Crossover 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book One' (30 page)

I started. “What? Who?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t really care who
they are. What I want to know is why they are following you
around.” He took a drink.

I leaned back against him. “Where are
they?”

“See Taylor’s booth?” He made a point
of looking somewhere else.

“Yes.”

“He has a green tunic. Blond hair. His
nose is a bit crooked. I noticed him yesterday. It seems he brought
a few friends back with him tonight.”

I took a quick look but made as if I
was scanning the crowd. “I see him.” I took a drink. “Why don’t we
just go ask them?”

“I don’t think that is a good idea. If
it was for any good reason, they would have introduced themselves
by now.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe we should head back to Tara and
Ben’s,” suggested Dawn.

Lantoc and Tara came to sit with
us.

“I saw seven,” confirmed
Lantoc.

“Did everyone notice but me?” I
asked.

“Notice what?” asked Mel.

“Hayden is being followed,” explained
Dawn. “I didn’t notice.”

Mel shook her head.

“I did. But I’ve been guarding her for
seven years. It’s second nature,” said Tara before taking a
drink.

“If we leave now, we lose the security
of the crowd.” Brice was trying to sit like everything was
normal.

“There’s nine of us, and seven of them.
I don’t think they’ll try anything,” reasoned Ben.

“Ten,” corrected Lantoc. “I may be old,
but I still have some fight left in me.” He grinned at
me.

I heard a snort behind us.

“Are you sure?” asked Jasper. He
listened to what Dodge had to say.

“What?”

“He counted eight. He also passed
himself off as one of the drink vendor’s horses and listened to two
of them. They are with the guard. There is an order out to find you
and bring you to the queen since I obviously didn’t.”

“But how do they know I’m
me?”

“Dodge said that someone in the village
told a friend, who told someone else, and so on.”

Shanus, Prense and Phlann trotted up to
us. “Do we have a plan?” asked Shanus.

“You have to go back,” mumbled
Jasper.

“But…”

“You have to.” He sounded miserable.
“At least until things quiet down here.”

“Take her to the lake crossing,” Tara
told Jasper. “She’ll know where she is when she gets over there and
it’s only four days away.”

He nodded.

Lantoc was thinking hard. “Jasper, you
and Brice take a walk. Head into town, pretend you’re going home.
Detour back so that you’re waiting by the cliffs. Dodge, you’ll
have to meet them there. Mel, you’ll need to switch dresses with
Hayden. And your cloaks. Cover your heads when you leave the rooms.
When you get back here, we’ll all start heading home. Luke, you’ll
take Hayden, who they’ll think is Mel, for a walk. Get her to
Jasper.” He took a long swallow of his drink, his eyes sparkling
with excitement. “We’ll take care of the rest.”

My stomach was in knots.

Jasper kissed my neck and I shivered.
“I love you.”

I turned back and kissed him softly. “I
love you more.”

He took a deep breath and stood,
pulling me up with him. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

I tried to smile. “Ok.”

He handed me my cloak, gave me a long
kiss and started to walk away with Brice.

“Hey, Hayden! I have to pee. Come with
me to the rooms.” Mel hooked an arm around my shoulders and we
walked away, giggling at some unheard joke.

Once there, we quickly changed and put
each other’s cloaks on. Hers was black and mine was khaki green.
Here’s hoping they noticed that, I thought as I pulled the black
one on. We both let our hair down. In the dark, all they would
notice was similar dark hair.

We made our way back to the group. Luke
hooked an arm around my waist and leaned down to talk to me. “If
one of them gets too close, pretend you’re enjoying yourself,” he
whispered.

Mel fell back to walk with
Prense.

I wrapped my arm around Luke’s waist
and we all started walking back. At the edge of town, Luke looked
at me. “Feel up to a walk, Love?”

I nodded and we broke away from the
group.

Luke let go of my waist and took my
hand as we made our way leisurely toward the pond.

I heard a twig break behind us and Luke
tensed. He pulled me toward him and turned so that he was facing
whoever was coming.

He glanced behind me and back down to
me.

“My love, I have wanted to get you
alone since you walked down the stairs this evening. Let’s take
advantage of the fact the kids aren’t around.”

He cupped my face in his hands and
brought his lips down to mine.

My eyes widened, but I remembered what
he had told me. I brought my hands up to lace in his hair and let
my body melt into his. I noticed he was holding the hood on my
cloak up so it wouldn’t fall.

This is so wrong, I thought to myself.
I started to tense.

He moved me bit so that my back was up
against a tree and he was facing in the direction of the road. His
lips moved along my jaw line and his hands moved down my sides,
under my cloak to grasp my bottom.

“God, Mel, I love you.”

I caught my breath with the realization
of how he was managing. I closed my eyes and thought of
Jasper.

I moved my hands under his shirt and he
moaned.

Luke lift me up against the tree so he
had to look up to kiss me. My hood hid our faces. I glanced at him.
His eyes were wide and I could tell he was focused solely on
whoever was near us. It was like his body was on
autopilot.

He frowned a bit then picked me up and
lay me down. “Is your knife in your boot?” he whispered while
nibbling on my earlobe. “He’s making sure you’re really Mel, that
we’re not just faking.”

I gave a quick nod.

“Reach down to my belt. Loosen my
dagger.”

I did as he told me and jumped a bit
when his hand went up my skirts. He rubbed up my leg then back
down. He grabbed my ankle and brought my foot up so that my knee
was bent and my boot was hidden by my dress. I felt him undo the
snap that closed the pocket with my knife in it.

