Fantastical

  Mm. That was better. Noctorno was not a good name. But I could work with Tor.

  At this point, two things happened.

  Aggie flitted up into my line of sight and chirped loudly at me, “Cora!”

  And the second was the door was flung open in the room behind me and the blonde woman came rushing into the room, shouting excitedly, “Is that Dash?”

  See! Totally told you that you could shorten his name to Dash and it would be cool.

  “No!” I heard a male shout from below and I looked down in confusion to see the men wheeling their horses around with what appeared to be sudden urgency. “Don’t let her see me, Cora!” It was the white hatted man; I knew when he continued talking.

  “Don’t!” Aggie chirped, flying around my body in agitation. “Don’t let her see him!”

  “Dash!” the blonde woman yelled from inside the room, she was run-dancing to the door.

  “Holy crap, what’s going –?” I started.

  “Hee-yah!” Noctorno barked, slapping his hand hard on the white horse’s rump, so hard, the sound of the crack of it hurt my behind and the white horse took off running.

  “Gods! Don’t let her –!” This was the voice of the gray hatted man but it came the second the blonde woman reached the balcony and shouted, “Dash! My love!”

  “No!” the white hatted man’s horse had started galloping away but he swung it around, shouting deep and imperative and started galloping back but I was only paying scant attention.

  That was because the minute the blonde hit the balcony and shouted her words, everything changed.

  Just like that.

  Snap.

  One second, the flowers were bright, the sun was shining, the day was beautiful.

  The very next second, the skies were dark; a pall was cast on the house, the flowers, the mountain-hill, the forest and the river. All that was once vibrant and breathtaking was now shrouded in darkness and gray.

  And what made matters worse was that in the very instant the darkness fell, thunder rent the air so loud and eerie I, who had never in my life been frightened of thunder, was instantly terrified (the immediate change of my surroundings helped). Lightning cracked through the sky, multiple flashes coming so fast it was like a strobe.

  “Holy crap,” I whispered. “What on earth?”

  “Cora,” the blonde whispered, “what on earth?”

  Trust me to have a cool dream turn to complete shit.

  “Tor, Orlando… go!” I heard and looked down as the blonde’s arms wrapped around me and the wind came up, whipping our hair and our nightgowns so violently, the material of our gowns snapped and cracked, biting into my skin where it hit.

  Yes, biting.

  And that was kind of painful too.

  What… on… earth?

  I held onto the blonde and looked down to see the gray and black horses were riderless and the white hatted guy, who lost his fancy hat in the wind (by the way) was dismounting.

  “Cora! Get her away from the window. Close it tight! Hurry!” he shouted up to us before he darted into the house.

  “Now, Cora!” Aggie chirped before his little body was swept away by the power of the wind.

  “Aggie!” I yelled, reaching out to him as his little body reeled away. As I watched him go, I knew at once there was no hope to save Aggie so I had to save the blonde. “Come on! Get inside!” I shouted over the wind and thunder, the strobes of lightning flashing eerie on her hair and skin. “Hurry!” I yelled, pushing her inside, “Now!”

  I shoved her inside and was stepping over the threshold at the same time reaching for the French doors when I heard it. Over all the noise of the sudden storm, I heard a cackle. An evil, bone-chilling cackle.

  I turned and looked over my shoulder into the air outside the balcony and at what I saw I screamed bloody murder at the top of my lungs.

  Chapter Two

  Love Match

  We were racing through the forest, me and Noctorno on his velvet black steed.

  And I knew I was not dreaming.

  I knew this because I could feel the horse’s power pounding beneath me. I could feel Noctorno’s strong arm clamped around my waist. I could feel the heat and solidness of his body. I could feel the branches whipping at my face, my hair, my body. I could feel the driving, relentless rain beating into my flesh.

  I could also hear the ongoing thunder, see the continued lightning, hear the horse’s hooves thudding against the forest floor.

  And none of this was pleasant.

  And all of it was lasting a long, long time.

