admitted quietly.
“What did you say?” Bracus stepped forward into Jack's space, and Jack held his ground.
“We were reconnoitering for the acquisition of the Princess. Do you remember?”
Bracus nodded.
“And he fell away from me, going closer to the sphere... to get a look at her.”
Bracus spoke low and with feeling. “And you did not tell me this?”
“I thought nothing of it. I stayed behind. He said he was curious about the importance of the female.”
“That is ridiculous! We don't have enough females! That’s the importance.” James stomped off a few paces.
Bracus looked after him for a moment then swung his gaze back to Jack.
&nb
sp; “He went to the sphere and showed himself to Clara, saying nothing to the rest of us.”
Bracus looked at James and Jacob, who shook their heads. They had known nothing. “He returns to your mutual post and he says...” Bracus held out his arms away from his body. What?
“That you did not deserve to have her. That all females needed to be brought to heel.”
“And we have left him at the clan with your mate and Clara?”
Jack shook his head. “I make too much of this. He meant it as a joke, I am certain. But his background, his mistreatment by the fragment...”
“He has never spoken of his time with the fragment,” Bracus said.
James, Jacob, and Jack shook their heads.
“How do you know of his time there? He has not divulged it to us.”
“You but need to watch how he behaves around females,” Jack said.
A thousand pieces came together. For all Matthew's skill in battle, he had shown nary an ounce of interest in the clan’s few females.
Far more disturbing were the incidences of Clara looking frightened of the Band. But it had not been all of them. Only Matthew.
He must return to her. If Matthew had ill intent, she was but a lamb being led to slaughter.
His guts churned. He had left her with no protection.
“Why does he think I am deserving or not?”
“We all know that you have feelings for the Princess, Captain. Whether or not it will come to pass... we do not know, but they are there.”
Philip exited the shadows, badly startling Bracus. That he would be so unaware of his surroundings spoke of how badly he had been shaken. “Yes, my brother, we all knew. But, we have bigger problems than his possible treason.”
“What could possibly be worse?” Bracus’s mind turned over the facts and different reactions to a thousand days spent in the company of Matthew and found disturbing images starting to connect.
“I think that she is a select.”
The other Band member's faces fell, and Bracus's throat slits opened fully as he gulped in a lungful of air. “No!” His bellow caused the birds to evacuate the trees in a noisy rush.
He wanted to collapse on his knees, but that would not get him to her sooner.
The Death Series, Books 1-3 (Dark Dystopian Paranormal Romance): Death Whispers, Death Speaks, and Death Inception Page 117
