Promising Light (8 page)

“You had to have done something,”
William said, skepticism in his voice.

Dar let out a breath. “Kissing,
mostly.”

Grace thought of his hands on her
thighs, in her hair, his lips on her neck, her hands grabbing at
his shirt, dancing at his waistline.

“How did you even keep her for so
long?”

By reading to her in the vineyard,
laughing with her about other nobles, giving her the flower
necklaces he’d made, writing her secret letters, telling her about
the constellations, making lists of all the things he loved about
her.

“I don’t know,” Dar said. “But
it’s better now that it’s over.”

She blinked back tears. Why
couldn’t things be simpler?

“It is,” William said. “I should
get back to sleep. We’re leaving early tomorrow
morning.”

“Yes, your Highness,” Dar
said.

Grace heard the library door creak
open and close. A sigh fell from her lips. She looked down at her
lap and realized she’d crushed the flower in her hand. She tried to
smooth it out for a moment, but the petals were ruined. She dropped
the flower on the ground and stood up. After grabbing the lantern,
she walked to the balcony and froze.

Dar still stood in the library,
rubbing his eyes. He glanced up and saw her. He stepped back and
looked at the door. “What are you doing here?”

“I went for a walk because I
couldn’t sleep,” she said quietly. “And I was out here when the two
of you came in…”

Dar let out a breath. “You heard
everything.”

“I’m glad I did.” Her voice was
shaking. “Since everyone is keeping secrets from me.”

“It’s for your own good,” he
whispered.

She took a step closer to him,
setting the lantern on the table. “Are you a shape
changer?”

He shook his head, rubbing his
forehead. “Don’t do this, Grace.”

“Then don’t lie to me.”

“You think I’m doing this because
I want to?” he asked, his voice fierce. “I’m trying to protect
you.”

“By lying to me?”

“When have I lied to
you?”

“Maybe you didn’t lie, but you
kept secrets from me. And I told you everything about me, I didn’t
hold back at all.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell
you the truth. Didn’t you hear anything we just said? People were
slaughtered two years ago—my best friends, my cousins and uncles.
If we’re together again, what do you think the prince will do? And
my family… you have no future with me, Grace.”

She let out a sigh of frustration
and closed her eyes.

“You have to let me go,” Dar said,
touching her jaw.

She leaned into his hand just as he
pulled it away. She opened her eyes. In the dim moonlight, she
could see the outline of his face, and she stepped closer. “I
will.” She put her hand on his chest. “When I wake up, when I get
in the carriage and drive off with the prince. But not until
then.”

He touched the side of her face
again, and his eyes flickered down to her lips. Grace put her hands
on his neck and pulled him close. She thought he may turn her away,
but their lips met, and he wrapped his arms around her. She pushed
close to him, deepening the kiss and running her fingers through
his hair. It felt as if nothing stood between them, not his family
or the prince or the Protectors or his powers; it was just the two
of them and this moment.

She could lie to him and say she
didn’t care if he was dangerous, didn’t care about the prince or
the shape changers, but she wouldn’t mean it. She wanted answers,
and he wasn’t going to give them to her. But she wanted this last
moment with him.

He ended it too quickly. He pulled
away and put his hands in her hair. “That’s it, Grace,” he said,
setting his forehead on hers. “I can’t see you again. You should be
with the prince.”

He stepped through the door and
left her alone in the library.

* * *

Grace tried to keep her eyes away
from Dar as they got ready to leave. She watched as the prince’s
advisor directed the servants with their trunks. The horses were
soon connected to the carriages, and the prince said farewell to
the politicians.

Grace said goodbye to the different
governors and barons, giving her special thanks to Governor Peter
and his family for their hospitality. Governor Alastor and Dar
stood at the end of the line. She lowered in a curtsy. “Governor
Alastor, Sir Dar.”

Dar inclined his head and met her
eyes before she turned away. Her heart pounded as she thought of
last night and wondered when she’d see him again.

She got into the carriage, and a
servant closed the door behind her. She heard men yelling, and the
prince went to the front carriage. A moment later, her carriage
lurched forward, moving away from the manor and away from Dar. She
let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She still had
feelings for him, whether it was right to or not. Six months
couldn’t be erased in only two weeks. She was determined to find
out more about the shape changers Dar was so closely involved
with.

A couple hours passed before the
carriages stopped for a break. Grace stepped out to see they’d
stopped on the side of the wide path. The servants were watering
the horses from a small creek that ran alongside the path before it
vanished into the forest to their left.

Prince William approached her,
smiling. “I hope your morning has been good.”

“Yes, your Highness, thank you.”
She’d slept for most of the time, and found her dreams full of
shapes that changed from men into tigers, snakes, and other
frightening creatures. “I think I’ll step into the forest with
Thurma.”

Thurma was the only female servant
on the trip. The two of them took breaks together in the woods when
they needed to relieve themselves. After searching a few moments,
Grace found Thurma feeding sugar cubes to the horses.

“Need to go?” Thurma asked,
raising her eyebrows. She was an older woman and looked just as
muscular as the men.

“I’m afraid so,” Grace
said.

They went into the forest, deep
into the foreign plants. Grace held her dress up as they went a
fair distance. “Go behind that tree,” Thurma said, motioning to a
large tree a few feet away.

After Grace went, she stood up and
turned back to Thurma. “Stop,” Thurma whispered, lifting her
hand.

Grace followed Thurma’s eyes to a
spot on the ground. A bright green snake lay in front of her, the
body curled up, but the head gazing at Thurma. Grace gasped and
stepped backward. It was louder than she intended, and the snake
sprang at Thurma. Grace was about to let out a scream when someone
grabbed her from behind, clasping a hand over her mouth.

