Reign Of Shadows: Rise Of Fire Part 22

Once again we were together on the Outside.

THIRTY-TWO.

Luna

IT TOOK A day to get down the mountain. We rode hard, Fowler pus.h.i.+ng the horses down precarious slopes that had us arching sharply in our saddles. I didn't complain, biting back any fears or concerns, knowing we had to cover as much ground as possible as fast as possible. Mammoth bats flew overhead, their great leathery wings slapping the air as they hunted for prey in the great maw of night.

We stopped only briefly, when necessary, to rest and water the horses. On the second day we were still moving over rocky terrain. Fortunately, we hadn't come across any dwellers. It stood to reason our luck couldn't hold forever. Not in this world.

Still, at that first, inevitable sound of a dweller, I froze. Its tinny and shrill call bounced off the rocks of the canyon we were pa.s.sing through. The eerie sound reverberated across the air, carried far by bat-stirred winds. Even though a part of me had missed the Outside, I hadn't missed that.

"The ground is getting softer," Fowler murmured beside me.

I nodded in acknowledgment and swallowed, all my senses squeezing and stretching as far as they could go. I listened. I knew firsthand how one dweller could turn to two to twenty in a blink.

"Luna?" Fowler queried, and I knew he was asking if I detected anything else with my more sensitive hearing.

After a moment, I shook my head. The dweller must have moved on, for we didn't hear it again.

We kept moving.

We didn't speak much in those first couple of days, too intent in our flight from Ainswind, too trapped in our own thoughts.

"You have to eat, Luna," Fowler said as he pushed a piece of dried meat into my hand.

Nodding, I brought it up to my teeth and tore off a chunk. It tasted like leather but I forced myself to chew.

"Do you think Chasan is all right?"

"I think he'll always land on his feet." He sounded testy.

"Are you angry?"

"I think we're out here and Prince Chasan is snug inside his castle. He's fine."

We fell to silence again. I felt chastened. "Do you think he's coming?"

"Tebald?" I felt the motion of his shrug. "It's risky. He doesn't like risks."

"He'll come," I stated hollowly even though I had posed the question. I wanted him to persuade me otherwise, but I knew. I had thought of little else except Tebald's voice in my ear, his determination to have me that went deeper than his desire to unite our countries. "With an army, if need be," I added.

"We can travel faster than any army. It's just the two of us. He will make the mistake of bringing too many men with him. Too many men will attract dwellers. They'll be swarmed. They'll have to fight."

I nodded again, heartened by these words.

Fowler rose from where he was sitting and settled down beside me, his arm aligned with mine. "You're worrying too much. It's not good for you." He b.u.mped me slightly. We'd been alone for the last couple of days, but we'd hardly touched.

"Easier said than done, isn't it?"

He lifted his arm and draped it over me, a comforting weight. "Nothing is easy," he murmured, and I sighed as his fingers brushed the hair back from my temple. "Except this. Us. That's easy."

I smiled a little. "Except when it wasn't. I remember when we first met and you would hardly talk to me."

"That's because I liked you, and I didn't want to."

"You were so . . . hard. And unfeeling."

"I thought I had to be. I thought not caring was the way to protect myself from this world. From losing and hurting again. I actually told myself we could just be travel companions. That I could spend months with you and not love you."

I turned my face, dropping my forehead against the side of his face. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry about?" Bewilderment rang in his voice.

"If Sivo hadn't forced me on you, then you would have kept going. You'd be halfway to Allu by now. I was exactly what you didn't want. Entanglement. Someone to drag you down-"

He kissed me, crus.h.i.+ng my words. His hands held my face, pulling me toward him so that I crawled in his lap and straddled him. This kiss was ruthless, desperate. A release from the fear of almost losing each other. From days of running without time for breath.

"Don't you ever say that," he growled against my lips.

His hands burned a trail everywhere, roaming my back, callused fingertips stroking my nape and burrowing into my hair. I trembled as he tugged my head back, his lips gliding over my throat before coming back to my mouth. "You're the best thing to ever happen to me and I wouldn't want to be anywhere except here with you."

