Crossover 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book One' (39 page)

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You’re as white as a
ghost and you have dark circles around your eyes.”

The amusement was leaving those eyes
and the seriousness was setting back in. “We have to keep moving.
Scott is a better than average tracker. It won’t take him long to
find our trail and catch up to us. They can run much faster shifted
than we can move.”

I put the plates on the counter and
went to sit behind him. “We haven’t stopped. We can afford to rest
for a night.”

He leaned back against me and I wrapped
my arms around him. I used another approach. “If you’re too
bullheaded to take care of yourself, then at least do it for Dodge.
He hasn’t eaten anything either.”

He nodded. “Alright. I’ll go see if he
wants to stay.”

I caught his hand before he could get
up. “Hun, lay back.”

He glanced back, knowing I had figured
out his plan.

I gave him my best authoritative stare.
“Cauch dernaugh, Jasper,” I repeated.

He sighed in resignation and lay his
head in my lap. “You’re getting pretty good at that.” I massaged
his temples and he closed his eyes. “The talking, I mean, not the
bossing me around.” The corners of his mouth curled up.

“Well, thank you. I have a good
teacher.” I leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “And you can’t
go see what Dodge wants to do because you know damn well he’ll say
he wants to get moving again.”

His grinned widened and he tilted his
head back so he could look at me. “You don’t know that for sure. He
might decide he wants to sleep, too.” He closed his eyes and
settled back down again. A small frown appeared on his face. “We
really should get moving again, Hayden.”

I ran my thumb over his forehead and
smoothed the frown away. It only took a few minutes for his
breathing to slow and become deeper. His head got heavier in my
lap.

After carefully placing a blanket under
his head, I put another log on the fire, grabbed another blanket
then lay down beside him.

*****

It wasn’t very often that Jasper would
outsleep me. But then again, he’d had about three hours of sleep
every night since we had left Sageden. Four at the most.

It was completely dark outside when I
woke up. I pulled out of Jasper’s arms as slowly as possible and
headed outside to check on Dodge. I shut the door quietly and
barely had time to let out a small scream before a hand clamped
over my mouth and an arm wrapped itself around my
throat.

“If you have an inkling of feeling for
that horse of yours, you’ll be quiet,” a deep voice growled in my
ear.

I nodded and the hand over my mouth let
go.

“It would be a shame to kill a Winged
One. Tell him to stop struggling. As long as you behave, you’ll be
fine.” The voice sounded familiar.

The moons were full and lit up the
yard. I looked toward the burnt barn. “Dodge. Stop.”

They had managed to get three ropes
around his neck and had tied him to a tree. With each pull back he
gave trying to free himself, the ropes were getting tighter. His
eyes rolled toward the sound of my voice and he did as he was
told.

“Now. Where’s bodyguard number two?”
The owner of this second voice walked in front of me. I didn’t know
him.

“Who?” I decided to play dumb. “It’s
just me and my horse. I’m not sure who you’re looking for, but I
live here.”

The arm around my throat tightened. “We
know who you are. Now where’s Jasper?”

My heart jumped in my chest.
“Scott?”

The arm loosened a bit. “Look, Hayden.
We’re doing what we’re ordered. We don’t want to hurt any of you.
We just need to get you to Pinsaber like Jasper should have done
months ago.”

“I don’t want to go to
Pinsaber.”

“It’s not your choice.” Brian emerged
from behind the barn. “Now, where’s Jasper?”

“He went out hunting. That’s why I came
out here. I thought I had heard him come back.”

He shook his head. “There’s a fresh
kill on the hill.”

“He’s stocking up. We were thinking of
staying here for a while.”

The third man, a short, green eyed,
black haired fellow looked around nervously.

Scott moved sideways to accommodate the
door opening. Brian tensed, ready to take on Jasper, then smiled
and stepped back.

My stomach dropped then lurched and I
had to fight the urge to throw up.

Jasper’s eyes filled with anger at the
sight of Scott’s choke hold around my neck. He seemed totally
oblivious to the dagger being held to his throat.

Brice’s face was unreadable. He jerked
Jasper out of the house.

“Verton, theer tue.” The words were
spoken so softly I wasn’t sure I had heard them properly. I mouthed
what I thought I had heard.

Jasper’s eyelashes lowered in
affirmation.

‘Faint, then kill.’ But if I did that,
surely Brice would have time to kill him. All he had to do was move
the blade against his throat.

I took a deep breath and let myself go
limp, hoping Jasper had thought this out.

Scott struggled to keep me from falling
to the ground. He let go of my neck and grabbed me under the arms
to lay me in the snow. Brian and the other man started toward us. I
pulled my dagger out of my belt and thrust up, aiming under Scott’s
breast bone. The blade entered his body and his eyes widened. I
felt the blood run warm over my hands. His body collapsed on me at
the same time I heard a thump as something big fell in the snow
behind me.

I pushed and squirmed to get back on my
feet.

Strong hands grabbed me from behind and
a quick glance at the left one confirmed that they weren’t
Jasper’s. I grabbed Scott’s dagger out of his belt as the hands
pulled me up. I turned quickly, slashing up in an arc at my
captor.

Brice cried out, the edge of Scott’s
blade cutting a line along his chest through his shirts. He
stumbled backwards in shock, tripped, and fell.

I screamed and launched myself at him.
The anger I felt at his betrayal was calling the red waves to me. I
pushed them aside and tightened my grip on the dagger. This was
personal.

Brice had recovered from the surprise
of my attack and was ready for me. He grabbed my wrist, stopping my
momentum before I could stab him. Barely.

The only thing I could hear was the
sound of the blood roaring in my ears.

