Hunted: A Claiming Novella (The Claiming) (10 page)

What if Ryon got hurt? What if someone
cheated, or took him by surprise and he didn’t win? She harshly bit the corner
of her nail and tore it with worry. And then, he was supposed to—no, he was
allowed
to steal her away and claim her. The idea had terrified her at first. Not
in a physical sense, but because she didn’t want to be trapped in a marriage
Ryon. Did she?

There was no doubt in her mind that she
wanted Ryon in every way. She had for years. Fighting the pull between them had
been hard, but now he was taking the fight out of her hands, literally, and
putting it in another’s. Tomorrow he would fight for her. Any male challengers,
those like the Duke of Gaines, would go up against him. If he won, as he
believed he would, then she would be his wife. It would be his child growing
within her in the coming months.

Although it was the night before and
about to
to
come to fruition, it wasn’t fear she
felt, just great trepidation. She was about to take a giant leap forward with
zero assurance that her foot would land on solid ground.

Warmth rushed through her making her
lips tilt up into a smile. That’s how she was found when she heard the rustle
of leaves. And spotted him coming near.

“Ryon!”

He strolled toward her. He still wore
his uniform from the celebration earlier that night. It looked incredible on
him—powerful and masculine.

Her knees wobbled weakly.

“Now you say my name.”

A hint of smile sat at the corner of his
mouth. She’d rarely seen his smile, but when he did, it was worth it.

“Still feeling good after that release
tonight,
General
?” She tried to keep things light so
he wouldn’t see the tension in her.

Instead of responding, he did something
else. He had a look in his eyes and it didn’t take long to figure out what he
was thinking.

When he wrapped his arms around her,
pulling her in tight and arching her back up toward him, she was already
waiting for his kiss. His mouth slid over hers, the pressure deliciously firm.
Heat suffused where they touched each point connected. They kissed like regular
lovers, tongues slowing winding into the mix making things wet. In his arms
butterflies flew in her stomach and at his kiss her heart thawed. The kiss
ended slowly but neither of them moved to break away. They held each other,
kissing a cheek or ear or neck every few moments. Her hand had moved up to
tangle in his hair. The short length was sturdy and thick in her hand pleasing
her.

She could no longer deny that maybe her
assumptions about him hadn’t been entirely warranted. And perhaps, just maybe,
she’d been more scared of him for her own reasons than because of him.

“You looked worried before you saw me.
Is it about tomorrow?” he asked.

Penelope nodded. Even her laugh sounded
nervous. “Who knew, me, being nervous? It’s not a feeling I’m accustomed to.”
Her voice caught.

Ryon pulled back, cupping her cheek in
his hand. He made her feel safe, like there was a bubble around them protecting
them from the harsh outside world. Her heart was beating at a chaotic rhythm.
Fear and excitement was rushing through her blood, but she didn’t cower from
it, because she knew Ryon was experiencing the same feelings. They were
connected. She wasn’t alone.

She held onto his strong shoulders and
let him hold her. Really, she felt greedy because she wanted to hold him. A
purely selfish move that made her feel whole and happy. It was as if she felt
herself giving him some of the weight of her emotions, and he shouldered that
weight with ease. For her. Because he cared. Sniffling a bit, Penelope squeezed
him close simply to enjoy the heated pressure of his body against hers. Such a
simple touch, but it was reassuring.

She broke away after regaining her
composure. Somewhere along the way he’d grabbed her hand and still held it.

“So what brought you out here?” she
asked, feeling nervous. Like a girl around her first boyfriend. “I wasn’t
expecting you.”

He was watching her carefully, still
worried. “We didn’t part ways as I would have liked. Plus, I wanted to see
you.”

She exhaled a breath she’d been holding.
“Oh, well I’m happy you came.” She wanted to smile at him but nerves kept her
from doing it. She ended up looking like she had a twitch of the mouth. These
feelings were new and exciting but tentative. They could easily be broken at
this raw stage.

“Maybe you should come stay with me. You
look upset.”

“That sounds lovely, but I can’t.”

He squeezed her hand. “Why not?”

She shrugged. “My sister, Priscilla, is
staying the night. She’ll be here to help me get ready in the morning. Tomorrow
is the ceremony.” It was strange talking to Ryon about these things when he’d
be the one stepping forward tomorrow to claim her. A wave of butterflies hit
her stomach so hard she pressed a hand over it to quell it.

“I could bring you back in the morning,”
he offered.

Her eyes lit up, then deflated. “I can’t
leave. Even if that sounds like a great idea. I need to be here to think and
plan and worry.” She laughed at herself.

Ryon leaned in close and cupped her
cheek. “Try not to worry yourself. Everything will be fine and no matter who
steps forward tomorrow night, I’ll be the man who wins. You don’t have to doubt
that.”

Well, she didn’t feel so certain about
her future. She simply nodded though and kept her fears to herself, not wanting
to worry him further.

A whistle blew nearby startling them.
Ryon scowled at the perpetrator. A young soldier wearing the royal emblem on
his chest jacket came forward. He held a small scroll in his hand the size of a
cigarette.

“General Ward, a message from the king.”
The young man was sweating as if he’d run all the way here to find Ryon.

The sudden spike of chills down her
spine bode ominous.

Something had happened.

This worrying thought led to another
much darker one—would Ryon be in danger? The frigid numbness she felt thinking
that thought told her just how much she cared for him.

Maybe she even…loved him some? A crazy
notion, but not an impossible one. Looking around, she was happy neither man
had noticed her wild-eyed revelation.

Ryon took the message and stepped aside
to read it. His expression remained passive. Only the quick response he made
showed how dire the situation was.

