Black Moon Draw(38)

I take the bird carefully in both my hands, not wanting to hurt it. There’s nothing attached to its leg like a carrier pigeon’s and I lift it higher, seeking out the alleged message.

“Share your story, little bird,” the Shadow Knight says.

I lower the bird and stare at it. “Seriously? So it does talk?”

“A bird does not talk,” the Shadow Knight replies with some scorn. “It conveys a message into your mind.”

Because that’s not weirder than a talking bird.

“’Tis the way of our world,” he growls. “You alone now have a fourth law, witch: Acceptance. Of everything.” He hands it back to the messenger, who rides away. “We are being summoned to a Knights of the Square Table meeting.”

I laugh. “Really? Knights of the Square Table?”

“How is that amusing?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Grinning, I shake my head and clear my throat. “So what is this meeting about?”

“I imagine my reclaiming of land. The remaining Knights are displeased and trying to garner support among my conquered subjects. They have tried bribing and threatening me but to no avail. I will conquer them as I did the others.”

“Of course.” I roll my eyes.

He nudges the horse forward and in a new direction, back towards the forest.

“Why do you say reclaim?” I ask reluctantly. I don’t want a reason to sympathize with him more as the potential Hero, but I’m curious. “Did you lose them?”

There’s a pause then a clipped, “Yes.”

“Bad story?”

“To repeat such a story is to invite its reoccurrence.”

Another stupid rule. “Okay. We won’t talk about the past. You’re taking me to this meeting?”

“I am.”

“Do you think that wise?”

“They do not know you are a very poor battle-witch. Were I to attend without you, they might suspect,” he reasons.

My mouth drops open. I’m offended, but should I be? I’ve been trying to convince him I’m not a battle-witch since he found me. But he doesn’t think of me as a non-battle-witch.

He thinks I suck. Just like everyone else in my life.

Would Jason have gleefully sold me to a slave trader to marry someone not obsessed with fictional characters?

New start. I chant the words. They’re drowned out by the part of me that wants to break down and sob until LF lets me go home.

“We may have to cut off your hand to show them you have power, since you cannot perform any great feats yet,” the Shadow Knight adds, increasing my misery.

Is that amusement I hear? My god – why can’t I figure out this man?

“We may not have to cut off my hand,” I snap. “You promised! No more dismemberments. I can’t believe I actually have to say that.”

“Mayhap you can learn a spell to show them.”

“Won’t they take your word?”

“Mayhap the slave traders will be there,” he growls.

“Maybe we should take your betrothed with us to see her brother,” I retort. Oh, snap. No idea where that smart-assery came from, but it kind of felt good.

I’m almost proud of myself, until he takes my throat loosely and presses my head back to his shoulder, whispering in a lethal tone, “Careful, witch. Do not tread on thin mud.”

What the hell does that even mean? I shiver at the brush of his warm breath against my ear. He sounds so dark and commanding – it’s the perfect voice for a sexy vampire creeping into your bedroom at midnight wanting to make hot, passionate, kinky love to you. I don’t know him well enough to understand the difference between insubordination and wit. He appears approachable to an extent, especially with the way his master-at-arms talks to him.

Then again, I don’t have the years of battlefield camaraderie with him either.

He releases me. I can’t muster a response because my head and stomach are both filled with fire and the idea I’d really love for his mass-murdering hands to be roaming my body about now.

We ride in silence towards the forest for a short time and my hormones settle. I can’t think of a worse ending to my life than to be stranded at the edge of the world under the whip of a slave trader in a place that doesn’t really exist.

And Jason goes on to be happy with his perfect little wife. Like I never mattered or worse-never existed. I bet she’s like Disney Princess. Am I doomed to finding men who interest me only to lose them to beautiful women? The idea stings so bad, tears blur my eyes. My heart hurts more than it did before and the fantastic body pressed to my back isn’t cheering me up.

“What color are the skies in your world?” he asks some time later.

Skies? I look up. The fog blocks everything. “Blue. Probably the same here, right?”

“No Shadow Knight has seen the sky in a thousand years.”

“How awful. Do you want to?”

“I shall. ‘Twill be the sign I have defeated the curse. I will stand on the bridge leading to my hold and look out over my kingdom beneath the blue sky.”

His earnest, fierce response touches me on a level I’m not expecting. That the man behind the death and destruction of this world wants something so simple as to see the sky makes me sad for him. I don’t know how that can be, given the lengths he’s willing to take in order to win his war.