Shades Of Dark by Justin Sloan & Michael Anderle

Author:Justin Sloan & Michael Anderle [Sloan, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2017-07-10T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

On the outskirts of the village, hidden just at the tree line beyond the main entryway, Kia watched a guard pass. The guard was a woman, tall and broad-shouldered, with frizzy black hair that stuck out the back of her cap of a helmet.

“What’re you doing?” Lannis whispered. Kia held a finger to her lips, simply continuing to watch.

“You studying her movements? What?”

This time Kia gave him a harsh glare, put the finger to his lips and then turned back. It wasn’t that. She was here to save the mystics, to do her part for this world. She hadn’t counted on this guardswoman looking so much like her mom. She definitely hadn’t counted on getting teary eyes at the very beginning of their rescue mission, and it pissed her off that all she wanted to do was sit down, eat a slice of cake she didn’t have, and remember the good ol’ days.

Like the time her mom had taken her on guard duty, parading her around the village like a little warrior. How Kia had laughed when her mom pretended a tree was an intruder and they fought it off together. Well, they hadn’t really fought it off, but they had accidentally broken one of its branches.

She smiled, biting her lip, then noticed Lannis staring at her like she was a crazy person.

“Shut up.”

“I honestly didn’t say anything that time,” Lannis protested.

“Let’s…find another way. I don’t want this lady to get into trouble.” Kia waited, gave the guard one more look, and then turned back into the trees and made her way along the wall in the opposite direction.

“We could’ve snuck past her,” Lannis said. “I’ve snuck past more attentive guards, trust me.”

“And what reason did you have for all this sneaking?” She stopped at a tree and then leaped up to grab the lowest branch, using her feet to push off the trunk and climb.

“You could say I have an addiction,” the boy confessed, grabbing the branch with one hand, but needing her to reach down and help him up with the other. “An addiction to goat cheese, actually. I mean, it’s bad! Sometimes in the middle of the night I used to sneak into the inn where they had it and get me some.”

“Not anymore?”

The boy chuckled. “No need. The owner of the place had a cat that almost got drowned in a river, and I saved it. All the cheese I can eat, the guy says. Little does he know, I can eat a heck of a lot of cheese. Probably more cheese than that cat’s worth.”

“A cat can be worth more than all the cheese in the world to the right owner.”

“What kind of person thinks that way?” he said with a scoff as he followed her up to the next branch, the one that leaned out toward the wall.

“A person with a heart much bigger than yours, apparently.”

“Hey, my heart’s the same size as anyone else’s.”

She paused at the point where the branch was starting to get too thin, and considered their options.

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