Page 21 of Tempting the Fae Lord
“Coming.” I duck out of his sight line, huff out a sigh, and scuffle my way back down the way I came. All my efforts to avoid detection, only for him to, what? Scent me like a prey animal?
Unbelievable.
I trudge over to where he stands, one hand on the lump of baby, the other held to the side so as not to bleed all over himself.
“Yeesh.” I gesture toward the red rivulets. “That looks like it hurts.”
He rolls his eyes. “Answer my question.”
“I’m here to watch. I didn’t realize it would be a horror show.”
“It’s only a bit of blood, and I don’t require nor do I want an audience.”
“Well, I’m already here.” I shift from foot to foot. “So…”
“Go home.”
“Ah, come on. If you won’t take me with you, at least let me see you do it.”
“You vex me.”
“There is a mutual vexing at play, I assure you.” I sound like him when I say it, not mocking, at least not intentionally, but his cadence rubs off on me at times.
He shakes his head, amusement twinkling in his black eyes despite his obvious effort at staying annoyed with me. “If I allow you to stay, you must promise to return home after. I don’t know how long I’ll be, and I don’t wish to come home to your nearly frozen form. Again.”
“But—”
“Gale!”
Desperate times call for desperate measures…
Everyone callshim the Gatekeeper as if he has no proper name, but he does. I’ve heard Eulayla use it on occasion.
The first time, I was very little. Maybe five or six. I’d been helping Chester with the chickens, and by “helping” I mostly mean getting underfoot and making a nuisance of myself.
“Out with ye, rascal.” He shood me from the coup after I’d broken one too many eggs. He wasn’t mean about it, and I took his order as tacit permission to not only leave the poultry yard but also the bailey, and the fortress’s perimeter wall too. Naughty thing, me.
But I loved adventuring beyond the walls and never had the privilege of doing so alone, so I took full advantage.
As might be predicted, I tumbled my way into trouble within a few hours. Down a craggy hillside to investigate whether the creek at the bottom would be flowing or frozen, only to find it was a dangerous combination of both.
Frozen enough for a youngster to use for sliding along iced-over slopes like a baby seal.
Shallow enough to break through the surface and fall in, soaking my heavy winter clothes through and through in the process.
Looking back, I was lucky I didn’t drown.
Though I made it out of the stream on my own, I couldn’t slog my way up the rocky hillside while weighted down and shivering.
It wasn’t long before I heard them calling for me. Chester and Eulayla, along with Osric and Thora, who’ve since passed on.
“Gale?”
“Gale, where are you?”
“Come out this instant!”
I tried to answer, but my little voice couldn’t carry over the wind, and as cold as I was, I couldn’t move from the huddled ball I’d made of myself against a fallen tree blocking the worst of the gusts.
