Stranger by Zoë Archer

Author:Zoë Archer [Archer, Zoë]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: SteamPunk, Paranormal, Fiction, Romance, Fantasy, General, Magic, Historical fiction, Paranormal romance stories, Man-woman relationships, Inventors
ISBN: 9781420106824
Publisher: Zebra
Published: 2010-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

A Hunger Not Sated

Seeking an entrance to the magical Otherworld was all well and good, but Catullus was starving. He’d only had a bit of stale bread and some coffee—and that paltry meal had been burned up in the furnace of lovemaking and battle. Though she hadn’t complained, Catullus knew Gemma had to be hungry, as well. She’d had no breakfast. Come to think of it, neither of them had eaten much of anything since yesterday. He had to do something about that.

The desire to provide for her reached into the most primitively male part of him. He found, after years of scrupulously cerebral existence, that he rather liked indulging that aspect of himself. It felt like stretching a long-unused muscle.

He wanted to hunt. With knife and arrow. Cook the animal he killed over an open fire and give her only the choicest morsels. But this was modern England, not the primordial steppes. He’d have to settle for something a little more civilized.

Soon after parting company with the other Blades, he pounded on the door of an isolated farmhouse. A woman in an apron came to the door, peering around it timorously, with a knife held unsteadily in her grip.

Catullus immediately put himself between Gemma and the woman. “Come now, madam,” he soothed, taking a step back and holding up his hands. “No need for that. We’re only travelers in search of a meal.”

The woman visibly relaxed and tucked the knife into her apron pocket. “You near scared the wits out of me,” she laughed, but her laugh was strained and breathless.

“Is anything amiss, madam?” Catullus asked.

“Strange doings, sir. Strange indeed.” The woman, a sturdy country lady, as evidenced by her work-roughened hands, smoothed her apron after taking in the quality—if not the condition—of Catullus’s clothing. “Tom Cole said he went to sell apples in Crowden this morn, and weren’t nothing left of the whole village but rubble and ruin. And not a soul in the place, neither.”

Catullus and Gemma scrupulously avoided looking at one another. “That’s terrible,” Gemma murmured.

The farmwife’s eyes widened with surprise. “Bless me, are you a Yankee?”

“Chicagoan,” Gemma replied.

“That another country?”

“Yes,” said Gemma.

“Well, you’re welcome to this corner of England, miss. But you’ve come at a bad time. All the cows’ milk has spoilt, and folks is afraid to walk the streets at night, what with all the odd beasties roaming up and down. ‘Struth, when I heard you hammering at my door, I thought for certain the gwyllion had come for me.”

“Gwyllion?” asked Catullus.

“The hill faeries, sir,” the woman whispered after first casting a fearful glance over his shoulder. “Frightful creatures my old Welsh mam warned me about. I used to think they were just stories, but after John Deever and Peg Goode got set upon last night and barely made it home alive, and Susan Paley near had her babe stolen from its crib, I didn’t think they’re just stories anymore. With my son gone to Dover for the week, and me alone here, I brought this to the door.

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