A Girl Named Calamity by Danielle Lori

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

BRIDGES AND BITES

“Get up. We need to go.” Weston’s voice was too loud, and I groaned and rolled over.

“It isn’t even light out,” I grumbled.

“Get up.”

“No.”

My pallet was pulled out from under me, and I rolled onto the ground. A stick poked into my side. “Hey!”

“I should have let the old Mage come along. Maybe you would be more cooperative then,” he snapped. I ignored his comment. He had seemed more than serious about not letting the Mage help.

“I can change my mind,” he growled.

“You can stay out of my head,” I retorted as I got up, only because of the stick poking me.

My feet were bare as I walked down to the stream. I used the short time I had there to figure out a plan.

I came up with absolutely nothing.

When I got back to camp, I saw my soap melting in the fire and the strangers’ dirty shirts ripped to shreds all over the ground. I must have really confused him, or he wouldn’t have thrown this kind of tantrum. His eyes shot to me after I thought that.

“Come here,” he said calmly, but a little too calmly.

I shook my head. I didn’t know what he had planned, but I didn’t want any part of it.

“You can do this willingly, or I will make you do it.”

“Do what?” I snapped. What did he have planned now?

“You are more resourceful than I thought,” he said.

“Of course I am.”

We stared awkwardly at each other for a moment before I looked with sad eyes down at my soap in the fire. There went covering my scent. Maybe the strange woman would be in the next city we went to.

“You won’t use your tricks on me again.”

“I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”

“That’s what I thought you would say. That’s why I need something of yours.”

“What could you possibly need? You’ve taken everything from me! My life! My freedom! I will never give you anything willingly,” I growled.

His eyes hardened. “That’s not what you were saying last night.”

He got me there, but that’s what I had evasion for.

“Any man would have made me feel that way after Maxim didn’t finish what he start—”

A burst of air hit me with a blur of movement and I was pinned against a tree. I looked up into heated eyes and thought maybe I took it too far.

“Mention Maxim or even think about him again and I will take you back to their camp and kill him in front of your eyes,” he growled.

“I’ll be rooting for him,” I retorted.

He laughed. “You’re not a good liar, Princess.”

My skin prickled with irritation. He was right that I’d be rooting for him, and that made me even more annoyed. “You wouldn’t win. He could kill you with one touch,” I said haughtily. I enjoyed the thought of someone being able to best Weston.

“No, he couldn’t. We are blood brothers.”

My eyes widened. “You are brothers?”

“Not true brothers. Childhood friends who shared blood. I am immune to his touch.”

And there went someone besting him . . .

“You would kill your friend?” He really was heartless.

“I have no idea why you ever thought differently.”

“I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, now get away from me,” I snapped, and pushed at his chest. His hands rested above my head, and I felt claustrophobic and hot. His body put off an unnatural amount of heat.

“No.”

I let out a breath. “What the hell do you want?”

His eyes locked onto mine. “Something that will make sure I can find you anywhere.”

Couldn’t he already find me anywhere with his creepy senses?

“What?” I asked.

“Your blood.”

His voice traveled down my spine and I shivered.

I shook my head. “No . . . you told me I wasn’t supposed to give my blood to anyone. And I’m sure as hell not giving it to you.”

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

“There is no reason you need more control over me!” A cold sweat covered my skin. If he got any of my blood, I would never be able to get away from him.

“I lost you . . . it took me a while to track you, and that won’t be happening again. Your blood will make sure I can find you anywhere.”

My stomach sank. “No . . . Weston. I won’t leave, I promise.”

He laughed. “You really are a terrible liar.”

“You can tie me to you! You don’t need my blood.” I would rather be chained to him than have something so permanent exchanged. His eyes burned holes into mine while panic crawled up my back and made me want to run. Far away. But he had me boxed in against the tree, and my fear of failing Alyria consumed me.

“I can smell your fear. I think this is the first time you have truly been afraid of me.” I didn’t even blink twice at the fact he could smell an emotion. He brought his hand down to cup my cheek. The gentle touch from him gave me the shivers, and I tried to turn my head away, but he held my face firm. He leaned down and pressed his face against my hair while I stood still. He took a deep breath. “I didn’t think I would like it so much,” he told me.

