AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He hesitated.
“Or not,” I amended quickly. “If that’s?—”
“Oh, I have no objection. I was just…” He chuckled. “Well, thinking about what it would be like, having you so close to me in that form.”
I swallowed hard as his implication became clear. “Oh.”
He smiled, stepping closer, and his arms slipped around my sides. “So is there anything in particular you need me to do to hang onto you like that?” His hands slid down farther, cupping my ass. “Something like this, maybe?”
He tugged me against his leg, and I gasped.
“That, uh…” Instinctively, I pressed my core into his muscles. “That should be?—”
An icy shiver suddenly coursed over me like fingertips of pure darkness dragging across my skin.
I froze.
“What is it?” Roan’s grip loosened. “Did I hurt you or?—”
“Do you feel that?” My words came out as a whisper as I scanned the horizon. Every instinct I possessed was clamoring that something had just gone horribly wrong. That the ground was shaking, even if it didn’t move at all. That the world had been plunged into darkness, no matter that my eyes swore the sun still hung in the sky.
But Ozias was okay, and due to the fact he was not fighting or raging at a threat right now, I could believe the others were all right too. The landscape was unchanged beneath the bright sun, and there weren’t even birds in the cloudless blue sky.
Not a single one…
“Gwyneira?” Roan stepped away from me, and from the corner of my eye, I could see him scanning our surroundings too. “You look scared. What’s happening?”
My head shook, and I couldn’t find the words to explain. Birds hid when a dangerous storm was on the rise.
Right now, I’d swear the apocalypse itself was swelling on the horizon.
“Princess?”
Roan took my arm, and I gasped, startled.
His dark eyes narrowed, but his concern had a dangerous edge, like he was waiting for me to point out the threat so that he could kill it. “Are you okay?”
I shivered. “We need to get back to the others. Now.”
28
CASIMIR
In the thirty-odd years since I was turned, I’d never considered how much I’d started to take the ability to shift and fly where I wished for granted. But gods, I missed it now.
No, missed wasn’t a strong enough word. I seethed at the loss of it. Raged at being trapped in one form, slowed to the pace of any other human or Erenlian, even as the predator inside me screamed for me to go faster. Ozias’s gifts told him the princess was ahead. That the creature was too. But beyond that, he said nothing, and thus I was left plodding along, helpless to intervene should a new horror unfold.
It was enough to drive one to madness.
Every mile grated, just as I knew it did for each man behind me. Every minute that ticked by with no answer for what that bastard planned for her gnawed at my control and made visions of all the horrors I’d seen when my country fell dance like flickering flames behind my eyes. And the fact we had horses to help us move faster scarcely alleviated the torture.
After all, the beasts were anything but comfortable with us, and they couldn’t move nearly as fast as I would have.
If only I could have fucking shifted.
Adjusting my position as my mount danced a bit beneath me, I drew a slow breath and attempted to project calm. I’d been trained in the equestrian arts since I was a child, and I knew how sensitive horses could be—and that was without having a vampire seated upon their back. In all these interminable hours, I’d learned well that if I allowed myself to spiral into rage, the buckskin gelding would only become even more skittish.
It had already tried to throw me off three times and to bolt at least half a dozen. As a result, I’d ended up riding at the front of our little group, if only for safety’s sake and because I was tired of slowing the creature enough to rejoin the others time and again.
