Page 17 of Earth Dragon
“Good,” he said. “I shall leave you to dress. But not in grey,” he said. “I’ll have hunting clothes brought for you.”
“I didn’t say I would go,” she remarked, but he merely threw her a smile over his shoulder. Not to say she couldn’t say no, but rather to tell her he knew she was eager to get out of the castle.
He was not wrong.
There are dangers out there, she thought.
But there were dangers everywhere and she did not want to hide herself away forever. She would be safe with him. He had given her his word.
Chapter 5 - Ewan
Ewan was waiting outside the castle stables when Shannon was brought down by Petrus to meet him. The guard kept his ever-present surliness simmering in his expression, barely granting his future king a nod. Ewan slapped him on the shoulder, hard, offering him a smile of approval for doing a good job. The man didn’t move a muscle, but Ewan’s hand hurt a little from the impact.
“Always great to see you,” Ewan said to him with a broadening smile and a wink, but the guard merely huffed a sigh. Nothing ever worked to lift his spirits or change his mood.
Ewan turned to Shannon, who was uncomfortably glancing around at the stable hands, as though they were all throwing dirty and judgmental looks her way. Not because of what she had done, but because of what she was wearing.
“Ah, they fit you perfectly, my lady,” he commented, making her look down at the breeches and hunting jacket that he had lent her out of his own wardrobe. “Well,” he said, tugging a little on the lapels of the black leather jacket. “A tad big, but that was to be expected. The belt helps, no?”
She glared at him then.
“Where’s my horse?” she asked.
He could not help that he was in a good mood. The bleakness of his future had evaporated in the past twenty-four hours. The question of when and what his first and last trial would constitute had been answered. The conundrum posited by this quest to find love had been resolved. And soon the kingdom would be under his mindful leadership, which meant his father would do whatever it was retired kings did while he would… shape the kingdom into what it needed to be.
He wasn’t going to chip away at anything. He was going toadd.
Her horse was brought forward, saddled and ready, and he reached for her hand to help her up. She slapped his touch away and pulled herself up on her own, getting the horse moving into the courtyard. He swung himself into the saddle of his stallion and followed her.
“Not a fan of your attire, my lady?” he asked. “You’d make a rather fetching groomsman, if I do say so myself.”
“Has anyone ever told you to hold your tongue?” she asked, not giving him a chance to respond before she added, “Because you should.”
With that she put her heels into the flanks of her horse and got it into a soft trot toward the castle gates.
“My lady,” he called after her, turning his horse to face a smaller gate at the other end of the courtyard. “We’re not leaving the grounds,” he said meaningfully.
She was bound to stay within the castle walls, so within them they would stay.
She directed her horse into a soft turn to follow him through the gate, which opened as they approached it. Two guards flanked it, and two more stood on the parapet above it. Ewan felt proud, seeing first-hand how the changes he had made worked seamlessly. Soon, there would be guards assisting in every town and village throughout the kingdom. The security and, through it, the longevity of every man, woman and child would go up tenfold and he knew they would all thank him for it.
There was a grassy lawn just inside the gate that quickly gave way to the pine-strewn ground. The trees stood tall, stretching out before them into shadowed depths. Sunlight struggled through the branches, dappling the needles at the horses’ hooves. The air had a slight chill to it, the horses’ breath pluming from their mouths.
“It’s beautiful,” Shannon said, sounding as though she was making the comment mostly to herself.
“Thank you,” he beamed at her. When all he got was a scowl, he asked, “What can I do to get you in a better mood?”
“What can I do to get you in a fouler one? I told you all these smiles make me feel disconcerted.”
“Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
He spurred his horse into a gallop, hearing her horse following, and looked over his shoulder at her. She was a vision, dark hair flying, wearing his clothes that hugged her hips in ways he wouldn’t have expected, the leather jacket buttoned and tautly strapped with the leather buckles down the front, showing off her curves.
He focused ahead, urging his horse on as he heard her gaining on him. When she passed him, it was with a small but satisfied smirk on her lips, and he smiled broadly at the sight of it.
He could tell that she had just realized she had handed him a win, even if she was taking the lead in their unannounced race, and her face turned grim. She rose up, leaned forward, and urged her horse on.
She meant to outshine him.
