Falling Hard (Veronica's Secret) (4 page)

Marissa moved quickly for a short old woman. Veronica struggled to keep up with her. She kept her hood up over her head to keep people in the city from possibly recognizing her. In all of her nineteen years, she’d rarely ever been allowed to go out into the city, but she’d bet
that some of the citizens knew what she looked like.

She’d never met Marissa’s sister, but she’d heard of her as the local fortune teller. The rumors said that she couldn’t heal a paper cut if she tried, but she could read about people’s futures better than anyone else.

Veronica followed Marissa into a shadowed alley. Babies could be heard crying and people shouted through the thin walls of the lower city. The old woman produced a tiny key from the pocket of her colorful dress and used it to open a door.

Locking the door behind
them, Marissa ushered her up a set of barely lit-stairs and through a beaded curtain.

A woman that looked
as if she could be Marissa’s twin sat in a wooden chair on the far side of the room with a huge book resting in her lap. They were so similar-looking, yet different in subtle ways.

She looked to be studying it so intently
that she didn’t notice them enter.

“Clarissa,” whispered Marissa.

Clarissa? Their mother must have hated them. How could she keep them straight?

Clarissa looked up from the book with a scowl that matched Marissa’s. Veronica laughed, which got her an even dirtier scowl from both of the women.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that you both look so much alike. It’s kinda scary.”

Clarissa set the book she’d been reading down carefully, and made her way to where the two of them stood. All the while she stared at Ver
onica like she was a spectacle.

“Sister, why have you not brought this girl to me sooner?” Clarissa took hold of one of Veronica’s hands and studied her palm like the book she’d just been reading.

“I didn’t know until just now. I wasn’t gifted with your sight, sister.” Marissa huffed and stomped off to snoop through the book that now sat on the table beside the wooden chair.

Clarissa didn’t seem to care. Her full attention was on Veronica’s palm. “A great change is happening in and around you.”

Yeah, tell me about it,
thought Veronica.
I’m being forced to marry a prince from Yarinna.

“A death is soon to come,” continued Clarissa without looking up to see her reaction. “You will make a choice
. A big one. Soon.” She dropped Veronica’s hand and raised one hand slowly toward Veronica’s forehead. Her hand moved so slowly—as if she dreaded what would happen when she touched the young girl.

Clarissa’s thumb landed directly in the center of her forehead, and Veronica’s vision went blank. She saw only white
, as if she was lost in an endless snow scape.

“What did you do to me?” Veronica tried to pull away from her, but she couldn’t. She knew the woman wasn’t holding on to her, but still she was frozen there in place.

“Hush, girl,” grunted Clarissa.

What felt like only a moment later, her sight returned, and Clarissa was no longer standing before her. Veronica was shocked to see the two older women sitting together on a bench seat,
poring over the giant book. They spoke to each other in whispers.

“Did I black out? What happened?”

Neither of them looked up, so Veronica walked over to the abandoned wooden chair and plopped down. No sun peeked in through the curtains.

“It’s nighttime? How long was I standing ove
r there?”

Her voice sounded like the screech of a tea pot
at boil.

Neither of the women looked up, but Marissa spoke. “All afternoon, child. You are probably tired. There is a bedroom through there.” She pointed to another beaded curtain on the other side of them. “I’ve sent a message to your father. We’ll sleep here for the night.”

“But …”

“Don’t backtalk me, girl. We’ll chat in the morning.” Marissa waved her hand at Veronica in dismissal, and didn’t say another word.

Veronica stomped off through the beaded curtain as if she were a child again, and threw herself onto the lumpy bed. She couldn’t sleep. Too many strange things had happened that day. She wished she could have Aaron by her side to comfort her, but knew that would never happen again.

Aaron walked the entire day and into the night without a single clue as to what happened to his sister. He found a crack in a cliff face to slip inside and sleep for the night.

