Healed (Book Three of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel by Hazel Hunter

Author:Hazel Hunter [Hunter, Hazel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allure Press
Published: 2015-06-04T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE COLD WAS unlike anything that Liona had ever known. Rome cooled in the winter, but there was never this soul-killing cold. She wrapped herself in the thick wool cloak, and Lucius showed her how to stuff her boots with duck feathers to keep in the warmth. The tiny, hide tent that they used was frigid at night, but when they rose in the morning, they could feel how much colder it was outside.

Lucius had awakened from his gray depression, but there was something dark and driven about him now. They spoke infrequently, and at night, they clung to each other. Sometimes they made love, and sometimes they were silent.

To Liona, Rome was like a distant memory, something far away and dreamlike. She had never felt further from Augusta. Sometimes, she imagined a silvery gray and tenuous cord between the two of them. Some days, it felt strong enough that she could follow it to her sister, but other days, it felt like it was so frail that it must break.

They were exhausted, running out of food, and high in the northern parts of Gaul when the eagle appeared. Liona spotted it first. It lofted high above them, its wingspan enormous.

“Is it a seabird?” she asked uncertainly. “I’ve not seen its like before.”

Lucius squinted up at it.

“No, it’s a raptor of some sort. I’ve never seen one so large.”

It circled above them, and Liona got the uncomfortable idea it was watching them. She tried to take it as a good omen. Night was falling. They had a fire built up, small, secretive and smokeless. Lucius sighed.

“I should hunt,” he said reluctantly.

He didn’t like leaving her for the hours it took him to track prey in his wolf form. But it was the fastest and most efficient way to make sure that they both stayed fed. She had reassured him countless times that she would be fine.

Despite her weariness and the cold, she never got tired of watching his form change to that of a wolf’s. It was less like a transformation than a revelation. It was as if a part of him was always the wolf. When he changed shapes, it was simply an easier thing to see.

He nuzzled her hand, dog-like, with his cold nose, making her laugh. Then he leaped over the fire, bounding into the forest. If he was lucky, in a short time, he would have a brace of fat rabbits for the fire. Though some nights he came back with nothing at all.

Liona tended the fire, watching the stars come out slowly. To her curiosity, the eagle was still circling above. She knew that raptors hunted by sight. Soon it would be flying blind. Just as she was wondering if it was ill or maddened somehow, it fell to earth like a stone. At the very last minute, however, it flared its wings, opening them wide to display their real width. Liona stumbled back. The bird was enormous, but it still landed on the opposite side of the fire with an unnatural delicacy and grace.

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