Steal the Sun (Thieves #4)(113)

We made for the forest even as I heard the rumble of the red caps’ approach. Daniel walked on his own and picked up speed as he forced himself to move. I hurried to keep up with him and hoped this Chima person’s house wasn’t too far away.





Chapter Twenty-Seven





There’s a reason most people who choose to hike through the forest wear pants. Pants are helpful when tromping through the brush. When one wears pants, even lightweight pants, one’s legs tend to not get cut up and scraped by the aforementioned brush. Shoes are helpful as well. Shoes mean your feet don’t get cut up when your hungry vampire gets driven to distraction by the blood welling up on your legs from not wearing pants. When your now surly vampire has to get downwind of you so he no longer smells those little tiny cuts and scrapes, you’re left to walk along the forest floor without shoes.

I’m pretty sure Eve ate the apple so she could get a pair of boots.

“Are you okay, Z?” My surly vampire tossed back over his shoulder as he forced us through the forest at a brutal pace.

“I’m fine,” I assured him from the back of the pack.

Neil was just a little ahead of me, walking along with the red-eyed hell hounds. Arawn and Nim kept pace with Daniel so they could guide him to the house we were attempting to get to. Arawn kept praising Daniel for his strength and his ability to function on little blood. No one mentioned the fact that my tummy was growling, too. I’d gone just as long without food as the vamp, but no one complimented my stamina. It might have had something to do with the unholy amount of whining I’d been doing, but it was true.

“We are almost there, Your Grace,” Arawn announced and my hopes for a ham sandwich went up.

“That’s great,” I said with a happy smile.

“Just another hour or so.” Arawn proved he had no idea what the word “almost” meant.

I growled, causing Neil to giggle a little.

“Do you need a lift, Z?” he asked, offering me a piggyback ride.

“No.” Though I had new scrapes opening regularly, I would heal quickly. Daniel’s blood would see to it. I wanted Neil ready to jump into action if he had to. I didn’t want him to worry about me.

As we passed through a particularly thick part of the forest, I found another problem with my wardrobe. When a pissed-off ascended god plucks you from the forest floor and hauls your body up to his weird tree house, you don’t want to be going commando.

I was happy the sleeves to Arawn’s shirt were well made because one minute I was trudging along, grousing in my head about how much I hated nature, and the next I was hauled up by the neck of the shirt. Before I could scream, a hand covered my mouth and I felt cold iron at my neck.

“Keep quiet, Your Grace,” the Hunter’s voice demanded in my ear as he pulled me close to his body. He shifted, finding a better balance on the massive tree limb we were standing on. “I don’t have any problem using this on you.” He shoved his free hand into his pocket and dropped something that looked like sand to the ground where I had been. Then his arm wrapped underneath my breasts and he stood on the tree’s wide limb with far more surety than I would have had. “If you scream, I will gut you, do you understand? We can go to my place and settle our differences or I can kill you here. I’ve already been convicted of the crime, so I have no issues making that a reality. If you agree, nod.”

I wasn’t completely sure if I was agreeing to not scream or if I was giving the Hunter permission to horribly murder me. Either way, he was going to do what he wanted. I nodded and his hand left my mouth.

“I didn’t…” I began in a quiet voice.

The knife immediately went back at my throat. “Not a word.”

I nodded again even as I heard Neil call my name. The Hunter held me roughly against his body and began to climb up the tree with a strength that might have matched Daniel’s. He was graceful and agile as he moved through the tree, never once showing that my added weight slowed him down for an instant.

“Where the hell did she go?” Daniel asked, panic tingeing his voice.

“I don’t know.” Neil’s voice was starting to fade the higher we went. “She was right there.”

The Hunter moved silently, his weight making almost no movement as he sprang from branch to branch. I heard my husband and best friend frantically trying to find me but the sound was farther away now. The forest here was lush, with ancient trees that seemed to go on for miles. I was surrounded, my world doused in the blanket of leaves the trees made. I worried that the Hunter might be planning to take me high up in the canopy and then drop me on my head, but after a harrowing couple of minutes, we reached an odd structure.

It was a box in the air. As the Hunter hauled me into his little room in the trees, I saw that it was sparse but comfortable. There was a chair and a pallet and a single oil lamp providing a small amount of light. The only other things in the space were weapons and a canteen. I finally realized this wasn’t a tree house. This was a high hide. The Hunter used it to hunt.

I was tossed on the floor of the structure and the Hunter stood over me. I had to scramble so my hoo-ha wasn’t on full display. The man hadn’t liked to see my limbs. I didn’t want to find out what he thought of girls who didn’t wear panties.

“Whatever you are thinking I did, Hunter, think again.” I got to my knees because I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me.