The Rising (The Rising #4) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,94
realize he had tried to escape.
He held his breath as they came into view around the end of the mound and Jellan sat very still atop his horse. As such, he prayed to every god he knew that he would remain undiscovered.
“Where the fuck is that arsehole?” Marian groused as their horse picked its way through the trees not thirty feet away from him.
“Can you not use your magic to track him?” Daemon asked.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Marian snapped.
It absolutely did.
Or it could, if you knew how to do it.
Jellan stared as they wandered, looking this way and that.
She did not only not know how to read the veil.
She did not have a very good understanding of her power.
By the gods, he wished he’d known that before.
But in the now, he relaxed, kept himself cloaked and felt the sneer hit his lips as they rode past him.
His sneer faltered when he saw, to his astonishment, that it appeared Daemon had cuts that were bleeding through his shirt at his forearms and one along his neck.
Marian had none.
The lash of a highwayman.
Ever the chevalier, he would never strike out at a woman.
However, he would a man.
But…
Daemon let it get to that?
And…
Daemon bled?
He turned in his saddle to watch them ramble away, but that was all he did, and he remained where his was, how he was, for a good long time.
After that, he closed his eyes, cast his senses, and when he did not feel them near his vicinity, he cast his senses to something else.
Remaining masked, he clicked his teeth, touched his heels to his now-beloved steed, for the animal had served him well, and started to amble through the forest, following where his perceptions told him to go.
And he was surprised it did not lead him back to the road where they were confronted.
It led him deep into the forest.
It was a long ride, in the opposite direction he should be taking, but he eventually saw the merrily roaring campfire.
He cautiously approached it.
And to his shock, not only did it appear the highwaymen had rather a lovely bohemian outdoor abode tucked in a curvature of black stone amongst the forest. It included many thick rugs upon the ground, rich hides, tasseled, rolled pillows, sturdy awnings hung to hold back the elements, some low tables, logs that had been dragged in to serve as back rests or shields from the wind, and lanterns and candles scattered about to give it a cozy feeling.
They also had wenches who looked like a cross between a Zee and a doxy. These women wore low-cut, striped blouses under stiff Airenzian corsets that stretched along their midriffs and came to a point in the middle, beneath their breasts. With these they had skirts with deep ruffles at the edges, a few of them that included lace. The skirts fell to their heels at the back but were cut so high at the front, they just covered the pubis. Thus, legs were exposed with lace-topped stockings encasing upper thighs and boots that rode up to just under their knees.
But last…
There were ten of them.
Five women.
And all five men.
The men had all escaped.
But…
How?
“It wasn’t right,” one man said.
“It’s done,” another one replied wearily. “Let us cease talking about it.”
“I swear to the gods, Nick, that man with the woman…at one point he had grown fangs,” the first man said.
“Think not on it, for it is done,” Nick replied.
“The one I chased disappeared into thin air,” another said.
“A sorcerer?” one of the women asked.
“Had to be,” the man who chased him answered.
“If he was a sorcerer, Leith, he would not run. He’d cast,” another man said.
“He did cast, Angus, to disappear,” Leith replied.
“And be glad of it,” Nick advised. “For this night we rode up on evil, so intent on coin, we didn’t feel it until it was almost too late, and now, we are all here, still breathing.”
Yes, they were.
All there.
Still breathing.
But…
How?
“I’ll take that bottle of gin, love,” the first man who spoke said.
“Here you go, my Rory,” a woman whispered, proffering a bottle.
He took it then pulled her down to her hip beside where he lounged on a thick rug against a rolled pillow up against a log.
“Kaden?” Nick called, apparently to the last man, who was at the edge of their encampment, staring into the night.
“We should report this,” he said.
There was silence.
Eventually, Nick, who Jellan sensed was the leader, muttered, “Aye.”