Page 60 of Seized to Sacrifice
Rye ‘s eyes narrowed a fraction. Thorne was lying, or at least leaving out quite a bit of the story. No matter. He’d get it out of Elle.
‘We could use a fire and some warm clothes,’ Thorne continued, and Rye nodded.
‘Mace’s keep isn't far from here. It should be over the next rise. We’ll go there, stay the night, re-supply, and then be on our way tomorrow.’
‘What of Elle? I don’t trust those three, especially that fucking blacksmith.’
It almost sounded like Thorne cared what happened to her.
Rye let out a snort.The blacksmith.How could he have forgotten that Thorne and Kade did not get on?
‘I trust Mace. He’ll keep the others in line,’ Rye said. ‘Stay away from Kade as much as possible. We don’t need any of your skirmishes destroying their newly built keep.’
He watched Nyx swing Elle up onto the horse in front of him. The man looked much happier now that she was with him.
‘Come,’ Rye said, offering Thorne his hand.
Thorne grasped his wrist and pulled himself up onto the horse’s back behind him and they rode towards their old friends’ keep.
They travelled until midday, the weather alternating between sun and drizzle
‘I thought you said it was close,’ Thorne growled from behind him, and Rye sighed.
‘It is,’ he said through gritted teeth, remembering now why he preferred to travel alone.
As they rode over the crest of another rolling hill, a tower came into view and Rye thanked the gods they’d finally arrived.
‘There, you see?’ Rye said pointing.
‘What is that place?’ Elle asked in a small voice.
‘Friends,’ Rye answered. ‘Brothers before they left the Army. They'll see us warm and dry, ply us with good food.’
‘Probably drink as well if I know Lucien,’ Nyx grunted as they're made their way out of the wood and through the meadow to the old gatehouse that was still in ruins.
They got to the front of the keep and Rye yelled up to the guards on the parapets.
The portcullis rose, and Rye took one last look at Elle, wondering what she would make of these other Brothers. It would just be one night, he said to himself. Not much could happen in just one night. Could it?
* * *
Elle
The fortressin front of them loomed higher than the one that Nyx and the others lived in, but the keep itself was a bit smaller. It was perched atop a hill looking down over a misty vale and, as she looked around her, she noticed large sections of the walls that looked as if they’d been rebuilt recently.
Elle sat in front of Nyx, his large body warming her and comforting her after the disastrous night with Thorne … and the Beast. She didn’t know much about shifters, but it was surely odd for them both to be so separate, wasn't it?
She felt something for the Beast, just as she did with Nyx and with Rye … and with Thorne, if she was completely honest with herself.
Nyx had left his hatred behind, and Rye … she wasn’t sure. He wasn’t being so cruel to her as he had been before. But Thorne had given himself to his anger, to his low opinion of her. The way he'd shoved himself away from her last night, after he’d changed back into the man had left her reeling.
When he’d told her what had happened to him because of her … She wished she could comfort him, make it right. But if she truly had caused so much of his suffering, perhaps she did deserve his hated.
She glanced at him. The tone he'd used when he told her to get dressed … his rejection of her stung.
They travelled under an archway that looked like it had once been part of the keep, but no one had bothered to rebuild it. The grate was down. Rye shouted up into the ramparts and a suspicious-sounding voice called back asking who he was.
‘Ryder of the Brothers,’ Rye shouted back.