  I didn’t know where I was. I had no idea how I’d gotten here. I just knew I was there. This was not a dream. This was real.

  And it was a nightmare.

  Lastly, I was fah-ree-king terrified.

  “Duck!” Noctorno barked in my ear but he didn’t give me the chance to duck. His muscular chest pressed into my back, pushing me down and I heard a branch whip over our heads.

  He lifted up, taking me with him but I closed my eyes.

  And I saw that… that… thing sweeping away the blonde again.

  I opened my eyes and bit my lip hard in an attempt not to cry.

  One of those things almost got me. If Noctorno hadn’t made it to the bedroom and caught me about the waist, pulling me back at the same time yanking a blade out of his belt and slashing at it causing blue sparks to fly out of it rather than blood, I would be gone like the blonde.

  Gone over the side of the balustrade even though the gray hatted man (otherwise known as Orlando) tried to hold onto her as Noctorno was busy struggling against my attacker.

  But she didn’t fall to the cobbles. She flew through the air, held by one of those things.

  And then she disappeared.

  Poof!

  The white hatted man, the man known as Dashiell, was too late and he stood on the balcony and shouted his heart wrenching fury but Noctorno didn’t watch. He battled the monster that had hold of me until it yelped and slithered away so fast it was almost like it wasn’t ever there.

  “Safety!” Orlando shouted at Noctorno, already running out of the room, pulling Dashiell with him. “Get her to safety. The curse is upon us and no matter how you feel about her, Tor, they want her too!”

  “Gods, man, I know!” Noctorno shouted back and carried me bodily out of the room after them, down the hall, down the stairs and out the front door where he threw me up on his horse, swung up behind me and away we went.

  But I couldn’t think of that. It was too horrific. It was too frightening.

  I had to concentrate on not crying, not trembling even though I was wet through and only wearing that damned thin nightgown. I had to try and figure out how one night I went to bed in my not very fabulous apartment after a day of my not very fabulous life only to wake up in another fucking world!

  I mean, I was an administrative assistant! How did I end up on a horse, in a forest, in a hellacious thunderstorm with a man wearing breeches, for God’s sake?

  As I struggled with these thoughts, the horse drove ever onward and we rode silently through the forest as the rain pummeled our skin.

  Then Noctorno turned the animal and we started climbing the mountain-hill. Except here it was less of a hill and more of a mountain. The terrain was part-scrub, part-trees and part-rock. We climbed and climbed, the horse laboring with the effort and our weight but it seemed to know where it was going.

  Then suddenly, we were in a big cave.

  And just as suddenly, Noctorno was off his horse and his huge hands were at my waist and he was yanking me down.

  Yes, yanking me down. He didn’t take any care at all and I yelped in surprise and pain as the cold stiffness of my limbs uncurled and my bare feet hit the shards of stone that was the cave floor.

  Then he grabbed onto my upper arms and shook me.

  Shook me!

  My head snapped back and forth and everything!

  “What are you doing!” I screeched, grabbing
onto his (steely, might I add) biceps to try to get him to stop and to try to hold myself steady.

  He stopped shaking me and his dark face came to within an inch of mine.

  “How could you be such a fool?” he barked and I shrunk away from the fury in his voice and on his face.

  “Wh… what?”

  “You knew she wasn’t supposed to see him on her wedding day,” he clipped, his strong fingers still gripping me tightly.

  “How’s she supposed to marry him if she doesn’t see –?” I started.

  “Prior!” he spat on another shake.

  “Stop shaking me!” I yelled and he did, only to get in my face again.

  “You knew it’d bring on the curse,” he growled. “You knew and you just stood there –”

  I interrupted him with, “I didn’t know!” and his scowl grew more ferocious. “I didn’t!” I yelled. “I’m an administrative assistant! I don’t know anything.”

  His brows knitted dangerously over narrowed eyes. “You knew, Cora, you knew.”