I couldn’t even react to his words because my fear of being a failure trumped every other feeling. I was just a girl in a man’s world. I wouldn’t survive it much longer. A weight settled on my chest. Tears welled in my eyes as I stood there stiffly, looking off into the distance.

“Now that, I don’t like,” he said as he wiped away a tear running down my cheek. I hated this Weston. This one made me want to stay. This one had emotions swirling around in my chest that should have never been there. But I believed this was a fake one. To keep me docile and compliant.

“There is no reason you need to do this. You know you can keep me by your side without it,” I said desperately. My pride meant nothing to me right now, when I was about to be magically chained to him.

“Maybe I don’t need to,” he said while wiping another tear away.

“Then why?” I asked, some hope filling me that he was changing his mind. Until it was crushed by his next words.

“Because I want to.”

I didn’t even know how to comprehend what he meant before there was a blur of motion and a pinch of pain on my wrist. I winced and looked down at the couple drops of blood that dripped from my wrist.

He just bit me.

A lot less dramatic than I’d assumed. Weston’s face was unsettled as he took a couple of steps back from me. What was wrong with my blood?

“What?” I snapped. He shook his head as if to clear it before he walked away. That was it. He’d taken my blood, and now I could never escape. Was this my ending? The villain wasn’t supposed to win, and he just had. Angry tears ran down my cheeks, and I clenched my fists.

“What could be important enough to open the seal?” I shouted. “Thousands of people will all die. If you have a family, friends, count them dead. Do you not understand what will happen?”

He looked into my eyes and I saw that he understood completely.

He just didn’t care.

Whatever he wanted, he wanted it bad. And if I wanted to keep the seal closed, I needed to find out what it was.

* * *

“When did you realize who I was?” I asked Weston while riding sideways in front of him on Gallant. The sun was warm, and the soft breeze blew through my dress. I was more than angry at Weston that his arms around me only felt like a really warm prison cell.

“Why do you ask questions you know the answers to?”

“Maybe because I don’t know,” I grumbled. Had he known before we’d even left Cameron? Was that why he’d changed his mind? Something flashed in my mind, and I had a moment of realization.

“Were you in my room in Cameron?” My eyes traveled from his stubbled jaw to his sparkling eyes.

“Why do you think that?” he asked with a small smile.

He so was.

“What the hell were you doing in my room, Weston?” I suddenly remembered the table being missing. “Did you take my table?”

“I didn’t think you would want it.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because it wasn’t exactly a table anymore.”

“Then what was it?”

“A pile of wood.”

I blinked. “You smashed my table? What’s wrong with you?”

“Just keeping you safe as always, Princess.”

I snorted. “Yea, until the seal is open.”

He didn’t say anything, but I thought I saw something else in his eyes before he looked away.

Indecision. Turmoil. Uncertainty.

Call it what you will.

But I called it hope.

He only confirmed what I saw by looking away; he’d apparently figured out that I could read his eyes like an open book.

I was glad for the interruption of my thoughts when we rode over a hill, and I saw what was on the other side.

I was glad for the interruption of my thoughts.

Not at all about what I saw.

“No, no, no . . .” I said while I shook my head in accord, “you’ve absolutely lost it. No, no, no . . .” I repeated with a terror I had never felt before. Weston ignored me and kept walking us forward. “We’re not going on that!”

“Yes, we are.”

Panic crawled up my back while I looked at the cliff in front of us, and the thin, translucent bridge that ran to the other side.

“You can do whatever you want, but I’m not going on it.” I tried to jump down, but he held me tight. I had never known I was scared of heights, but I’d never been around them before. This was by far the scariest encounter so far, and I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.

“Please, Weston. I can’t. Let’s just go around,” I begged. The bridge didn’t even look wide enough for a horse. How he would get Gallant to walk across it was a mystery to me. He was brave, but not that brave.

It felt as though fear was a real substance and it filled up my lungs, making it difficult to breathe. A cold sweat covered my skin. I tried to jump down again, but Weston held me tight.

