Page 19 of Alpha's Magic

The words spilled out of me before I could pull them back, and I realized as I said them that they were true, though unwise. Asher had just been lecturing me about religion and my “ill will” as he called it. Though what else should I feel toward the evil Rozamond except for hatred? Her priests too.

Asher pulled up the reins on his horse and spoke fiercely in my ear.

“Never let me hear you say anything like that again. People have been hung for much less, and if Lex hears you say it, he’ll beat your little ass, and I’ll have to hold you for him while he does it. Harrison is his brother, and he’s as close as one to me too.”

I leaned even farther away from him then and made a little hmphing sound. I didn’t like being told what to do and never had. And I didn’t respond well to threats.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” I yelled at him, and he suddenly jumped off his horse so fast I was left clinging to the saddle so I wouldn’t fall off. He reached up to yank me down beside him. I stared up at him breathlessly and instinctively pulled back my hand to strike him—no, that’s not accurate. What I really tried to do was instinctive, and I wanted badly to hit him with magic. I’m not sure what I planned to do to him. Maybe push him away or make him fall down in a puddle. It all came to nothing, though, when he grabbed my wrist and twisted my arm behind me pulling me up to his chest.

“Whatever you were planning to do would have been ill advised.”

“Why?” I said, a little breathlessly, staring up into his face. I hated how alarmed I sounded and forced out a little bravado. “What are you going to do about it?”

He gave me a grim smile and said, “Dollicia.”

He didn’t raise his voice, and his tone wasn’t particularly malicious. But a strange feeling washed over me from head to toe, making me feel lethargic and oddly numb. I tried to move, but my limbs refused to answer. I was frozen in place, and I found I couldn’t even close my eyes or blink. My whole body felt stiff and doll-like, and he set me on my feet like a doll and pushed down my arms to where he wanted them to be. It didn’t hurt, and after a moment I wasn’t even afraid of what he’d done to me. His voice seemed distant and far away and I felt like I was floating. He could have sat me on a shelf in a child’s playroom and I wouldn’t have minded. I would have dreamed the days away.

“You’re all right, and unhurt. This will wear off soon, but now perhaps you’ll learn to listen to me.” He picked me up around the waist and carried me, while my arms and legs were as stiff as a statue’s. He was so strong, he carried me effortlessly and he left me by the horse so he could mount and then pulled me up in front of him, carefully bending me to sit in his lap and moving my unresisting legs around to sit me down where I was before.

I was vaguely aware of Lex riding up beside us. “What did you do to him?” he asked, peering at me intently.

“Just a small demonstration.”

“Hmm. He’s going to be angry when you release him.”

“I expect so. But he has to learn his actions and words can have consequences.”

Lex rode away, still shaking his head. Asher pulled me sharply back against his hard body and spoke in my ear, making me shiver. “We have a long way to go, and you need to stop this. We don’t have to talk if it upsets you, but you should be mindful of what you say. You’re not living in a cave in the back of beyond anymore, and your words can get you into serious trouble.”

I knew he was probably right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

“Now sleep,” he said, and tapped me on the side of the head. His hands passed over my eyes, shutting them and I felt myself relaxing into him, my eyes were suddenly too heavy to keep open. I fell deeply asleep, sitting on his lap.

When I awoke, sometime later, I was back to normal, though still angry at his high-handedness. I refused to speak to him, but I soon found that it’s hard to sustain being mad at someone when you needed their body heat to keep you warm. I felt like I was freezing to death.

Asher must have noticed my hard shivers, because he pulled me closer and arranged his big cape over both of us. I ducked my face down in the furs and tried to endure, but it was a while before I began to warm up.

Hours later, just as it was getting properly dark, we stopped for the night because it was getting too dark to see the trail, and their witch-lights weren’t strong enough to fully illuminate the path ahead of us.

We had dismounted and were just stretching our legs when we heard a horse coming rapidly down the trail toward us in an urgent scramble of hooves. He pulled up sharply as he saw us and got quickly down from his saddle, bowing deeply to Lexington.

His face was streaked with sweat, and his blue uniform was disheveled and dusty. He seemed to be an Igellan soldier, from what I remembered of seeing them before at a distance. I’d noticed them riding through the countryside from time to time when I was out gathering and checking traps with Grimora, though I’d always tried to hide in the bushes so they wouldn’t see me.

Without waiting for Lex to give him permission to speak, the soldier dismounted and fell to one knee. “Your Royal Highness, I bring you greetings from King Rory. My lord begs you to come at once as fast as you can. A chimaera has been spotted in the mountain pass on the road from Morovia.”

“What?” Lex said sharply. “It’s a little late in the year for a chimaera—are you sure?”

I searched my memory for all I knew about the creatures and remembered they were deadly hybrids of several animals put together, hatched from snake eggs that had been corrupted with dark magic. They were considered to be rare now, from what Grimora had told me, and most people thought they’d died out years ago.

“Yes, sire,” the soldier was saying. “I saw it myself. It was still small. At least six feet tall, with a serpent’s tail, the head of a goat and huge bat’s wings. King Rory begs you to come as quickly as you can.”

“How long ago was it seen?”

“This morning, Your Highness. It was sleeping when we came upon it, so we were able to escape it. A group of servants were coming back from Morovia, where they’d gone to help King Harrison’s household with the funeral services, with a few of us Igellan soldiers to guard them. It didn’t see us, and we got away as fast as we could.”

“All right. Take some time to rest and refresh yourself. We need to do the same and then we’ll be back on our way again.”

“Thank you, sire,” the soldier said and went back to see to his horse before warming himself at the fire.

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