A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [64]
“Fire!” a voice shouted, to his intense surprise.
Shapes armed with crossbows appeared around the sides of buildings and from behind the stacks of plunder. They were all male. Mace had already sensed and dismissed them, as he’d thought they were hiding. He hadn’t thought they’d shoot at him, or more importantly, at Sally.
They were surrounded. As the bolts were launched at him and Sally, Mace changed shape, forming a solid wall of black flesh that completely surrounded her. Crossbow bolts struck him, causing great pain, but none went through. They hurt, though. Mace was surprised by how much. He’d never been harmed by a human in this way, and honestly he hadn’t thought that he could be. But the sheer number of bolts now jutting out of him was as agonizing as the claws of another battle sylph, and he roared in pain, the hate he projected only increasing.
Men who should have run in terror didn’t, obeying their leader instead. “Attack!” that voice shouted again.
Dropping their crossbows, which took too long to reload anyway, the bandits charged, howling as they came down at him with short swords. Eyeless, Mace sensed them, and he sensed as well how many there were. He was a fool. If he stayed wrapped around Sally, they’d cut him to pieces. If he changed form to fight back, one of them might hurt her. He felt her terror, along with her absolute certainty that he would protect her.
Mace lifted straight up into the air. Forget about pride, forget about expectations, forget about political missteps with Eferem—he had a woman to protect and a lot of personal stupidity to make up for. The queen had given her permission when it came to emergencies. He just wished she’d given the same exception when it came to killing. Changing to his natural shape, he retreated, rising dozens of feet into the air in seconds. Sally was safely inside him. The crossbow bolts that had struck him clattered to the ground.
He crested the ridge, then moved as fast and low to the ground as he could toward the valley on the far side, just in case his bad luck kept up and an Eferem battler saw him. From behind, he sensed the triumph of a group of bandits who shouldn’t have been victorious, and the despair of a boy who’d once again been left behind.
Chapter Eight
Mace caught up with Ruffles only a mile from the ridge, out in the middle of the valley they’d so blithely traversed. He scooped the dog up into his mantle without slowing and fled to the hills on the far side, carrying both the animal and Sally to a covered grove not so dissimilar from the one in which they’d spent the previous night. It was far enough away that they wouldn’t be in danger anytime soon.
He set both passengers down, the dog shaking and Sally stumbling at the sudden change, and became human, crashing to his knees in the thick bed of pine needles. His form appeared perfect, but he’d been hurt by those crossbow bolts, hurt far more than expected.
“Mace!” Sally gasped, dropping to her knees beside him and grabbing his arm. Ruffles frantically leaped up on the other side to lick his face.
“I’m fine,” he told her, even as he let her ease him back onto the ground. Her quickly doffed cloak was wadded up and shoved under his head.
Mace looped an arm around Ruffles’s neck, scratching her ears as he drew deeply from the dog’s energy. He wasn’t a healer, though; he could only fix his own wounds to a degree. They’d get better or they wouldn’t, or he’d find a healer sylph. There weren’t many options in between.
“You’re hurt,” Sally said, sitting by his side and cupping his cheek with one