He fell to his knees, exhausted from an emotional day in the sun. He wouldn’t allow himself to believe
Nayla was dead. All he could do was focus on getting back to the city Atarris, where he could be reunited with her and see Veronica again.

Veronica.
The thought of her made his heart ache. He pulled a bottle of whiskey out of his pack. The more he drank from the bottle, the more real she became in his mind.

Again she danced before him. The moonlight made her pale skin glow. The sight of her beautiful breasts bouncing as she danced gave him an erection. He took another swig of the whiskey, and imagined her laying down before him as she had the night before. He crawled over to her, savoring the sight and smell of her.

“Veronica, my love,” he whispered into the darkness. “I want to watch you touch yourself.”

She gave him a bashful grin. Their last night together had been their first as well. They hadn’t had the chance to experiment with new and exciting things. Aaron could imagine her reacting however he wanted, and that just added to
the swelling inside his pants.

Her bashful innocence turned him on like nothing else.

One of her hands slid down her body and paused just below her belly button. She let out a barely audible giggle as her cheeks flushed.

“It’s okay, baby. Show me how you please yourself.”

Her fingers slid down the rest of the way and gently pushed apart the lips of her sweet glistening pussy. Her other hand slid down too, while she used two fingers to massage her swollen clit.

Aaron could see she was excited. Her wetness glistened in the moonlight. Her breathing quickened and her back arched ever so slightly.

Aaron opened his eyes for a moment. His cock wanted her to be real. He craved a taste of her sweetness, the smell of her excitement.

He stroked his erection gently.

In his mind he imagined that Veronica sat up and crawled seductively over to him, wrapping her soft fingers around his shaft, and stroked him.

After a moment, he imagined gently pushing her away. “No, tonight isn’t about pleasing me. It’s about pleasing you. Turn around.”

She did as he asked, until she was lying on her back in front of him again. He leaned his head down between her legs until his tongue tasted the sweetness of her juicy pussy.

Aaron could almost imagine the taste of her in his mouth. His tongue taunted her clit while his fingers penetrated her. She squirmed and moaned in pure heated pleasure as he stroked his erection
with renewed vigor. It didn’t take long for him to get to the point of eruption. He remembered their night together so vividly. The vision shifted to that moment when she reached her climax.

It had felt so amazing to have her warm body wrapped around him.

He held back his moans as the tension in his body released with his ejaculation. If there were grolls in the area, they would surely hear him. He spared little of his attention to that, though. The release of his hunger for her brought back the pain of losing her.

Aaron downed more of the bottle of whiskey until he passed out against the cold hard wall of stone.

The next morning Aaron’s head ached. He stumbled out of the crack in the rock in search of the stream he’d seen on his way there.

Once he found the stream, he ripped his clothes off and dove into the chilled water. It wasn’t deep. The smooth rock bottom of the streambed kept him from drowning himself in his misery. After scrubbing himself practically raw, he drug his aching body out of the stream and pulled his clothes back on.

Aaron didn’t want to face another lonely day of walking, but he knew if he wanted to find Nayla, he had to keep moving. So, he grudgingly dragged himself back over to his pack, grabbed a snack for the road, and headed for Atarris.

The sun and wind dried him quickly. The early mornings were cool in the Kingdom of
Palinna. Once the sun rose above the mountains to the east, the temperature would warm considerably.

The plains of
Palinna were beautiful. The mountains appeared to be purple in the shadows before the sun crested over them. The grass was greener and lusher than any of the other plains regions. The soil was the most fertile too, but not much of it could be farmed in these times. The trees towered over the ground like fluffy green clouds.

“It’s a shame no one can look at all of this anymore
,” Aaron said to no one. “We’ve got to do something about the groll attacks.”

That night he saw signs that he was nearing the city. He knew that meant it would be sometime the next afternoon before he would reach it on foot, so he found a place to sleep before the sun went down.

Considering himself lucky to not have run into any grolls, Aaron found a nook inside a bed of bushes to burrow into. He drifted immediately to sleep, dreaming of finding Nayla safe inside the city.