  “I didn’t!” I snapped. “And anyway, if he wasn’t supposed to see her, why did you all come riding up all fancied up in feathers and shit on the wedding day? That wasn’t too smart.”

  “She wasn’t supposed to be there, you know that,” he fired back.

  I blinked. “She wasn’t?”

  “No,” he gritted between his teeth, releasing me and I stumbled back and hit his horse who moved slightly into me like it wanted to break my fall and if that was what it wanted, the horse got it for I didn’t fall. “She was to sleep at your parents’ and we were there to get your lazy arse out of bed. Rosa was not supposed to be at your home.”

  Hmm. I wasn’t really fond of being known as lazy in this world. Sure, I could procrastinate with the best of them but I wouldn’t describe myself as lazy.

  “But –” I began.

  “And if she was there, which you knew she was, you should have kept her from seeing Dash. But you didn’t. You just stood there, gabbing at us like a fool, you didn’t warn us she was there and when she arrived, you let her see him. You know the curse. She did not.”

  That sounded ridiculous.

  “Why did I know and she didn’t? That’s ridiculous,” I informed him.

  He glared at me a moment before he asked quietly, “What’s the matter with you? Have you gone mad?”

  “I don’t think so,” I replied because I wasn’t certain. Everything around me felt mad but I didn’t feel mad.

  Then again, I’d never been mad. How would I know?

  Something about him changed and I watched it with fascination. He wasn’t any less scary; he was only a different kind.

  “We’re not a love match, we both know this, but I would never have suspected you’d do that to your sister,” he said softly.

  “We… we…” I couldn’t finish.

  A love match? What was he talking about?

  “You care for her, deeply, or so I thought. And if you didn’t care about her,” his face got hard, “we both know you care for Dash.”

  Uh. What?

  He kept talking. “Your feelings for them, my feelings for them, that was why we wed in the first place.”

  Uh. What!

  “Wed?” I whispered.

  He glowered at me then warned, “Don’t try me, Cora.”

  “We’re… we’re… you and me… we’re… married?”

  He leaned his face into mine again and growled, “Don’t try me, Cora.”

  Holy crap!

  I was married to this guy?

  “So… uh, where were you last night?” I asked what I thought was a pertinent question, considering he was my husband and I woke up alone, and his face got even harder.

  “You’re trying me,” he stated.

  Oh dear. I was trying him.

  Damn.

  I studied him. He was a big guy. Very big. Very tall. Very broad. He wore black. All black. He had a scar. His horse was enormous and powerful. He carried a knife on his belt. He scared me just the way he could look at me and he had no problem with shaking me so my head snapped around.

  I was thinking I didn’t want to mess with this guy.

  I was also thinking that maybe I shouldn’t tell him that I was actually not his wife but a single girl who worked for an ad agency and lived in Seattle. I was thinking that wouldn’t go down too well.

  The problem was, I was in a fantasyland, he was the only human being around me, I needed him to talk to me, I needed him to get where I was coming from which was definitely not here and I didn’t know what to tell him.

  What I did know was that it appeared he didn’t like me too much and so I figured my best bet was not telling him anything at all.

  Which meant I was screwed.

  Damn!

  “I… I think I need a minute to, uh… get my head straight,” I told him the God’s honest truth.

  We were just inside the mouth of the cave and the storm and trees outside meant the light coming in was dim but I saw his hard, glittering, dark eyes examine me, travelling down my body. They stopped midway and his jaw clenched.

  I looked down to see the thin material of the nightgown, no matter that there was a lot of it, had gone see-through. I was, luckily, wearing a pair of what looked like loose, white shorts but up top, there was nothing left to the imagination.

  Double damn!

  I grabbed fistfuls of the material in both hands, pulled it around my breasts and looked back at his face to see his eyes shoot to mine.

  “Uh –” I started but stopped when he took a step forward while dipping his shoulder. Then that shoulder was in my stomach and I was up. I grabbed onto his shirt at the back and shouted, “What are you doing?”

  “Quiet,” he commanded.

