Page 98 of Torin and the Princess

He turned and saw me, I yelled, “What do you mean I was given over to another household?”

The screen door slammed behind me, Cooper said, “Lexi, let’s come in, let’s talk this all out.”

I stumbled down the steps out onto the grass, walking toward Torin in my sundress and rainboots, yelling, “Answer me, who were my parents, who raised me?”

Torin strode toward me. “Princess, I daena ken who yer parents were. I daena understand how this has happened, but I will make it right. This is my oath tae ye, I will?—”

A gust of wind rose on the lawn. Torin looked up at the sky. “Och nae!”

There was a rumble of thunder. The sky roiled with dark clouds climbing into the sky above us.

Torin yelled, “Princess, go tae the house!” He unsheathed his sword.

But when I turned, four men on horseback, broke from the trees. They were charging up the yard, tearing across my grass. My land shook with the rumble of their hooves. The wind from above whipped at my hair and I was frozen in fear at the sight of the horses.

Cooper yelled, “Lexi, run!” But I wouldn’t make it to the house,they would get me first.

How did I know they wantedme?

I just knew.

Torin rushed in front of me, trying to protect me from the men charging at us. Then, over the crest of the two lane road in front of my house, raced four more men on horseback riding in a line. The hooves of their horses dug into the gravel of the driveway, spraying rocks around as they raced, the men were frightening, intense, and carrying guns.

Torin was trying to block me from all directions.

I clutched his cloak, the wind of the storm rising so much that I was buffeted almost off my feet. I screamed, “Torin!” As a man on one of the horses caught up to me, and grasped my arm trying to wrest me up.

Torin yelled, “Princess, daena let go!”

He swung his sword. One of the men was sliced through his side, a spray of blood, his horse reared.

I stumbled back and fell on my ass.

And then men and horses descended on us as the storm rose, a blast of wind, shots fired but the crack was dampened by the roaring wind.

A man was on me, a horse screamed nearby. I was trying to grasp Torin’s hand, his kilt, his cloak, anything, but it was pressure, wind flattening me, my voice screaming in my ears.Lexi!As pain rose up my legs to my chest and filled my body so that it felt like I was going to be torn to pieces.

And then I blacked out from the pain.

35

LEXI

AN UNKNOWN TIME

As I came to from being unconscious, it was like pulling my mind up from mud, sluggish and slow to awareness. The first thing I noticed was how hard my muscles were clamped, agitated, it dawned on me that I was shivering with cold. I wrapped my arms around me. I was wearing a tiny little flowered sun dress and it felt like winter.

I peeled my eyes open. Nearly everything on my body hurt, even my eyelashes.

It was dark. When everything had happened, when I had been in a giant brawl on my lawn, it had been midmorning.

I could see a blade of grass in front of my eyes. It was in focus, everything else was blurred and foggy. I couldn’t hear anything over the roar in my head. It sounded like when you had earplugs in and yet it was loud everywhere, but you couldn’t hear it, not really, not over the sound of your own breathing, your own self.

But under it, rising in my awareness, a man’s voice.

It was Torin, his face at the level of mine, crawling closer. He whispered, “Wheesht.”

As his face emerged fully in my view his finger was pressed to his lips. He silently shook his head.

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