Thick clouds rolled in overnight, casting deep shadows across the plains. Aaron guessed the storm would hit him within an hour, so he ate quickly, and left.

He ran as much as he could stand to run. After just a short time, the downpour began. The water made his pack feel as heavy as a boulder. Mostly, he tried to keep his eyes on the ground to keep from tripping in the mud.

Once in a while he would look up to make sure he still headed in the right direction. One time he looked up and a splash of yellow caught his eye.

Three people trudged through the mud ahead of him. Two were clearly men, one was a woman dressed in yellow. They moved slower than he did
; the girl looked too exhausted to move very fast.

“Hey there,” Aaron yelled ahead.

The three of them whipped around. The woman was Nayla. “Aaron?” she yelled over the pounding of the rain.

Aaron charged ahead until he could reach out and embrace his sister.

Her eyes were rimmed in red. “I thought you were dead! We couldn’t find your body.”

“I’m sorry,
Nayla. I’m so sorry. I ran off that night. I wasn’t even there.”

The two guards looked nearly as relieved to see him as she did. The two people they were hired to keep safe were both still alive.

“Let’s keep moving,” commanded Aaron. “We need to get back to the Atarris before more grolls find us.”

Aaron and
Nayla walked hand in hand while one of the guards walked in front and the other behind. Progress slowed as the rain continued to muddy the landscape.

What Aaron thought was late afternoon came, and their pace
slowed. The sky grew darker, and the storm raged harder. They could only see ahead of them by the light of the lightning flashing through the sky.

So intent
were they on putting one foot safely in front of the other that the snarls of the grolls nearby caught all four of them completely by surprise.

Nayla
screamed. The three men grouped themselves around her. Four hairy bear-like men surrounded them. They stood at least a head taller than all of them, and their fingers ended in massive claws.

“What a surprise,” one of them growled. “Just the one we were looking for.”

Aaron had never heard of grolls speaking their language before, although not many people lived to tell the tale of their attacks, either.

They grunted in what appeared to be their own language, then three of them dove in towards the two guards. The third, the one who spoke common, watched the battle intently.

One of the grolls raked a claw across one of the guard’s legs, sending him sprawling to the ground. He whimpered as blood gushed from his wound. The groll cut the guard’s arms up as they wrestled on the ground together, but didn’t kill him. He left him there, immobilized.

Nayla
squealed and backed away. Aaron wrapped his arm around her, and pulled her to him as the other guard threw himself at the oncoming attack.

But, they were all exhausted, and the
grolls were not. The second guard was easily taken down with a claw to his chest and bite through his neck, leaving only Aaron and Nayla in the fight. Neither were skilled in fighting.

The
grolls stopped attacking then. Two of them grabbed hold of Aaron by circling around behind him, and the third snatched up Nayla. The one who spoke before stepped up to face Aaron.

“You are the one Master wants.”

“What do you mean? Who is your master?” Aaron tried to sound tough, but he was scared down to his core.

The
groll snarled. “Take the boy. Kill the girl. Leave the guard that isn’t dead. Someone will need to live to tell the tale.”

The one who spoke walked up to the terrified and injured gu
ard. “I have a message for the Princess. This must reach her ears only. If anyone else hears it, I’ll personally hunt down your entire family and eat them alive.”

The guard stuttered and shivered. “I s-s-swear. I … I’ll only t-t-tell her.”

“Good. Tell Princess Veronica we’ll take care of him until she comes to get him. Tell her to head straight east beyond her borders. I will find her and guide her to my master. Do you understand this?”

The guard nodded fiercely then scooted away from the
groll.

The
groll in charge turned and headed east, gesturing for the others to follow.

Aaron and
Nayla both screamed, as he was dragged away kicking and screaming, unable to watch the beast descend upon Nayla.

Her screams grew horrified and frant
ic before suddenly cutting off.

Aaron kicked, screamed, and cried until he passed out from exhaustion and despair
.