My fingers delved inside his doublet, smoothing over taut shoulders. I clutched him through the layers of his s.h.i.+rt, hungry for the sensation of him. He winced and I remembered his injuries. Gasping, I pulled back. "Oh, I'm sorry!"

He seized my hands and positioned them back on him. "I want your touch."

I nodded, a happy breath shuddering out from me because it was what I wanted, too. More than anything. Gently, I slid my hands over the curve of his shoulders. "I'll be more careful."

Fowler leaned back slightly to shrug out of his doublet. "Don't worry about me." His arms came back to wrap around me, and we were kissing again. Hard, deep, soul-bending kisses. Fowler's bigger body curled over mine, taking us down. Dried bits of gra.s.s crackled under the blanket cus.h.i.+oning us as we kissed until I could hardly catch my breath. "You're all I need."

I framed his face in my hands and reveled in the texture of his skin, the silk of his hair, the delicious weight of him over me. I traced his features, soaking him up, absorbing all of him. "I love you, Fowler," I whispered, following his instructions and living in the now. Not worrying. Not thinking. Only feeling.

I listened to the strong and even cadence of Fowler's heart beneath my ear. His chest rose and fell in slow draws. If he wasn't asleep, he was very relaxed. I smiled softly. He needed rest.

My ears p.r.i.c.ked and I lifted my head from the pillow of Fowler's chest. A bark sounded in the distance. I lifted my head. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" Fowler asked, his voice alert and wide awake.

I rose to my feet. "It sounded like a . . . bark."

"Your wolf?"

"No." I wished it was Digger, but that wasn't his bark. Digger rarely even barked. He was all stealth. "A dog, I think." I angled my head to the side, listening harder.

Fowler moved to stand by my side, pulling his s.h.i.+rt over his head. I faced the direction of the sound. "There. I heard it again."

"That's south. Not the direction of Ainswind."

I turned to face him. "That's good, right?"

"I don't know." He hesitated a moment, listening by my side. A dog barked again. "I heard it," he confirmed. It was a distinctive bark, low and hoa.r.s.e. This time closer.

Fowler jumped into action, sliding back into his doublet, gathering up our things as one bark turned into two, then three. I joined him in packing up our belongings, our breaths fast and choppy with anxiety.

The barks overlapped now. There was more than one dog out there, and they were on the trail of something. Something like us.

Fowler turned in the direction of the barks again and froze.

"What is it? What's happening?" I demanded, dread building as I tracked Fowler where he stood so still.

"My father used trained dogs. Whenever a group left Relhok City, the hounds would accompany them. He never traveled without them. They can track. They can detect dwellers long before us. They can also fight, attack on command, if necessary."

"Your father?" I shook my head, bewildered. "He came himself?"

"Yes. My father. Cullan." He paused. "He's come for us, Luna. He's come for you."

I shook my head. "No. That can't be-"

Fowler grabbed my hand and tossed me atop my horse. "It's him," he declared as he mounted his own horse.

We rode hard side by side, no longer concerned with the amount of sound we made. Alerting the dwellers to our presence was the least of our worries. We moved at breakneck speed, running away from a greater threat than those monsters.

I followed Fowler, keeping pace. If there was even a chance he was correct, then we needed to move. The barking grew closer, right on our heels, but we kept pus.h.i.+ng. An arrow hissed on the air and my horse cried out, tumbling out from under me and sending me flying. I landed hard, all the air escaping me in a pained whoosh. I lay on the ground for a stunned moment.

"Luna!" Fowler's shout rose over the thunder of hooves.

I blinked, chasing away the shock of my fall. Hands grabbed me, hauling me to my feet. I whipped my head around, trying to process the flurry of voices, horses, men, and scurrying dogs. It was an overwhelming din. Even the air tasted musky and sweat-laced. Bitter with fear. My fear.

