My leather boots hit a patch of slippery moss. Down I went, knees slamming so hard into the ground that my teeth knocked together. Pain lanced through my head, and I curved forward, pressing my trembling hands to my skull.
Two strong hands encircled my arms and hauled me to my feet. I couldn’t fight against it this time. The pain in my head was blinding.
“You shouldn’t run through this forest,” he said gruffly, almost with a hint of worry in his voice. But that had to be wrong. I was just delirious from my fall. “It’s too dangerous. You could hurt yourself.”
“What do you care?” I snapped in as vicious a tone as I could muster.
“You can’t get me back through that portal if you’re dead, now can you?” he hissed back with just as much venom. Gone was the air of concern. The real demon had come out to play now.
“I don’t know what it is you expect from me,” I sobbed, hating myself for it. “You know I can’t give you what you want.”
“You’re just a thief.” He spoke the words as if they were poison, as if I were nothing more than a lowly speck of dirt on the bottom of his boot. Maybe, to him, I was. “I’m shocked the magic even cares. It won’t take long for it to let you back through.”
I slumped. Stupid magic. “So, you’re going to force me to stand by the portal until it lets me through again? How long is that going to take?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He pulled on my arm, dragging me back the way we came. I had no choice but to stumble alongside him. Weariness weighed heavily on my shoulders. My bones ached. If I tried to run again, he would only catch me. And I didn’t think my throbbing head could take another tumble. “It could take a year or more.”
“A year?” I repeated dumbly, slowing my steps. “I thought you said it wouldn’t take long.”
“That is not long.”
“Yeah, I guess it isn’t when you’re five hundred years old,” I muttered.
“Eight hundred and seventy.”
I blinked. “Mother of Midas.”
He cocked his head, hands still cinched tightly around my arms. He wasn’t taking any chances now, keeping two hands firmly locked on my skin. His steel gloves were hard and cold, like chains. “Mother of Midas?”
“It’s an expression,” I said with a slight smile. “Like a curse? Don’t tell me you’re eight hundred and seventy years old, and you’ve never heard that before.”
“We come from very different worlds, Aradia,” he murmured.
I shivered. “I’m guessing that means there are more of you out there.”
“More of me?” He chuckled, a sound that caught me off guard. All he’d done so far since I’d met him was growl or curse. “There are not more of me, no. But there are more dragonlords.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I was more intrigued than I wanted to admit.
“You ask too many questions,” he repeated for at least the five thousandth time. We pushed through the brush and stepped into the clearing where the portal still shimmered faintly beneath the blaze of a midday sun. I stared at the rippling waves, half-expecting some new terror to come charging through.
Instead, Yuto’s steel grip was suddenly replaced by the rough burn of a rope. He’d moved so fast I had scarcely registered what he was doing. One moment, he had his tight grip on me. The next, he was making the finishing touches of a complicated knot.
The blood in my veins stilled as fear took hold of my heart. “You can’t do this.”
“Oh, but I can.” He finished tying the knot and stood back, eyeing me. “You clearly can’t be trusted.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Of course I can’t. And can you really blame me? I’ve stepped from one hellhole into another!”
I was probably getting a little delirious because I could have sworn his eyes softened. A softness that could not be found in his words. “Perhaps you should have considered the ramifications of your actions before you decided to steal from your prince.”
Grinding my teeth, I glanced away. “At least I didn’t abduct someone.”
“I’m capturing a wanted criminal,” he countered. “Now, enough blathering. We have a journey ahead of us, and we do not want to be in this part of the forest when night falls.”
Ominous. I frowned, and then opened my mouth to ask him what he meant by that. He promptly interrupted me by bringing his fingers to his lips and whistling long and loud.
A sparkling silver mare galloped out from the brush, its mane a great, sweeping thing with strands of blue and gold. I stared, dumbstruck, at the majestic creature. Its black eyes gleamed as it met my gaze. Ferocity and pride churned in the very depths of them, and suddenly, I felt as if it saw me and knew me for everything I was.
“This is Cleatus.” Yuto’s deep voice snapped me out of my reverie, and I turned to see him watching me with an amused smile. “He’s been with me for the past four hundred years.”
I blinked. “Your horse is four hundred years old.”
“Cleatus isn’t a horse,” Yuto said as he untangled the leather reins.
My eyebrows winged upward. “Then, what the hell is he?”
He certainly looked like a horse, though not one I’d ever laid eyes on…but I was quickly realizing that things in Inishfall were not always what they seemed.
Instead of answering my question, Yuto slipped his gloved hands around my waist and hoisted me up into the air. My throat closed around a choked scream. I kicked out my legs, hoping to make contact with his stupid face, but it was no use. He easily plopped me on the back of his horse—okay, not his horse. His…whatever the creature was.
Curling my hands into fists, I hated that I just had to sit there dumbly while he leapt onto the back of Cleatus just behind me. He settled in, wrapping his strong arms around my body to grab the reins. I tensed. The warmth of his body invaded my senses. I could even feel the hardness of his muscles against my back. The scent of fire and ash curled around me, heady and overwhelming.
“Something the matter?” he asked, his voice laced with amusement.
I narrowed my eyes. “You smell like death. I hate it.”
A chuckle was his only response. Without another word, he flicked the reins. Cleatus cantered forward down a hidden path through the trees. I didn’t glance behind me at the shimmering portal where my old life waited for me. One day, I would get away from this dragonlord. But I would never return to the Kingdom of Eretia. Inishfall was my home now.
4
Aradia
We rode for hours. Back in Eretia, I’d never had many opportunities to travel. Not like my father and brother. Horse-riding had never been high on my list of skills to learn. Instead, my father made me focus on things like hiding, sneaking, and lying to anyone who might get too close to him.
And until I’d started a life for myself, I’d done all the cooking and the cleaning. We’d been wealthy enough to pay for help, but Father didn’t want anyone to know that. So, I did it all instead.
“Can we take a break?” I sighed.
Silence had followed us for most of the journey. It seemed that Yuto wasn’t exactly a chatterbox, and he hated answering questions. Try as I might, I couldn’t get much more than a single-worded grunt out of him.