****
Clara and Evelyn giggled together. As they were of similar size they hid inside the length of a fallen tree, the males crashing around looking for them.
“They sound like a herd of goats looking for a rear end to butt!” Evelyn giggled and Clara forced her face into stern lines, the darkness of their quarters relieved by the knothole which lay above them.
“You had best not tell them that comparison!”
“I shall! It is too precious,” she laughed as she grasped her sides, holding onto them for dear life.
Clara could stand it no more and disintegrated into gales of laughter, the vision of the Band running about, their heads forward, butting their foes.
Their laughter finally lessened to the occasional hiccup.
Clara put her finger to her lips to quiet Evelyn. She was certain they would be victorious as their small size was cleverly hidden in plain sight. The Band would never suspect that the pair could maneuver into the tight quarters they found themselves in.
“Queen Clara, I am uncomfortable here, it has been hours. Surely we have won?” she asked with typical impatience.
“Keep still, rascal. We have been here not overlong.”
“No, it has been at least three hours. I need to use the necessary and look,” she pointed at the filtered light that came through the hole in the log, “the light fades.”
Clara shook her head. “No, Anna said she would give the signal when they game had ended. The men must find us. I do not care how long it takes. It is quite a pleasant switch to trick them for once.”
Evelyn smiled, she found it challenging to fool the Band on any level. That the two of them could hide underneath their noses was a wonderful thing indeed.
Suddenly they heard Thomas call out, his voice panicked, “Queen Clara... Evelyn, you must come out!”
Evelyn struggled to come into position to exit but Clara whispered, “Do not! They hope to win!”
“Are you certain? He sounds...” she shrugged in the confined space.
Clara nodded. “We sphere-dwellers know how to fool one another. You watch.”
Clara smiled and Evelyn settled down to an uneasy silence.
They waited and the light grew dim inside the log. There was a complete silence to the forest. Clara grew uneasy. Surely Anna should have given the signal for the game's termination?
“Clara, I must go...” Evelyn began.
“I must go myself. I hate to admit defeat but nature calls.”
They moved backwards on their hands and knees until they had fully exited the log and stood.
Good Guardian, it was nearly twilight. Her stomach growled and she realized the game they had begun at the noon hour had stretched to the evening meal.
Something was wrong.
The frogs did not sing.
She and Evelyn looked at each other in unspoken consensus and did not talk out loud. They searched for some high brush that circled a lone evergreen and relieved their full bladders.
Much better Clara thought, straightening, her spine popping in a most satisfying way.
“That was a tight perch, Clara,” Evelyn whispered.
“Yes, it was,” Clara said, looking about her. “Let us rejoin the others.”
They made their way to the camp and Clara turned to Evelyn. “The forest is still, I feel ill at ease.”
“Should they not have been looking for us even now?” Evelyn asked logically.
Definitely, Clara thought.
They came upon the meadow that was circled by forest and were greeted by the bodies of the Royal Guard. Throats were slit and entrails littered about like grotesque worms. Flies buzzed above the macabre bounty and Clara's vision became dim.
Evelyn.
She must think of the girl. She could not afford to be weak in this moment.
Evelyn moved to rush forward and Clara brought her against her body, wrapping a hand over her mouth just as Evelyn was readying for a scream.
“Do not give utterance,” Clara said in a fierce whisper. “I will release you but you must stay by my side.”
Evelyn nodded her head and Clara removed her hand as Evelyn turned and they stared at each other.
“The fragment have killed everyone,” she mourned softly.
“We do not know that,” Clara said, the same sentiment whispering through her mind. But she refused to believe that all were dead.
Matthew and Bracus, her mind raged at her. Beating at her mercilessly. The men she loved dead or worse.
As they stood looking at the scene Prince Frederic entered the clearing holding a struggling Charles and Clara could not help the gasp that escaped her mouth.
Here he was in the flesh, very much alive and well.
Clara had known he was.
Prince Frederic did not look like a Prince any longer, but a man on the edge, his hair long and unkempt, his body lean and muscled through survival. Jabez, his first guard, came behind him, his eyes missing nothing.
Clara swallowed her fear, a thing which threatened to choke her.
“Clara!” Prince Frederic bellowed. She jumped at his voice and Evelyn clasped her hand.
“I have your precious Charles and he will die. I promise you.” Clara saw the steel glint at Charles' throat and her shoulders slumped. This was all her fault. She should not have insisted on the folly of the game when the threat of the fragment was upon them.
What had she been thinking? She had endangered her people, the guard now dead because of her frivolity.
“Come out, come out wherever you are. I know you are here and this one lies to protect you, still. Where he goes, you are near.” He pressed the tip of the blade into the tender hollow of Charles' neck and he struggled not to cry out and the Prince laughed.
“She will come out or you will die,” he said, his eyes searching the gloom where they hid.
“Do not, Clara! He means to abuse you as he has the others.”
Oh, Guardian, what had he done to her people? Clara could not stand it.
She turned to Evelyn. “You must listen. Leave this place, return from whence we came, stay tight to the forest and the waterway which flows here. Stop at the Kingdom of Pennsylvania if you see it and they will guide you from there. Stop for no one.”
