Page 15 of Cold Hearted
“I am the commander of the entire Northern Army. My enemies are many. Which is why you are still wearing those cuffs. Someone is always trying to kill me,” he huffed.
“I’m sorry,” I started, knowing I had to keep this little partnership going in order to reach my goal. “I grew up kind of sheltered in the Midlands. Yes, I traveled to sell my goods but never this far from my home, and my mother was always with me. She no longer is, and so I’m not used to being on my own and…” My voice trailed off because he reached out and grasped a tendril of my golden blonde hair, tucking it behind my cheek and stealing the words from my mind.
“I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” he said.
I hadn’t meant it to sound like she was dead, but she might as well be. She was in another world, and shewoulddie if I didn’t find an Ethereum lord and kill him.
“Thank you. I would rather not camp outside in the cold where our fire would attract bandits. Can we pay someone local to take us in for the night?”
He swallowed hard, hand still poised at my cheek. Of the many scenarios to getting myself in front of an Ethereum lord, seduction did come up. It was my mother who’d given me counsel on it.
Use whatever you have to get that heart, including your looks, she’d told me.
I knew Zander found me pretty, he’d already said so. The problem was, I found him attractive as well, and if he didn’t drop his hand soon I felt like I was going to light on fire.My heart hammered in my chest as I dreamed of what it would feel like to kiss him.
Zander blinked rapidly, as if coming out of a daze, and pulled his hand back. “I know of a place nearby,” was all he said as he spun back around and kicked the horse.
I was thankful he’d pulled away. If he hadn’t I might have given in to my temptations and where would that get me? No, I needed to keep this quick and clean. Keep him alive through any future attacks so that he could get me before his lord. And also so I didn’t get stuck with these blasted cuffs for the rest of my life.Thatwould be highly inconvenient.
It dawned on me then that I might have to eventually kill Zander to get to the Northern lord. It was sad when an innocent bystander had to die for a cause, but it was two men or my entire realm of Faerie, which held millions of men, women, and children.
If Zander protected his lord, I would have to take him out, no matter how attractive he was. End of story.
The cuffs tightened at that thought, and I cursed myself.
Great. Now these things were never going to fall off.
Three hours later, I was dirty, famished, and exhausted from travel. Zander had veered off the road and ridden us past a stream, where we’d gotten water, and now into an open field. The temperature had dropped so much that my breath was coming out in a fog and my cheeks were numb. I was just about to ask where he was taking us for the night when I saw the pale-yellow farmhouse up ahead.
Oh thank goodness!
A bath and rest were in my future.
Zander kicked the horse into a trot and got us to the front gates of the property. Turning to face me, he looked me dead in the eyes. “I still don’t trust you.” He glanced down to see the cuffs no longer biting my wrist but still securely attached. “So if you even so much as threatenanyof these people here, I will gut you and hang your intestines out for the bears to eat.”
My mouth dropped open at the gruesome threat. “Why would I hurt some random farmers?” I asked him in shock.
He shrugged. “Why does a powerful sunlight fae live in the Midlands with a fat coin purse?”
Damn.I shouldn’t have shown my power today.
I rolled my eyes. “My coin makes you feel inferior, doesn’t it?” I reached in and pulled out a handful. “Here, have some.”
He shoved my hand away with a growl and I felt the cuffs tighten. What a buffoon! I wanted to strangle him. Putting the coins back in my purse, I looked up just in time to see two identical boys running full-speed toward us. They were about eight years old, both wearing blue trousers and a long white tunic under their fur-lined coats, and their walnut-colored hair flopped as they ran with wooden practice swords aloft.
Twins.
“Uncle!” one of the boys screamed, and my stomach tightened.
Zander glanced back at me, and I understood why he’d threatened me. He’d brought me to see hisfamily.
Zander jumped off the horse and reached down, grabbing a large stick.
“Have you been practicing?” he asked the boys just as they reached him.
“En garde!” one of them screamed in a battle voice that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
Clack clack clack.The twin boys attacked their uncle with a precision of movements that had my eyebrows hitting my hairline. They were seriously impressive little warriors in the making. One of the boys crashed his sword into the back of Zander’s knee and the commander mock screamed and fell forward. The other boy stuck his wooden sword right in Zander’s chest and he fell backward with a groan, lying still as if dead.
