Page 3 of Blood & Roses

I always preferred to use my own.

This was definitely an elf following me, the heart rate slower than a human’s would be, the blood pumping more efficiently through their veins. A male, based on the comparative size of the form I felt, although where he could be hiding I had no idea.

A crow cawed in a tree somewhere above me, startling me and making my heart race even faster.

I’d had enough.

“I will give you one minute to leave me alone,” I said aloud, probably looking ridiculous as I shouted at nothing, “and then I’ll be stopping your heart in an extremely painful manner.”

It was a bluff, but whoever was following me didn’t know that.

I waited. The ground was icy and the trees grew more thickly as I neared the cottage. I listened for the sound of boots or breathing.

And then a deer emerged from the trees. A stag, actually, huge and brown. Its velvet was torn in places, bloody and hanging loosely over sharp antlers as if it had been fighting. A few drops of blood fell on the snow from the deer’s head, staining the white ground crimson.

“Hello,” I said, not entirely sure how to address a deer. This didn’t feel the same as the presence following me, which I still felt from a shadowy distance, but it was also not…normal. The stag waswrong, somehow. It didn’t feel like an animal ought, and its eyes were wide and bloodshot and fierce as it regarded me.

It snorted, its hooves pawing at the snow and spreading the blood around. I held out a hand, trying to show that I meant no harm.

“Hello,” I repeated. “I won’t hurt you.”

An owl hooted somewhere nearby, and I didn’t have time to wonder if it was Orson’s friend.

I didn’t even have time to run as the stag barreled toward me.

Chapter 2

Ishould have died.

The antlers of the stag were wickedly sharp, and they were headed straight for me. They would penetrate my chest, puncturing my lungs and heart and causing me to bleed out before I’d even have time to scream.

But a second form—whoever had been following me—shot out of the wood and knockedme out of the path.

I rolled, my breath forced from me in a whoosh as a second abnormally huge stag, this one more gray with antlers that weren’t as ragged as the other, locked antlers with the first. The two beasts huffed and snorted and clashed as I crawled out of the way, cold and wet and bruised from being knocked sideways by a two-hundred-pound stag. I lay in the snow, trying to find my voice as the creatures battled.

The first stag, the more feral of the two, brayed and charged, catching the second stag in the side with a sharp antler. He let out a roar and pushed harder, inching the feral stag back into the woods as blood dripped from his side.

With a snort, the feral stag gave up, tossing its head one final time and catching the other stag across its muzzle before galloping back into the trees.

The second stag watched, his knees buckling under his weight as blood continued to splatter the snow.

I scrambled to my feet as the stag let out a snort of frustration and suddenly shifted before my eyes.

A man knelt in the snow where the stag had been moments before. His cloak fell back to reveal brown hair, the same color as the first stag’s pelt, and tapered ears, slightly blunted like my own. A half-elven male then, not a human man.

He was fully clothed, despite being a stag only moments before, dressed for cold and action in practical, careworn attire that was stained with blood in several places. He must be a hunter or soldierof some kind, based on the bow and quiver of arrows strapped to his back and the dagger sheathed at his side.

Not a soldier of the High King, though, I thought as I scrambled up, wheezing slightly between bruised ribs. No official uniform. A hunter, then. In pursuit of the stag?

He toppled forward, bracing with a hand against the ground as I crunched through the snow to meet him.

“Thank you,” I said, kneeling next to the bleeding male. “You saved my life.”

The white was tinged pink all around him as blood dripped from his side and his face, and I put my hands on his shoulder when I reached him, sending out my magic to slow the bleeding. It wouldn’t heal him, but it would help.

“You were only in danger because of me in the first place,” he groaned, looking sideways up at me, some kind of mask or scarf covering the lower half of his face. I glimpsed hazel eyes and a scar bisecting his left eyebrow before he turned and pulled down the mask.

Gods, he was gorgeous. A dusting of stubble over his jaw told me he’d been traveling for a few days. His firm jaw made my stomach flip a little. I'd always had a weakness for firm jawlines.