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 f**king 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.