“No, Clara, do not go,” a tear escaped her eye. “He will kill you. But he will do other things first.”
Clara knew this. But in that moment she knew what it was to be royal, to be brave.
The brave were those that ignored their fear.
Her terror pressed inside her like a disease and she shoved it aside.
“Promise me you will go. Do not watch, no matter what occurs, leave now. Promise me.” Clara's eyes bored into Evelyn's.
She nodded her head vehemently, the tears cascading down her young face in a constant stream, mucus leaking out of her nose.
She threw herself into Clara's arms. “I love you, Clara.”
Clara shut her eyes fiercely. “And I, you, Dear One.”
She released Evelyn and turned to face the meadow, her body a twisting inferno of misery and fear.
She stepped into the open and immediately Frederic's eyes found her.
He shoved Charles at Jabez and came at her on a run.
CHAPTER 7
Clara braced for the impact as she heard Charles scream, “Clara, run!” A smack resounded.
Charles had been quieted.
When she felt nothing she opened her eyes and Prince Frederic stood in front of her, his feverish gaze roaming her form.
Somehow, it was worse that he did not touch her. She shuddered.
“Happy to see me, Dearest Clara?” he asked, touching her jaw with a finger, running it down the length of her face and she recoiled. “No. We will have none of that. Your precious Band has left you to my devices and those of my new found comrades.”
Clara looked about her and when her attention was off him but a moment, he grabbed her about the waist and she yelped. His lips moved against her
ear. “You will have my attentions and like it.” He licked along the outer edge of her ear and she struggled against him. His arm tightened about her with bruising force and she could not move, could not breathe. She began to feel dizzy.
“Do not struggle against me. We will be joined. I will rule your kingdom with you at my side.”
Something had happened to the Prince during his time Outside she realized.
He was quite mad now.
Clara stopped struggling but continued to gasp for air. He pulled her into his embrace. He smelled rank, a bath not having been part of his regime for some time. Clara could not help but think of the clean smell of Matthew and the spicy sweetness of Bracus and stifled a sob that bubbled in her throat. Her eyes found Charles' form in a heap at the feet of Jabez. He met her stare with brazen eyes.
She dropped her gaze, her breathing picking up again. If she did not regain control of herself this moment she would be unconscious and at the mercy of this insane man.
Dear Guardian? What to do? Who were these people that Frederic spoke of? Where was the Band?
Then they came out of the trees like insects, swarming about herself and Frederic like a black plague.
Fragment.
She knew who they were without much inspection. The disheveled appearance, the lack of women. They had a different appearance than the clan-dwellers or the sphere-dwellers.
One small girl struggled in the arms of a tall man in the middle.
Evelyn.
Dear Guardian, no. Clara slumped in Prince Frederic's arms. Could nothing be salvaged?
Evelyn struggled violently, flailing and working out a way to bite when the man casually cuffed her and she bleated out a scream that echoed in the meadow.
She held her head where he had hit her and glared up at him. He petted her like feisty livestock that he had disciplined.
Evelyn's gaze locked with Clara's. Her eyes were sorry and hopeless and Clara sighed.
Another man came forward and addressed Charles, “Is this the girl?” Clara noticed his speech immediately, definitely fragment.
Charles nodded. “My future Queen.”
“Ah-huh, whatever you say.”
Frederic's eyes narrowed upon him. “She is Queen of all in the Kingdom of Ohio, heathen. You best remember that.”
He smiled in a chilling way. “We don't follow your ridiculous code of royalty, Prince,” he grated out, his enunciation clipped and harsh. “We only want what you've promised us.” He wore strange clothing fashioned like breeches but of a soft blue material. Clara could not take her eyes off of it.
“Like what ya see?” he said to Clara directly and she blushed fiercely, embarrassed. “Look at her, so innocent. She'll be fun to play with.”
“You shall not have her. She is not part of the agreement. But the other women are yours as promised.”
“What?” Clara turned to him horrified.
“Do not fret, my beautiful flower.” Clara cringed from his touch.
“How dare you promise our women to these people!” Clara spat at him, her fury overriding all sense of self-preservation.
Clara realized too late her error as his fist connected with her face. She flew the few feet backward, landing at the feet of the man that had addressed Frederic.
He crouched down beside her. “It seems to me that we'll have exactly what we want. Now that we have the precious royal, the kingdom is ours.” He moved her face to one side then the other and she yelped when he laid his hand upon the side that Frederic had hit.
“You did not tell me she was of savage blood?” he asked Frederic.
“She is not savage. She is royal, fool,” Frederic said, exasperated, crossing his arms across his chest.
He shook his head. “I know one of the savages when I see one. She is of savage descent.”
Charles looked at Clara, prone on the ground then smiled. “Is this possible, tart?” Clara shook her head, not understanding all this talk of savages. Her head ringing from the blow.
“See, she knows not of which you speak. Her mother, now deceased,” Prince Frederic smiled, relishing in the memory of her demise, “was also of royal blood, from the Kingdom of West Virginia. King Raymond's line is royal to the Kingdom of Ohio. Are you daft? Have I not thoroughly explained the lineage?”