Brice’s grip on my wrist tightened and
my hand went numb.

I watched the dagger fall into the snow
and dropped my knee on his chest as hard as I could.

Another pair of arms wrapped around my
chest and pinned my arms to my sides.

I threw my head back as hard as I could
and was rewarded with the sickening crunch of my keeper’s nose
breaking with the impact.

Brice’s eyes widened. He sat up, a
dazed look on his face, his shoulders hunched over while he tried
to catch his breath.

I pushed back as hard as I could,
hoping to knock my assailant off balance.

He grunted, the sound wet with the
blood running down his throat, but kept his hold on me.

I heard Dodge whinny and glanced in his
direction. He was still tied to the tree, but didn’t seem nervous
or agitated.

Brice was standing up, his shirts
soaking up the blood from the cut I had inflicted.

Confusion made me pause.

“Take a deep breath, Shlova,” said the
voice beside me ear.

I tensed, my body not understand what
my head was hearing.

“Prand rua crux resand, Shlova,” the
voice repeated softly.

I did as I was told and felt all of the
energy leave me.

Jasper felt me relax and loosened his
grip on me, but didn’t let go.

I looked around in a daze. Scott lay
face down in the snow, his two friends a small distance away from
him with their throats slit. Brice was cleaning his dagger in the
snow. He glanced up at me, gave me a half grin, then walked over to
free Dodge.

I reached a shaky hand back over my
shoulder and ran my fingers through short curly hair. My voice
shook. “Are you ok?” I whispered.

Jasper chuckled. “Other than the fact
that I’m pretty sure you broke my nose, I’m fine.” He slipped his
arms under mine and hugged me close. “Are you alright?”

I took another deep breath and nodded.
“What the hell happened?”

Brice and Dodge looked at each other
and Brice burst out laughing. “We should be asking you! By the
moons, we should have just stayed in the cabin and let you deal
with them by yourself!”

I felt Jasper shake with silent
laughter behind me and I glanced back at him. His nose was crooked
and swollen, his eyes were starting to swell shut, and he was
covered in blood.

“You said faint, then kill.” I was
getting defensive.

“Tun, I did, Shlova. But I didn’t mean
kill all of us!”

“I…I couldn’t tell…Everyone was
grabbing me from behind! I heard a thump…I thought Brice had killed
you!” I turned my fury on Brice. “And you!”

His eyes widened and he took a step
behind Dodge. “I what? I came to help and you almost stabbed me in
the heart!”

“Well, you could have said something! I
thought you had decided to join them!”

“Had I said anything, they would have
known, no?”

I opened my mouth to yell something
else and stopped. Of course, he was right. I took a couple of deep
breaths and closed my eyes. I rubbed the wrist Brice had
squeezed.

“Hayden.” I heard Brice take a few
steps toward us. “Scott is a great tracker. They got to your cabin
sooner than I thought. I guess Cholta wasn’t home. They picked up
the trail from there. I knew it wouldn’t take long for him to catch
up to you. I knew I could never find you in time to warn you, so I
pretended to join them. I snuck into the cabin hoping to warn you
both, but you had already gone out the door by then.”

I could hear him shift awkwardly from
one foot to another. I rubbed one of the bruises forming on my
wrist and winced.

Brice sounded worried. “Did I break it?
I tried not too.”

I stopped rubbing my wrist and moved it
in circles. “No. You didn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Hayden.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He
looked miserable. It occurred to me that he had just killed his two
best friends to protect me. Tears started to run down my face and I
wiped my arm over my eyes to stop them.

“Oh, Brice.” Jasper let me go and I
wrapped my arms around our friend. “Don’t be sorry. I’m the one
who’s sorry. I’m sorry it even occurred to me you would do
something like that. Oh, god. I’m sorry I tried to stab
you!”

He chuckled. “No worries, Hayden.” He
looked down at me. “If you had been a dog, I wouldn’t even have
gotten the gash on my chest. You completely took me by
surprise.”

I turned red. “Is it deep? Let’s have a
look at it.”

Brice pulled both his tunics over his
head to show me.

Jasper smiled at the gash. “Good job,
Shlova.” He laughed at the look on my face. “I think you’re lucky
you were wearing both those shirts, Brice.”

Brice laughed. “I’ll take whatever luck
I can get. Though it is nice to see that all our sparring is paying
off. Next time, though, try to judge the distance a bit better. And
your grip, too. I noticed when you sliced up you were holding it
like you were going to stab forward. If you’re going to slice up to
cut like this, hold it like you’re going to stab down.” He picked
up my dagger and showed me.

I shook my head in disbelief. “I can’t
believe you’re turning this into a sparring lesson.”

“We can only teach you so much by
faking attacks. Come to think of it, that might be why you didn’t
cut me as deeply as you could have. You’re used to holding back.”
He handed me the dagger and got me to go through the motions a few
times.

It took a few tries before he was
satisfied and he would let me heal him.

I turned to Jasper and tried not to
start crying at the sight of him. He looked horrible and I was the
one responsible. “I am so sorry, hun.”

He smiled at me. “No worries, Shlova. I
would rather you hit first and ask questions later.”

“So any tips on how to improve that
move?”

He laughed. “No. I think that was quite
effective the way you pulled it off.”

I made him kneel in the snow before I
healed him. He cringed and I held my breath. “Sorry.”

Jasper hugged me close and kissed my
forehead. “Stop saying you’re sorry.”

Dodge snorted.

I turned my attention to my horse. “How
about you, buddy?”

“
He said he’s fine,”
translated Jasper.

There were a few rope burns where the
ropes had chafed him, but nothing else.