  I yanked on his shirt and kicked my feet. “Put me down!” I yelled, panicked and wondering what he was going to do next but thinking I wasn’t going to like it.

  I wasn’t wrong.

  I felt the crack of his hand on my ass, it sounded nearly as loud as when he slapped the rump of Dashiell’s horse but since he did it to me, it hurt… a lot.

  “Quiet,” he growled but I had already quieted.

  He hit me. He hit me, he yanked me off his horse, he shook me, he ordered me around, he called me lazy and, I will repeat, he hit me. So hard it hurt. A lot.

  I didn’t like this guy. Not at all.

  I felt the stinging in my nostrils that heralded tears.

  Oh man, I needed to get home.

  Chapter Three

  Pure You

  He walked me deeper into the cave, not far but where he took me was damper and darker.

  Then he bent at the waist to drop me and my hands automatically circled his neck because I didn’t want to go down hard on the shards of stone and he’d drop me hard, I knew it.

  Surprisingly, I needn’t have done this for his arms curved around my thighs and waist to lighten the fall and what he put me on was soft.

  “You’ve gained weight,” he grunted as he was straightening away from me.

  Great. Just great. In this world I was fat. Marvelous.

  “I’ve got to see to Salem, get wood, find food. I’ll be back,” he informed me then with no further ado, he turned and left.

  I lay on whatever I was on and looked at the dim opening to the space that he’d disappeared through. I heard the horse heave a mighty, shuddering breath through his horse lips and decided that was his greeting to his master.

  My mind was blank. So blank, I had not one thought by the time he came back. I heard what sounded like wood crashing to the cave floor then he left again without looking at me. He came back three more times and there were three more wood crashing noises. Then he moved around, I heard more wood banging together, saw the strike of rock against rock and then there was a weak fire. He moved to the wall of the cave, pulled something down and went back to the fire. I watched him light a torch then take it back to the wall and affix it to something. He did this four more ti
mes and the torches, with the fire, meant the space was better lit. It wasn’t exactly blazing light you could read by but at least you could see.

  And I saw that I was on hides, lots of them. That was when I realized I was trembling violently. I rolled, pulled a hide out, saw that under the top, dark hide there was a bed of what looked like fluffy, cream sheepskins. I crawled in and pulled the top hide over me and up high, wrapping its heavy weight clumsily around me as best I could.

  When my eyes went back to him, I saw he was standing with hands on hips, watching me and he didn’t look any happier than he had before. In fact, he looked downright peeved and maybe a bit disgusted.

  I pressed my lips together because he freaked me right the hell out.

  “Now, food,” he grunted. “If you have it in you, don’t let the fire go out. Keep feeding it. This would, of course, require you to move. Try it, you might not find it that hard.”

  Again with the lazy comments. What a jerk.

  Then he turned, went to the mouth of the space, unhooked something I hadn’t noticed before and then another heavy, wide hide fell into place behind him, covering the opening to the space and closing me in as I heard his muted boots hit the loose stone outside indicating he was walking away.

  I took in a shaky breath and pulled my wet hair out of my face.

  “Okay, okay… think,” I whispered as I looked around and tried to control my shivers.

  The space was small. There looked to be a makeshift table with stuff on it against the wall. There was a pile of the wood he’d brought in on the floor next to the table (lots of wood, apparently he could carry a heavy load or there was some there before). There seemed to be what looked like weapons on the wall, two swords, some others that looked like long knives and other lethal-looking bits and pieces. There was a fire pit in the middle of the space and I tilted my head back to look up to the ceiling and saw a small, natural hole where the smoke could get through. I found this curious, seeing as no rain was coming in and I could still hear the distant thunder but whatever.

  When I got control of my shaking, I pushed the hides back and decided to explore. I noted the stone floor in this space was smooth, not the loose rock of the outer area. I went to the mouth of the space first and touched the hides. Cow, I would guess. A bunch of them stitched together to make a panel wide enough to cover the opening.