The man glowered then said, “She is savage and I'll prove it.”
He jerked Clara to her feet and she swayed, looking frantically at any that may rescue her. The men stared at her with various expressions on their faces. None were good.
“We will go to the river and I will prove to you what she is.” His hand encircled her upper arm and he tugged her after him. She stumbled, still dizzy from the blow and the procession followed after him.
He was rough with her, utterly disregarding her as a female as she allowed herself to be shoved to the river's edge. The noise of it overwhelmed their strange speech as they spoke amongst themselves. The water rushed over the stones and deep pools of water vibrated, fish that were foreign to Clara hopping and frolicking in the depths.
“What, pray tell, do you propose to show us, Tucker?”
What sort of a name was that? Clara wondered.
He wrapped his fist into her hair and used it like a handle, shaking her and she screamed despite herself.
“You are hurting her!” Evelyn screamed and was slapped for her trouble.
“Are all the women like this?” another male asked, looking critically at Evelyn.
Frederic looked to her, then at Clara. “Most are not as spirited but these two appear to be very much alike in that regard.” He folded his arms across his chest.
Tucker looked at Frederic in triumph. “Another attribute of the dreaded savages. The temperament is obstinate.”
He smiled evilly at Clara and dragged her to the water's edge, announcing, “Through this river saltwater runs at its mouth. If she is of pure enough blood, she does not require air!”
His grip became unbearable for Clara, tightening mercilessly and she was plunged into the icy water face first, taking a small breath at the last moment.
She could hear muffled arguing, even though the water was muting the sounds. She opened her eyes, her lungs beginning to burn with the need for oxygen. She struggled and found another hand clamped to her back, she bucked and fought, her need for air her only thought.
She opened her mouth and the water dove into the recesses of her mouth and lungs, filling her. Her vision began to dance and swim before her.
She was drowning.
Suddenly a searing fire began in her throat, different than the burning of her lungs. Deep gashes licked their fire like stripes along the planes of her throat. The pain felt so fierce she forgot her fight. She drew in more water and as she did the flesh of her throat burst apart, slashes opening and precious oxygen filled her body. She gulped greedily as her body righted itself.
Clara was torn out of the water by her hair, her body arching at an uncomfortable angle, her back pressed against her captor.
It was Evelyn's eyes that she looked into first. They were shocked and wide, trained not on her face.
On her neck.
Prince Frederic took a shocked step back and pointed at her. “You are a monster, an abomination!” he stuttered.
It was at that moment that her body rejected the water that had been forced inside her. She spewed the water out of her mouth. A geyser that erupted from her in a noxious stream and she was released to fall to the muddy riverside, her fingers biting into the moist bank.
She opened her eyes, dry heaving at the waterline. The calm waves lapped quietly in front of her.
Clara looked at her reflection.
She had gills.
Beautiful, shell pink gills adorned the sides of her neck, delicate slashes that opened slightly with her breathing.
She fainted.
CHAPTER 8
Clara was moving rhythmically. At first, she did not know where she was and opened her eyes slowly. As her visio
n adjusted she was looking at the ground, upside down.
She was on horseback.
All the memories rushed back to her, assaulting her consciousness. She was as the Band, yet not. She had gills. She breathed underwater. She had been captured by the fragment who were in collusion with Prince Frederic.
Even now they made their way back to her home sphere to capture the women and do Guardian knows what.
Her hands were bound as were her ankles.
“She's awake!” the man she recognized as Tucker bellowed to someone beyond her line of sight.
A male of the fragment came running alongside the horse and said to Tucker, “Stop, you jackass!”
Tucker slowed the horse, then stopping, swung down from his mount. Clara craned her head to the right to see them in conversation, the sore side of her face protesting against the horse's flank.
“We need to keep her alive, Tucker. That fool of a Prince thinks that you'll keep to the bargain. Question the girl and kill that idiot as soon as we get to their sphere.” He planted his hands on his hips and Clara took in their strange attire of blue breeches and strange shirts which buttoned almost to the throat, leaving the hollow exposed. They spoke strangely and were clothed just as strangely.
“Don't tell me you give a crap about this girl. That you're feeling sorry for her?”
“No, Tucker. But think of the information we need to infiltrate their sphere. I want to get in and get out. Take the women, raid their goods. That's our strength; numbers and speed.”
“You do not have integrity, that much is clear,” Clara said in a low voice from her vulnerable position on the horse.
Tucker came and jerked her off the horse by her wrists, letting her fall to the soft grass of the prairie. “Shut up, Princess,” he raised his fist and she looked at him defiantly. He would not break her with his abuse. She had had enough and would not be cowed again.
The other stayed his hand mid-swing. “Even you shouldn't beat a bound woman. Beside,” he looked at Clara in a speculative way that caused unease to rear its head again, “she may be of some value later. How many are like her? She may be quite unique...” he let it trail off and Tucker's fist fell. Clara gave a relieved exhale of the breath she had not realized she held.
The SAVAGE Series, Books 1-3: The Pearl Savage, The Savage Blood and The Savage Principle Page 33