"Luna! Luna! Are you hurt? Let her go! Let her go, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

I shook my head, searching for my voice, trying to filter through the chaos of sensations bombarding me.

"Fowler." A gruff, scratchy voice rose over all other sounds. "You look well, if not a little rough at the edges. Don't tell me that King Tebald was not hospitable to you."

My skin s.h.i.+vered with an innate, gut-deep knowledge. My voice welled up, a thick, jumbled lump of words in my throat. This was Cullan. The man who had murdered my parents. Untold, innumerable lives had died at his command. I'd waited my entire life to confront him. True, I'd hoped to have more leverage when that day arrived, but here I was.

My chance was now.

THIRTY-THREE.

Fowler

I FACED MY father. I wasn't certain the last time I had seen him. Days weren't something one counted in this life. There were no seasons to mark the pa.s.sing of time. No birthdays to celebrate-but it felt as if I'd lived a lifetime since the last time I stood before him.

He traveled with over a score of soldiers, all armed to the teeth. A dozen dogs circled the group impatiently, excited over their recent chase. I should have known if anything would rouse my father from the protection of Relhok City, news of Luna would do it.

He looked the same. The years had been good to him. Only faint lines fanned out from his face. His well-trimmed beard was lightly peppered with gray. He still wore his hair long, pulled back in a single plait. I had hoped that age and disease might take hold of him and spare the world, but that clearly wasn't the case. I reached inside myself, searching for the familiar hate, but there was only dispa.s.sion-emptiness when I stared at this man who had failed me in every way.

"So this is the princess." Cullan's white teeth flashed in a smile as he dismounted to stand before Luna, where she dangled between two soldiers. "She is the spitting image of her mother, but I'm sure Tebald told you that already. He was rather obsessed with the woman. Pathetic man. Weak, losing his head over any female." He tapped his temple. "That's the difference between us. I use my head. That old fool thinks with other parts." Cullan laughed and the rest of his men joined in.

I struggled against the hands that held me back. In the distance a dweller cried out-not surprisingly, given the noise we were making-but the sound hardly alarmed me. Right now I faced a far greater menace.

"Don't touch her," I warned, glaring at my father, staring at green eyes so similar to my own and yet not. These eyes were dead inside. Impossible to breach. They felt nothing for no one.

Cullan laughed. "Speaking of weak men, you, my son, always did pick the worst girls to attach yourself to." He shook his head with a tsking sound.

His words made me think of Bethan and what he did to her. And that had not been personal to him. That had been about me. Luna was personal to him. She was a threat to everything he held important.

My father continued, "I blame your mother and that nurse of yours. They made you soft." His voice turned hard and accusing. "Such a disappointment. I should have taken you in hand from the start and made a man of you."

The dweller that had cried out moments ago called out again. It was close. I scanned the horizon, spotting it, visible now. Its pale body shuffled toward our group. It was only one. It didn't concern anyone. My father's men would dispatch it quickly.

Cullan followed my gaze to the lone dweller. A slow smile eased over his features. "Ah. What do we have here? A friend come to join us?"

An icy finger of dread sc.r.a.ped down my spine as my father turned to face the creature. Cullan studied it as it shuffled closer and then looked back to me. He turned his gaze to Luna, arching an eyebrow in consideration.

She hung between two burly soldiers, shaking, her face pale. I wondered what was going through her mind. She'd heard about this man all her life. Cullan had taken everything from her. Her parents. Her home. Her very ident.i.ty was something she'd had to hide for fear of him.

A soldier started toward the dweller, sword drawn.

"Wait," my father called, holding up a hand to halt him. "Why don't we give it what it wants?"

The statement, the casual expression on my father's face, was so reminiscent of when he had taken Bethan that a black wave of rage swept over me. I swung and struck the guard on my left, catching him by surprise. He fell to the ground.

I turned on the other one, attacking him viciously with an elbow to his nose and a fist to his throat. He went down with a groan. I lunged toward Luna, but didn't make it two feet before other soldiers were on me, pinning me to the ground.