Page 39 of Lifebound

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It was nighttime.

At first, I thought it was just the thick canopy of leaves in all those colors that didn’t let any light peek through, but the more we walked, the more of the sky I saw. There was no moon anywhere, or stars. Only darkness.

Silence.

No more butterflies made of golden light guiding our way, just the two guards riding their white horses ahead. Helid stuck by my side, and maybe it was my paranoia speaking, but he seemed to be very alert as he looked around us at all times, the reins of his horse tightly in his fists.

Minutes must have turned to an hour, and the sound of hooves steadily hitting the forest floor in the same rhythm tried to calm me down. It did for the most part, and I was no longer hyperventilating in panic, but I was also realizing that coming here like this might have not been the best of ideas. Not without some preparation, at least. Not without knowing exactly what my surroundings were going to look like.

Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t regret saying yes. I was going to do everything in my power to save the life of the man who saved mine, but I regretted leaving right away. I regretted not sleeping on it, not eating better, not questioning Helid thoroughly.

I knew nothing about this place, and I’d put my life in the hands of these strangers who weren’t even the man who’d saved me.

But I’ve seen him,I reminded myself. I knew Helid was who he said he was because I’d seen him with the boy that day.

Except that alone wasn’t doing much to calm my nerves and my racing heart.

“How…dangerousis this place, exactly?” I asked, and my voice seemed so loud because my ears were used to the silence and the hooves hitting the ground at exactly the same rhythm.

“It’s a very dangerous place,” Helid said—and was it just me or did his voice seem more…hushedthan before? “This is the forest that surrounds the south of Verenthia and it belongs to the Neutral Lands, which is as the name suggests: the neutral territories of our continent.”

Yes, yes, he was most definitely speaking lower.

“And what exactly lives in?—”

A snap somewhere in the distance, but we heard it. Because of the silence, it echoed in the forest.

Everyone stopped.

Every horse we were riding on, including mine that I was tryingnotto think about at all, came to a halt at same second.

My heart beat like a drum. “What was?—”

Helid raised a hand. The words got stuck in my throat.

Two guards—one riding in the front and one in the back—dismounted their horses so silently I would have never known they were moving had I not seen them with my own eyes.

One went farther ahead, the other back, and suddenly light exploded from both their hands. No butterflies or birds this time, just these balls of light that were as big as both my fists together.

I held onto the reins with all my strength, so tightly I had bloody half-moons on the skin of my palms. The horse I sat on held perfectly still, too, head straight, breathing even. I felt him so clearly against my body. For a moment there, when I closed my eyes in an attempt to calm down, I felt the breath going down his throat as if it were mine.

It freaked me out so much I almost screamed, except when I opened my eyes again, the guards were returning to their horses, and they both nodded at Helid.

He turned to me with a forced smile. “It’s best if we stay silent until we get to the other side now, mortal.”

I almost passed the fuck out.

“What? What does that mean? Are we in danger, is that it?” Because the look in his eyes terrified me even more than his words.

“We’re here by orders of the Seelie Queen. The residents of the Neutral Lands know it. They wouldn’t dare attack.”

Attack,he said, and yet he didn’t sound convincing at all.

So, I said, “Evenyoudon’t believe that, Helid.”

He didn’t correct me on using his name, just like I didn’t correct him when he—again—called memortal.Much more pressing issues at hand.

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