Heart of the Forest (Arwn's Gift Book 1) (17 page)

“Search the perimeter. I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose my fucking life or this haul because of those damned knife-eared whoresons,” he snarled to the others, drawing his sword.

The other two walked off and the second, larger explosion sounded, sending dead grass and rocks sailing through the air. I nocked an arrow, and took a deep breath and held it to further steady my hand. I aimed down the tip of the arrow at the man I could barely see in the distance. I almost heard my mother’s soft voice in my ear again, whispering to me when she took me hunting against my father’s wishes for the first time. “
Always aim for the heart
,” she had whispered. Releasing my breath, I let the arrow fly, and it hit true—the man sank like a stone in water. Squinting into the dark I could barely make out the struggling shape of the other man amidst the smoke and flames of the explosion, which had set fire to the grass.

Unfortunately, I spent too much time looking at him. Sheepfucker-who-would-die-slowly was advancing on me, glaring in my direction.

“Come here, little girl. I’m not going to hurt you,” he snarled as he darted for me. He was too close for me to use the bow, so I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it in his face. “You bitch,” he barked, reaching for me. He grabbed my hair and used it to throw me to the ground. “You think you’re a crafty whore, don’t you?” He tackled me, knocking the air from my lungs. I kicked and clawed at him as best as I could while he fought against me, attempting to pin my wrists to the ground. My teeth sank into his neck until I could taste blood in my mouth. He pushed me back and slapped me so hard my ears rang and my face stung. I yowled like a small rabid animal, and head-butted him. It was a mistake. A huge mistake. My whole world turned upside down and I saw stars. Clearly I had hurt myself more than him, though blood poured from his nose. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

“Fuck you.” I spat in his face.

“That’s the point. Me, then my men, then anyone with a copper in his pocket and a cock in his trousers, then the horses, and then and only then will I slit your throat, you dirty elf fucking whor—” he grunted, when a dark shape slammed into him, knocking him from on top of me. I scrambled to my feet but I was still dizzy as hell. I took two steps and fell back to my knees. It took a few seconds for me to see that the figure on top of sheepfucker-who-would-die-slowly was Aneurin. His hands were still bound, but that didn’t seem to stop him.

“You. Don’t. Get. To. Fucking. Touch. Her,” Aneurin spat as he shoved his thumbs into the human’s eye sockets and twisted. The man screamed. “What was it you said? You were going to take my teeth?” he almost whispered, grabbing a nearby rock. “I think I’ll fucking take yours instead!” As the human continued to scream in agony Aneurin brought the rock down six times, accompanied by a cracking sound as the man’s teeth gave way and his jaw broke. The sound warped in his mouth, and I slowly approached them. Aneurin turned and looked at me. “Do you want to kill him?” he asked. Up close I noticed he was sitting on the man, his weight pinning the man’s hips and his feet on the human’s shoulders.

“You should… My head.” I rubbed my temple, and he nodded slowly.

Sheepfucker-who-would-die-slowly did not die slowly. Aneurin leaned forward and bit a chunk out of the man’s throat, spitting the flesh into the brush. He sat there on top of him, and we both watched on as the slaver bled out in a handful of minutes.

“How did you get out of the cage?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. Aneurin continued to stare at the man, and I saw in his eyes a glimpse of what was probably his father. There was a wild and animalistic quality to his gaze that Yorwrath seemed to have all the time.

“Lockpick. This isn’t the first time I’ve been captured.” His voice, usually sweet, had a hard edge to it; the tone was all Yorwrath. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“If I had stayed away you wouldn’t have any teeth right now,” I muttered, rubbing my head. After a few breaths, he sighed as he stared at the corpse beneath him, and his face softened a bit.

“Thank you.” He flashed me a quick smile before covering his face with his bloodied hands. A horse whinnied down the road. Lowering his hands, he turned his attention in the direction of that noise, his eyes narrowing and taking in whatever was there in the dark that remained invisible to my inferior human vision.

“What is it?”

“Yorwrath and Grwn. Could you?” He held out his wrists, and I untied the tight knot. “Thank you.” There was an odd tension in his voice as he stood rubbing his bruised wrists. “I’ll teach you some swordplay while we travel. You’re good with a bow, but you need to learn to fight in close quarters in the open. But…” His voice trailed off as Yorwrath walked into view, leading a massive black warhorse with the same sort of full thick wavy mane as Ys’s. He also held Ys’s reins next to Islwyn’s dapple.