He looked at me and gave me a bit of a
goofy grin mixed in with a frown then bent back down to nibble on
my neck. “Look, I would rather not have to take this farther than
we have to, but he’s not going to leave until we do something
drastic, so would you mind pretending I’m doing something amazing
under those skirts with my hand.”

I almost laughed. “This has to be a
first in the world of men,” I whispered to him. “It’s not too often
one of them actually wants a woman to fake it.”

I felt him smile against my
neck.

He moved his hand back up my leg and
let it rest on the inside of my thigh.

I moaned and arched myself against him,
pulling his lips back down to mine.

He ground his hips against mine and
groaned.

I let go of his hair and clutched
handfuls of grass and bucked under him. “Oh, god, Luke!” I panted
then lay relaxed under him.

He kissed me tenderly.

I heard soft footsteps make their way
away from us and I let out a sigh of relief.

Luke glanced sideways then put his
forehead against mine. “I’m sorry. I was really hoping he would
leave after the first few kisses.”

I shook my head. “It worked. That’s
what’s important.”

He gave me a kiss on the forehead.
“Let’s go. Jasper will be worrying.” He took my hand again and we
started to jog to our meeting point.

He looked down at me and laughed.
“You’ve done that before.”

I grinned at him. “I had a quick thing
with a guy that wasn’t quite as attentive as Jasper. Or you for
that matter.”

He blushed. “Sorry. I wanted to make
sure they believed you were her.”

“I almost started to believe I was
her!” I burst out laughing.

He shook his head. “Yes, well, in my
defense, I wasn’t the only one being attentive.” He laughed at my
blush.

I smiled. “Well, we must have done a
good job.”

We ran up a hill and saw the clearing
under the cliffs where we were supposed to meet Jasper.

“There! I can see them.” I pointed to
the three dark figures standing by the woods.

“Let’s go.”

One of the shadows shifted and leaped
across the clearing. Jasper shifted back a few feet in front of us
and gathered me to him.

“Thank the moons,” he whispered. He
looked up at Luke. “Was he really that close?”

“How did you…” Luke’s eyes were
wide.

“I can feel what she’s feeling. She was
scared, and then… Well, then she was definitely not
scared.”

I turned red.

“Of course he was that close! If you
think I would do anything like that with anyone other than Mel!”
Luke was furious. “And to your mate? You’re my brother!” He turned
and punched a tree then stalked off into the woods.

“Jasper…”

He glared at me.

“He was trying to get me to you. I
almost gave us away. I almost couldn’t do it. So I thought of you.
That’s why I felt how I felt.”

His eyes softened a bit.

“Luke kept apologizing. He really
didn’t want to. And we managed to fool him without doing anything
drastic.” I took his hands. “Go get him. Talk to him. He loves you,
Jasper.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

I kissed him softly. “Go.”

He shifted and ran off in the direction
Luke had taken.

Dodge trotted up to me and nuzzled my
face.

“Hey buddy. Are you going to be coming
back with me?”

He shook his head.

“He wouldn’t have anywhere to stay and
he can’t be found wandering around over there,” explained
Brice.

“Yeah. I’d feel weird putting you in a
stall now, anyway.” I gave him a pat.

“He will travel with you a few days so
you can reach the crossing faster.”

I turned to the sounds of footsteps
coming behind us. Jasper and Luke were coming back. I
smiled.

Luke pulled me into a hug. “You be
careful, little sister. I would hate for all of that to have been
for nothing.” He smiled and kissed my forehead.

I laughed. “You guys are hilarious. It
is way safer over there than over here. I’ll be fine.”

I swung on to Dodge and rearranged my
skirts. “Brice, I want you to do something for me while I’m gone,
if you can.”

“What’s that?” He kept looking into the
woods.

I laughed. “Learn to relax.”

He turned and grinned at me. “I’ll
try.” He gave a wave as Dodge spun and galloped off into the woods.
Jasper shifted and followed after us.

We kept the fast pace up until the sun
came up. We reached a little stream about mid-morning and
stopped.

I slid off of Dodge and tried to brush
all of the horse hair off of my dress.

“Man, I wish I had my pants.” I bent
over the stream and washed my face before taking a drink out of my
hands.

“Are you hungry or can you wait till we
are a bit farther away.” Jasper was frowning.

“I can wait.”

He nodded. “Let’s go then.”

I glanced at him.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just haven’t seen you like
this in a while.”

He was glancing around the woods. “Like
what?”

“All business.”

He stopped looking around and came to
give me a hug. “I need to make you safe. Then I can
relax.”

“I’ll be fine.” My voice caught in my
throat and I cleared it.

“What are you worried
about?”

“It’s just that…” I felt a tear slip
down my face. “I don’t want to leave you.”

I heard him swallow hard and he put his
chin on my head. “I don’t want you to go,” he whispered. He kissed
my forehead. “I just don’t see what else to do right
now.”

He took my hand and led me to Dodge.
“Let’s go. We want to keep the lead we have on them.”

I swung on and grabbed handfuls of
mane.

We loped off, getting closer to a
moment I didn’t want to come.

It was close to supper time before we
stopped again. Jasper went off to find something to eat while I
started a fire.

I lay my cloak on the ground and sat
down. “They’ll come after him, won’t they?” I asked
Dodge.

He nodded his head.

“Is he going back to our
clearing?”