Page 46 of Cold Hearted
Shadows swirled around me as I lost control of my magic for a moment, and the guard’s face paled. I reined myself in just enough to issue a command.
“Take me to him.”
* * *
After we crossed the border into my brother’s kingdom, I tried to point Omen to the west where the capital of the Western Kingdom was, but whenever I did he fought me and turned back south. After the third time, I stopped trying to force him. Omen wasn’t just any stallion. He was a fae-horse, bonded to me and by extension now Dawn as well. I trusted the beast’s intuition and that he was leading me toward Dawn. He had been with her at some point over the last few days, and I knew he cared for her. Omen was the best chance I had of locating her without the aid of a tracker fae.
I spurred Omen on, and he snorted at me in annoyance but heeded my command. We cut through trails at dangerous speeds, branches and leaves slapping at my body and leaving small cuts on my exposed skin, but I carried on at the brisk pace. Something inside me said that Dawn needed me. A deep instinct I might not understand but was certainly not going to ignore.
We broke through a narrow trail onto a larger path, and I had to yank at Omen’s reins to keep from mowing down a man blocking the path with his wagon and mule. Omen whinnied and reared up, but I stayed secure in the saddle.
“What’s the problem?” I asked the old fae, anxious to keep going but not able to just leave if this man was in trouble.
“It’s the wheel,” he said, frowning down at what was indeed a broken wagon wheel. “If you could just spare a moment and help me move the wagon off the road, I can fix it myself.”
Omen danced around anxiously, and I assumed he’d picked up on my impatience. Nodding, I swung down from the stallion, and Omen released a whine. I patted his muzzle to calm him,but Omen’s eyes were wild. Something was up, but I didn’t let the fae know I was suspicious.
“So, what happened?” I asked him as I examined the broken wheel. One of the spokes was cracked and another was split in two, but both breaks were too precise to have happened naturally. It looked like someone took a saw to them.
“We hit a hole and the thing cracked.” The man gestured to his mule and then lifted the hat off his head and wiped his brow. It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but he was sweating profusely.
Stretching my senses, I heard a rustling off to my left and saw something move in my peripheral vision.
This was a setup.
While I was still hunched over, the man yelled, “Now!” and his friends burst from the foliage. But they didn’t realize I was ready for them, so before they could throw a hood over my head, I twisted and lashed out with my powers.
Black shards shot from my palms, the deadly pointed ends stopping just short of each of the attackers’ throats, including the old man who was bait for their trap.
“An Ethereum lord!” one of them yelled and tried to flee, but I threw my power at him. A shard hit him in the shoulder, piercing him straight through and knocking him down. I chucked another projectile at him that went through his other shoulder and pinned him to the ground face-first.
Tuning out his shrieks, I spun to the remaining attackers and the old man. With one of my black shards still threatening them, they dropped to their knees in the dirt and begged for forgiveness.
My patience was frayed, but I reined in my fury. The way Omen was acting told me he’d seen these bandits before,so there was a chance they might be able to lead me to Dawn. Their punishment would have to wait until I had the information I sought.
Using my magic, I maneuvered the spikes so that they hovered in front of each of their faces, inches from their eyeballs. They continued to blubber and plead until I ordered them to be silent.
“Have you seen a golden-haired female with green eyes? She would have passed by here about three or four days ago?” I then examined each of their faces.
Two of the ruffians looked confused, but the third exchanged a weighted look with the old man. I took a step toward them, convinced they’d seen her, but I didn’t even get the opportunity to question them before the old man spilled his guts.
“We didn’t know she belonged to you, my lord, or we never would have taken her.”
I was surprised to hear that they’d managed to capture Dawn. She’d proven to be a fearsome fighter and her magic was probably almost as powerful as my own, but I didn’t let the shock show on my face.
What I did let seep through my expression was my wrath. I pulled shadows from the forest that whipped around me like a tempest. The spikes hovering in front of them inched forward. They’d laid hands on my love, and I let them see my fury.
One of the bandits soiled himself. If I couldn’t see the growing stain in front of his trousers I would have smelled the piss in the air. “Wait, wait!” he implored. “She’s at a nearby camp. We can take you there if you want. It’s less than a half-day’s travel.”
He might have been trying to appeal to my merciful side,but what he didn’t know was that they were already dead men. Normally their crimes would have landed them in my dungeon for a decade or two, but anyone who laid a hand on Dawn was marked for death.
With barely a thought, I ran my spikes through the skulls of the other fae, but I held off carrying out the final bandit’s sentence.
I dissolved the last spike into shadows and the bandit sagged in relief.
“Take me to her.”
Chapter 13