“Apparently I missed all of the fun, Brother.” Yorwrath smirked. “So has she figured out that you’re really just like me?” He cackled as Grwn approached and Islwyn finally got the other cage open. “Throw her down and have her. I bet your bloodlust still has you up and raring to go. The only thing that makes us harder than the steel we wield is when we take a man’s life, Valentina. Touch him. Gods, you just have to glance at the tent in his trousers to tell.”

Aneurin didn’t deny it, and I glanced at him and knew why. Yorwrath was right, you could tell. The leather of his pants was tight enough that you could make out the shape of his overly obvious swollen erection.

“What do you want, Yorwrath?”

“You killed Pwyll.”

“Yes, and I’d plowing well do it again if given the option,” Aneurin snapped at his brother, that hardness returning.

“Oh?”

“Do you want to do this here? In front of Grwn? In front of those over there?” He gestured in the direction of the elves who stumbled out of the cage.

“Hey, sheepfuckers!” I whistled at them, and they turned and looked at me like they wanted to snatch off my head. “Even I know we can’t loiter on this road. There’ll be time for your pissing contest later.”

“Calm your Dy’ne, Aneurin. Or I’ll make you give her to me for a night and do it for you,” Yorwrath growled. I rolled my eyes.

“C’mon, you both know she’s right. If you want to do this, you can after we’ve set up camp further off the road,” Grwn reasoned, attempting to calm the brothers. Aneurin nodded and started to turn from Yorwrath, but it was Yorwrath who jumped his brother. “Fucking Yorwrath.” Grwn sighed, pulling the red bandanna from his head. “You’ll get used to this. They fight over the stupidest shit, and they fight a lot,” he offered. “Islwyn, help me separate them!” he yelled as he walked over to the two fighting brothers.

Yorwrath laughed and said something in their tongue as he punched Aneurin. Islwyn jogged over as the brothers grappled with one another. They were matched pretty evenly, but Aneurin moved with the sluggishness of fatigue. In no time at all Yorwrath had him in an arm bar, but Aneurin twisted out of it. I heard Yorwrath say my name several times, as they clawed, kicked, punched, and head-butted each other. And something made me feel that in reality the entire fight had nothing to do with Pwyll and everything to do with me.

Islwyn and Grwn tried to pull them apart several times but kept failing. Each of them knew exactly how to twist his body to get out of every hold. When they finally pulled the brothers apart, they kicked at each other until they went limp and unconscious. Grwn picked Yorwrath up and set him across his saddle.

“I have a family,” Grwn said, in a moment of odd frankness, as he took Yorwrath’s red bandanna off and set it beside the unconscious elf on the saddle. “A little boy who is eleven this winter and a girl six this spring… They’re both half-elven. You wouldn’t know my girl had any human blood in her, though. She looks like my mother. But my boy…” he shook his head. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way…but it’s not worth it.”

“Is this what you’d tell your wife?”

“I did, and I’m not a Swynwr. I don’t have people watching me as close as Aneurin does. Claiming you was stupid, claiming you in the way he did…was confusing. Aneurin’s smart. I think he might be the smartest elf I’ve ever known—he’s certainly smarter than his shit-for-brains brother. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“He loves me.”

“Then he should have had the good sense to put you up on the coast instead of claiming you as property. Unless you…” He tilted his head to the side.

“We took vows where the Swynwrs are laid to rest.”

“Plow me sideways.” He lowered to sit on the ground with a little grunt.

“Is that a bad thing?” I tilted my head to the side. His gaze settled on Islwyn, who was nearby checking Aneurin over. The elves who’d been freed had already fled, and, after watching Aneurin and Yorwrath fight, I couldn’t blame them.

“It’s a thing.” We shared a laugh. “You should go look through their bags and stuff. They probably had a bunch of coin on them. Good work with the bombs. How did you make them?”

“C’mon, Grwn. You’ve a wife. You know a girl must keep her secrets,” I called over my shoulder as I started searching the camp for anything useful. When I neared the fire, a hard wind blew, and I shivered in spite of the heat and felt something’s attention settle on me. I looked around, expecting to see Islwyn or Grwn watching me, but neither were. Squinting in the dark, I swore I could see shapes moving in the shadows—things that, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear were staring back at me.

