AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re looking fine,” he called out as she passed.
She gaped at him before spinning forward.
“Take the horses,” Paul said with an edge in his voice.
The man carted the two horses away as Paul led her and Beauty forward.
“You ride like the wind,” a voice said from the other side, and she spun to see a skinny kid make an extravagant bow. She squinted at his face but didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t a teen from the woods.
“I don’t,” she said, annoyed that the only retort she could think of was stating the blindingly obvious.
When another man approached, she just said, “No.”
He opened and closed his mouth.
“Don’t even think about it.”
They wanted a witch. It was the strangest thing to contemplate. She had grown up hating and fearing shifters, certain that any contact with one would destroy the coven. That’s what she’d been taught. Most packs felt the same in reverse.
But deep in the hills, folks didn’t forget the old stories. This pack had never lost the knowledge that shifters and witches had once been connected, or that shifters and witches together were stronger than any pack or coven alone. That’s why they’d kidnapped her, to get their own witch.
After everything that happened, they were still trying.
Paul led her toward a block of stairs that looked extremely small from her perch. When he’d lined Beauty up with them, he said, “Loose your right foot from the stirrup.”
She kicked away from the bit of metal holding her up.
“Then swing over and plant it down.”
She didn’t want to tell him that sounded impossible, so she swung it over and immediately lost her balance as her face pitched toward the horse. She ended up lying over the saddle, legs dangling.
“May I?” Paul asked.
“May you what?”
Strong hands encircled her waist and pulled her off the saddle. She had to crank her face into her armpit to keep from mashing her nose on the way down.
She landed on the ground, and he stepped away. She straightened her shirt and sniffed. “Thank you.”
He nodded once. He looked a little like Aiden with dark eyes and a scruff of a beard, though he was rangier.
“You’re not going to tell me I’m beautiful or ride like the wind?” she asked.
“Graceful as a three-legged dog.”
She burst out laughing. “I’m asking if you secretly are trying to snag yourself a witch.”
He stepped back, sobering instantly. “I don’t poach other’s preserves.”
“I’m not preserves, and I’m not another’s.”
He cocked his head. “Wolf says different.” He pivoted on a heel and made for the main barn door, Beauty trailing behind him.
“What does your wolf say?” She dashed along beside him.
He shoved his hands in his pocket. “Don’t want to make you angry.”
She had to laugh again, then dodged as another man stepped out of the barn.