She fought against the arms
frantically, but then they were suddenly changing. The skin
bristled, the bones grew smaller, and the hand was now rope
twisting itself around her, forcing itself into her mouth. The
ropes caught her wrists and her ankles. Stumbling, she fell, and
her chin barely missed the ground. She screamed as loudly as she
could with the rope in her mouth, but someone grabbed her again.
She thrashed against him, feeling miserably helpless. He picked her
up and threw her over the back of a horse. She ended up on her
stomach, her face toward the ground. The rider grabbed her dress
and set off in a gallop.

The horse tore through the dense
forest, leading them away from the prince and his carriages. Grace
screamed as she jostled around on the horse, the rider’s hand
holding onto her back. She struggled against him and the ropes, but
she was too afraid of falling off the horse and being trampled.
Where was he taking her? Had the snake bit Thurma?

Once she gave up screaming, she
tasted blood in her mouth. She must have bit her tongue when she
fell.

They rode on and on, the forest
around them growing thicker and darker. The rich smell of the earth
surrounded them. The horse kicked dirt into her face and eyes, and
she tried to cover them as they kept going. Her head felt faint
after a while, the blood rushing to her head, her back aching from
the position she was in.

As soon as the horse slowed to a
trot, Grace struggled against the rider. She couldn’t let him take
her. She tried to elbow him in the legs and kicked at the ropes on
her ankles.

“Stop struggling!” he shouted,
shaking her by the shoulders.

Just as she began to understand her
struggling wasn’t going to do anything, the man stopped the horse
and stepped off. Her body started to slip, and he grabbed her by
the waist and lifted her off the horse. She tried to step away from
him, forgetting her ankles were tied, and he caught her before she
fell over.

Grace only got a glimpse of the
unsaddled horse before he began to change. His back legs grew while
his front legs shrunk, his nose recoiled, his torso twisted in
shape, and then a man stood in front of them. Grace stared at him,
her eyes wide. Her knees suddenly felt weak. It couldn’t be… it
couldn’t. How… but he’d just been a horse. He’d changed forms in
front of her very eyes.

Everything she’d heard about shape
changers over the past week ran through her mind. She hadn’t truly
thought it was real, but now that she’d seen it, she couldn’t deny
it.

“I’m going to untie the rope
around your ankles,” he told her. He was a tall, muscular man with
dark hair and eyes. Like Dar. The rider kept his hands firm on her
shoulders. “But you must promise not to run.”

Grace couldn’t respond. He crouched
down, and she winced as he untied the ropes around her ankles. The
rope was entwined all around her, tying her wrists, twisting around
her torso and cutting off her voice. That had been a person, she
knew it, the person who’d grabbed her when the snake jumped at
Thurma.

Grace held out her wrists to the
man. He shook his head. “No. We’re almost there.”

He began to lead them forward, but
she broke away from the rider’s hands. She started to run, and the
rope moved, changing from the rough, bristled twine to a full-grown
man. He tackled her down to the ground, knocking the breath out of
her. He pulled her hands behind her back, and she kicked as hard as
she could.

“Stop moving!” he
yelled.

“Caleb, be careful with her!” the
horse-man said loudly. “Lady Grace, we’re not going to hurt you. We
need to take you to our camp leader.”

“Take me back to the prince!”
Grace demanded, her voice rough.

“I know you don’t understand—” the
horse-man began.

“You want money, I know, but if
you don’t let me go, they’ll kill you!”

“We don’t want money,” the
horse-man said. “Caleb, get her up. We need to get under the
enchantment before they realize she’s missing.”

Caleb, the man who’d been rope,
pulled Grace to her feet. She spit a mouthful of blood in his face.
He cried out, pushing her toward the rider. Caleb wiped blood off
his face as the rider seized her shoulders. Caleb grabbed her
wrists and tied them again, glaring at her.

“You could have used that rope in
the first place,” Grace grumbled.

The horse-man motioned forward.
“Come on, Lady Grace, we’ll explain everything once we reach the
camp.”

Grace followed him, Caleb’s hand on
her shoulder. As they walked through the thick forest, her dress
snagged on branches and bushes. Although it was a traveling dress,
it was still elegant, too much fabric for a walk in the deep
forest.

They approached a small clearing,
the trees spaced farther apart, the leaves on the ground matted
down. The rider said something in a language Grace didn’t
understand, and then sounds echoed through the clearing. Footsteps,
people calling to one another, horses whinnying. Slowly, a scene
materialized in front of her. In the clearing once empty, things
came into a hazy view. Tents, horses, fires, and people. People
standing up, calling to each other, coming toward them. They had
simple clothes on, brown or white, and almost all of them had dark
features. Black hair, olive-colored skin, dark eyes.

Caleb pushed her forward, and the
rider chanted in the language again. Grace stared at the people
with the same fear and awe they had on their faces. They’d appeared
out of nowhere. Invisible one second, there the next. Her heart
pounded in her ears, and her breath came out in pants.

The horse-man walked through the
middle of the clearing, and Caleb pushed Grace to follow him. They
approached a tent at the opposite end of the camp. It was set up
like a small house, only a couple inches taller than the horse-man.
He called, “Adrian. We’ve brought Lady Grace.”

A moment later, the flap opened. A
man with a goatee stepped out. His wide eyes fell on Grace, and he
smiled. He bowed and said, “Lady Grace.” When he straightened, his
eyes ran over her, and his smile faded. “Vin, why is she
bleeding?”

The horse-man—Vin—cleared his
throat. “She probably bit her lip when she fell down.”

“She looks terrified,” Adrian
said.