Page 36 of Forcing Fate

My eyes drifted to the center of his stomach, where his unfastened tunic displayed bare skin. Uneven muscles bunched and swelled with every movement as he stabbed at the forest floor. I had never seen so many muscles so well defined, and wondered if the muscles running down everyone’s middle were so lopsided. My mouth was suddenly dry, my jaw fell ajar at the sheer power behind every small movement.

“There’s eight of them.”

My gaze shot up to meet his, and I snapped my mouth shut with a click.

“Something I doubt you would know, being a skin and bones girl, is that eight muscles run down your midriff.” He stood, and I watched in sheer horror as he stuck a thumb in the front of his trousers and jerked them dangerously low on his hips, revealing the hard muscles. “Fighting will bring them out,” he added. With a spark in his dark eye, he dropped back into a crouch and resumed digging.

My cheeks flamed, and I clasped my hands together, dropping my eyes back to the safe sight of his knife in the dirt. Not only had I just looked at a man’s naked chest and stomach, I had ogled his abs. I acted every bit of my immature seventeen-winters. And to make things worse, he not only acknowledged that I had stared, but rubbed it in my face as well.

I couldn’t help but wonder if all the men had such clearly defined muscles, or if only his body looked like it had been carved from stone. My face and ears burned with shame as I reined in my wayward thoughts and watched him loosen the dirt with his knife. In mere breaths, he pulled the taproot free, revealing a decent sized white carrot.

He held it out to me, and I took it with trembling hands, not daring to make eye contact. I had embarrassed myself enough for one afternoon. Gathering my harvest, I stood and turned to head back to the fields.

General Rafe straightened and wiped the knife on his leg, and I winced, hoping for all I was worth that he didn’t slice his trousers. That would be a pain to mend. He tucked his knife in a hidden sheath under his belt. Without a word, he pushed in front of me, back down the trail toward the fields. I followed him, keeping a safe distance as he let branches swing back at me, just as I had done to him. We walked in silence and I had a moment to gather my wits about me again, clearly having lost all sense of sanity back in the forest. Who knew retrieving a carrot could be so dangerous to one’s reputation?

Suddenly, General Rafe veered to the side, and I stood on the game trail, staring at his broad back as he pushed through the woods in an eastern direction. I started to ask where he was off to, but thought better of it. Biting my lip, I headed after him.

We advanced into the brush without a trail, other than the one that he made. The foliage was thick, and my dress kept snagging on brambles and shrubs. I sighed, thinking of the state it would be in when this adventure was through.

My skirts snared on a thorned bramble and I wrested it free with a frustrated grunt. Taking a step forward, I collided with General Rafe’s back. He glared at me over his shoulder with his good eye. I bit my lip and tried to be as silent as possible, as it was clear he was listening for something. He looked straight ahead, and I waited as he tilted his head a fraction before pressing on. We traveled deeper into the forest, and I was grateful I wore my boots. Between the mud I dealt with this morn, and the briers and brambles I dealt with now, if I had chosen my sandals I would have regretted it.

A small jangling, like that of a bell, rang faintly through the woods. I stopped and tilted my head, trying to understand where it was coming from. General Rafe noticed my hesitation and looked back at me with a bored expression. I thought about telling him about the sound, but surely that was what he had been listening for before. I just hadn’t heard it then.

I continued following him as he pressed on. Was he investigating the sound? Did he know what it was? It sounded like a small bell a trapper might use, but I was unfamiliar with them. I knew the louder, more prominent bells that farmers used to trap wild boars, but this was a faint jangling.

The sound grew clearer, though it was never loud. General Rafe slowed and held up a hand to tell me to stop. I halted as he dropped to a crouch and crept forward. He peered under the brush just as the jangling stopped and I waited, watching in anticipation.

Faster than my eye could track, his hand shot out and grabbed something. A terrible scream rent the air. I couldn’t help but jump, and he straightened, pulling his knife free again.

He held a rabbit by its hind legs and cut the twine tangling them together. He turned back to face me, and I watched as he jerked, slicing the rabbit’s throat. It thrashed wildly, bleeding out. As it did, General Rafe lifted his eye to watch me, gauging my reaction, I assumed.

I looked him dead in the eye and tilted my head. If he expected me to scream, rage, or cry at the loss of life, he was wrong. I shrugged and turned back the way we came, heading to the game trail that led to the training fields.

Loss of life was nothing new to me. Whether it be animals to feed people here in Regent, or soldiers and Dragon Riders at the front, death was a familiar beast. I was not ignorant of the brutality needed to feed hungry bellies. During one particularly hard winter, even Northwing felt hunger’s pinch. That was the only winter we ate horse meat, but filling the bellies of children was a higher priority than feeding an animal.

I broke through the treeline and General Rafe exited close behind. I didn’t wait for him before starting across the training fields. He let me go halfway to the obstacle course when he cut across my path, heading to a gap between buildings. I stopped and stared, wondering if I should follow yet again, or leave him be. Curiosity got the better of me, and I followed.

Soldiers gave him a wide berth and offered me suspicious glances, though at this point, almost all knew I was assigned to assist him. Perhaps it was that I willingly followed him after his treatment of me. It was more than likely the whole barracks had heard of my plight. Soldiers seemed to gossip as much as the women on the school grounds.

General Rafe came to a stop in front of a small fire pit tucked away behind a few buildings and grabbed a log from the stack, throwing it onto the smoldering coals. He tended the fire with deft hands, coaxing the embers into crackling flames. No soldiers wandered back here, providing a sense of privacy.

There were three roughly hewn chairs around the pit, as well as a thick cut of a tree trunk that I presumed acted as a table. The slab of wood was as tall as my waist and almost as thick in diameter. Tilting my head, I studied it, having never seen such a table.

I turned my sights back to General Rafe and noticed the field-dressed rabbit. He must have readied it while we were walking in the woods.

Flames licked at the log as he skinned the rabbit with ease. He skewered it and placed it on a spit over the growing fire before sitting in one of the chairs, leaning on its back legs. I watched with a frown, as I was sure his weight on just two sticks of wood would splinter it, but it somehow managed to hold firm.

General Rafe glanced from me to an empty chair and motioned me to sit with a jerk of his head. As I took a seat, I rubbed a hand over the smooth surface of the makeshift table.

I placed my harvest before me, sorting through the collection. “I’ve never seen a table like this,” I commented.

He focused on the crackling flames. “Used to be in the training fields,” he grunted.

“Really? Did a dragon move it here?” I wondered aloud, checking each leaf and flower for any bugs or questionable debris.

General Rafe snorted at my statement and smirked. “I did.”

This slab of tree was massive. No man could lift it on their own. No man, no matter how big. I raised an incredulous brow.

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