I looked up into his eyes. “I’ll do anything you want . . . but please don’t make me do this.”

He smiled. “Ah, so that’s all it takes to get you to be compliant. Threaten to take you over the Glass Bridge.” I could barely understand what he was saying and what I said as we got closer and closer to my doom.

When we took the first full step onto the bridge, I was going to vomit. I imagined I would puke, and Gallant would slip on it, and we’d fall to our deaths. I was too overwhelmed to even chastise my imagination.

The hole was dark and so deep, I couldn’t see the bottom. All I would have to do was slide right off and to my death with my sideways position.

Please, fortune teller, anything but this.

All of a sudden, I was spun around so I faced Weston. The motion was so fast that I didn’t realize what happened until it was over. I wrapped my arms around him, and I didn’t think I had ever held onto something tighter. If I was going down, so was he.

“Don’t look,” he said while I buried my face into his chest. I imagined the glass breaking every few steps and only took comfort in believing Weston could probably fly.

He chuckled. “Sorry to break it—”

“You can fly if I say you can fly,” I mumbled against his chest.

After a few minutes, my breathing slowed down until it was in sync with Weston’s. I didn’t open my eyes until I heard the clop of Gallant’s hooves on the glass soften to the sound of soft earth. I took a deep breath and let go of Weston to stretch out my tense muscles.

Now that I wasn’t on the verge of death, I realized how close we actually were.

And it was close.

My eyes traveled up from his chest to his eyes. He wasn’t looking at me, and when I followed his gaze down, I noticed what he was focused on. If my dress were an inch shorter, he would have seen everything. Propriety had taught me that I should have excused myself immediately and fixed the indecency.

But I believed I was miles past that, considering my ankles showing in Alger would have been indecent. And I might have tried to burn my grandmother’s copy of The Ladies Book of Etiquette when I was seven. Triumph fluttered in my stomach as I looked at his eyes that were nowhere near my face.

“You’ll have it with many more women, Weston. Don’t try to make it into something special,” I mocked. His smoldering gaze locked onto mine.

I didn’t know how I would dismount Gallant without exposing something much more private than my ankles . . . But I only gave it a few seconds thought, because I had decided it was inevitable. Only because I loved to get under Weston’s skin. He deserved it after all he had put me through.

I tried to swing my leg around him, but he grabbed my thigh in a firm grip.

I was mesmerized while I looked at his tan, rough hand wrapped around the smooth skin of my upper thigh. I hated what this man had done to me . . . but I couldn’t stop my body from reacting to him. It was like standing on the road in front of a fast-moving carriage, knowing that it would hit you, but being enthralled by the horses’ silver harnesses.

Carnal thoughts ran through my head unwillingly. And he probably got some good images of him on top of me, those rough hands roaming everywhere on my body.

“Don’t play games with me,” he growled.

He believed I thought it on purpose.

That’s okay. We’ll go with that.

“You’re the only one here who plays games,” I said.

He gave me a dirty look before he grabbed my dress and tugged it down as far as he could. The movement only pulled me closer to him, and an image of him pushing me against a wall and kissing down my neck entered my mind while his hand traveled down my stomach and—

“Stop.”

The image disappeared, and I looked up into angry eyes.

That time might have been on purpose.

“Do you want to lose your virginity on the back of a fucking horse?”

He was bluffing. I knew he wouldn’t touch me like that. He had ample opportunities and never took advantage of them. I wouldn’t lie and say it didn’t sting just a little.

I sighed. “I don’t know, that might be an interesting exper—”

“You have these crazy ideas in your head of how you’re going to die. And yet, you’ve never thought I would do it. Maybe you should be more concerned,” he growled.

“You won’t kill me; I’m too valuable,” I said smugly.

“No, but I could compel you to have your mouth shut for the rest of this trip.”

I swallowed hard and looked at him with wide eyes, but he only lifted my leg around him, keeping his eyes on mine. I hopped down from Gallant and walked in the tall grass.

I really wasn’t sure if I’d won that round or not.