“Pen, I have to go. Go back into the
house, lock up, and stay inside,” he said.

“Wait, what happened? What’s going on?”

What could cause him to react like this?
Had something happened to the king?

“I can’t talk about it. Go inside now!”
He ignored all her protests, gave her a swift kiss, and pushed her toward her
house.

She watched over her shoulder as the
messenger related whispered information.

Ryon left running.

Never a good sign.

Chapter 9

Ryon arrived at the location written on
the missive by Lyle using encoding. The site was close to the eastern border,
near where Karl Christenson had gone missing from his cabin.

The twenty-five foot tall stone wall
that surrounded the kingdom had taken four years to complete. Forty-four men
and women had suffered injuries or died during the building process. It was
grueling, but the final product was impressive. The sight never failed to fill
him with pride. To those who’d died in the making, their names were carved into
the wall by loved ones. Fresh flowers and gifts were placed there weekly,
though some teenagers had taken to stealing said gifts in a disgusting show of
disrespect. Now the watch guards patrolled the perimeter.

He stood at the location the note had
ordered him to go to. The message impressed that a brutal attack had occurred
at this precise location tonight. But, as Ryon looked around, something didn’t
set right.

The messenger who’d delivered the note,
a young man who called himself Bernard, hung nearby kicking at the grass. He
looked bored, toeing at the dirt by his foot.

Ryon read the missive again, verifying
the location. This was the place. All that was here was empty space and one
old, dilapidated cabin. Pulling out his silver knife, a foot-long blade curved
to slice and cut an enemy, the blade felt at home in his palm.

No signs of an attack. No sounds from
the wall or the cabin. Yet, his senses were on high alert. The hairs on the
tops of his arms pointed to the sky like grass.

He entered the cabin.

The roof sunk in at the center and a
damp, musty odor, like mildew and earth saturated the air. Some plant roots had
grown up from the floorboards, splintering the wood. There was some old
furniture, mostly broken chairs with three legs and a table collapsed against
the wall, which remained. A dusty couch bore scratches from rodents burrowing
inside it; old dishes caked with months of layers of dust still sat on the
kitchen counter.

The cabin had never been demolished
because of who used to live here. Karl Christensen. The man had been a hero to
Ryon, to a lot of people. Good-looking, kind-hearted, he had all the leadership
qualities to be the next general of the Armed Forces. Then, one day, he’d
disappeared from his cabin. No one heard a sound, no one saw anything
suspicious. And how could they when his nearest neighbor lived more than a mile
away. No one wanted to live this close to the wall. Closer to the Avagarians.

The mystery of what happened to Karl has
lived for the years he’s been missing. Was it two or three years now? Hell, he
couldn’t be sure. And didn’t that stick him with a load of guilt. Was he dead?
Or had he decided to leave the kingdom never to return? 

Ryon didn’t feel so optimistic about
whatever outcome came to the war hero Karl.

Ryon had his own theory and it had
nothing to do with either of those ideas. He suspected the Avagarians had
played a part. Maybe they killed him, but he doubted it. When the Ava’s
attacked, they didn’t hesitate to murder people in their beds—even children—or
burn down their houses. They were animals and they acted like it. If they had
killed Karl—why not do it in his home? And they hadn’t looted anything from his
cabin. Nothing had been missing. That left him with the idea that they hadn’t
killed him at all—they’d either taken him or someone else wanted him dead and
gone.

A few fresh footprints had disrupted a
layer of dirt on the floor. Someone had been here recently, though that didn’t
surprise him. It wasn’t unheard of for teenagers to come up here use Karl’s
home as a hangout. Some people said they saw his ghost in the windows at night.
Pure hogwash, but it kept an aura of mystery around his disappearance.

A floorboard depressed as the messenger
stepped inside.

Ryon didn’t turn to ask the question on
his mind. “Did the king say anything else?”

“Nay, he just gave me the missive,
milord.” The messenger spoke with a commoner’s accent.

Scuffling noises sounded behind him and
Ryon spun around, tense. But it was too late. The messenger bared his teeth in
a nasty sneer, the pistol in his hand glinted in refracted moonlight coming
from the sunken roof.

What the—

He didn’t get to finish the thought.
Instinct and adrenaline took over. With an explosion of power. Life or death.
Do or die.

And he wasn’t about to die. Not here.
Not like this.

The messenger fired without warning.
Ryon lunged to the side. For a second he thought he’d evaded the bullet.

But, then he felt it. The searing,
tearing of flesh from his gut. It burned like a hot steel poker sitting in fire
for an hour—that had been stabbed through him like a spear. He wanted to scream.

More bullets fired in his direction. At
least the messenger couldn’t see well in here either.

The ringing explosion of shots echoed,
blasting his eardrums until he couldn’t hear much of anything, save for the
pounding of his blood in his ears.

A chaotic, rapid
thud, thud, thud!
that
wouldn’t stop.

Dust kicked up from the uproar, a cloud
of thick, sulfuric smoke billowing from discharged bullets. Using the dust bowl
to his advantage, Ryon moved into the thick of it, squatting low next to the
dilapidated, smelly couch. It offered meager protection. The messenger’s lean
shadow filled the doorway, lighting him enough for Ryon to see his outline.

That was all he needed. Ryon held the
knife by the tip of the blade, hours of training having prepared him. He was ready.
He threw his elbow back, cocked.

The messenger ducked low out of sight!

No!

He struggled to think how many shots had
been fired. The pistol must be nearly empty. Ryon weighed his choices. He had
very few, trapped in this cabin with someone trying to kill him at the door.