We didn’t get that feather bed. Instead, we were in the saddle for two more hours at a hard gallop until we reached an old abandoned farmhouse. That sensation of being watched never let up, even when I practically fell from the saddle and staggered into the musty, rotting shack. Outside the broken windows, I could have sworn I saw something moving in the darkness. Islwyn and Grwn moved the unconscious Yorwrath and Aneurin from their horses, and I collapsed onto the dusty remnants of a bed, choking on the dust my small form kicked up as the support beams under the rotted straw dug into my back.

Islwyn laid Aneurin next to me on the straw, and Grwn dropped Yorwrath on a pallet with a thud. Islwyn didn’t sit. He paced the small shack. That crystalline gaze of his darted around as his pale brows furrowed, the moonlight glinting silver off them. His small lips parted and he moved his hand to his sword. I shivered a bit and sat up, shrugging. Islwyn’s head twitched to the side as if he were listening to something.

“What do you feel, Druid?” Grwn inquired as he looked over the pacing blond.

“I—” Islwyn started, but his words were cut short.

Aneurin sat up with a gasp and wildly looked around. His irises were so bright in the dim light that they almost glowed. His chest heaved and it was like he couldn’t catch his breath. With his hand on his chest, he looked about, almost in a panic.

“We’re… We have to go.” Aneurin slipped from the bed and took my hand, pulling me to standing.

“We just got here.” Grwn sighed. “And your brother’s a fuck of a lot heavier than he looks.”

“You’re more than welcome to stay, but I’d recommend getting the fuck out of here.” Aneurin dragged me toward the door as Islwyn continued to look around the shack. He walked to a corner and brushed some dust off something on a shelf that I couldn’t see in the dark. Whatever that dust hid made him backpedal so fast he fell on his ass and then scrambled to stand.

“
Gachu
,” Islwyn cursed in half panic.

Aneurin threw open the door. On the other side stood what looked to be a three-headed old woman. It was cloaked in ragged, moldy, moth-eaten black cloth. The heads twitched at every sound, like a bird observing everything around itself. Long white hair spilled over their shoulders and their sickly gray skin looked rotted and pockmarked. Each was missing a sense organ. One had her eyes covered in a pus-soaked bandage, another’s jaw hung down limp and useless, and the last one…wore her ears around her neck on a string. The stench that accompanied them was incredible. Looking at them made my heart beat so fast with fear I thought it would explode.

“Oh look, they’re all here…” A voice sounded from nowhere and everywhere. Hearing their speech made me feel sick to my stomach.

“The king, his queen…”

“…the druid, the knight…”

“…and the rook,” the three-headed creature continued.

“What a pity it looks as…”

“…though the king has already…”

“…sacrificed the pawn to save his queen.” Deep dark laughter sounded, and I looked around.

“Queen?” Islwyn spoke the word slowly.

“They spoke the vows in…”

“…that sacred place of life…”

“…and death. Before you almost…”

“…slipped your fingers inside of…”

“…her, you naughty boy!”

“We were the only…”

“…guests, Druid. Before you…”

“…tasted of her nectar…”

“…they honored us with…”

“…their vows. Long prior to your…”

“…lust quickening at the thought…”

“…of her sopping womanhood.”
Oh, I would give anything for some salt, or rosemary, or sage—anything to protect me from them.
My jaw set in a hard line.

“Oh, she trembles like…”

“…a leaf, poor child! Do we frighten…”

“…you? How about now?”

In the space of a breath, their form shifted from the hideous, old, rotting woman to three young beautiful maidens with soft skin and long flowing hair. The one who had been sightless was a redhead, the one who had no mouth was a blonde, and the one with no ears was a brunette. Their eyes were black as night, whites and all. They stood before us with their new shapely forms void of covering.

“We are going to give you a…” The redhead spoke in a soft, sultry voice.

“Wedding gift! You should rejoice!” The blonde beamed, continuing.

“We bring you your crown.” The brunette beamed at me as she stepped forward. In her hands was a garland of holly that hadn’t been there before. Aneurin stepped forward, placing himself between me and the three.

“So strong and handsome!” the redhead purred. “But you’re not ready for our gift yet. Your queen is, but you aren’t quite there.”