Wolves & Warriors: A Limited Collection of Paranormal and Sci-Fi Romances by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Parker Bright Publishing
Published: 2022-06-06T18:30:00+00:00

❖ ❖ ❖

The bandits were leaving. Many had thrown themselves into the river in their madness; others had regained their ships and were retreating down the water.

I raced back down to camp. Hoplites were chucking river water over the places that still smoldered. The wounded were being dragged from the riverbank.

“Orestes!” I called, tugging a panicked Kymaitha after me. “Orestes? Have you seen him?”

“The captain?” A hoplite turned toward me. “He’s still down by the burning poplar.”

I ran there. Many men were trying to douse the tree as far as they could throw water. All around, the wounded were being hauled or carried away back to camp.

And there… sitting up with an arm curled around himself, and many men crowding him, was Orestes.

I gained his side, crashing down on my knees. He was breathing hard, shaking his head as his fellows tried to coax him onto a sheet.

“Take the others… just take the others, damn you,” he was saying.

“Captain, please.”

But he wouldn’t have it. I crept closer as his men all did his bidding and took care of several other wounded instead of him.

He had blood seeping heavily from under his armor. There was a chink; a cut through his straps, as though a blade had slid in the interstices.

“Orestes,” I breathed as I reached for him.

He looked up at the sound of my voice. “Sweetheart,” he grunted. “What are you still doing here?”

“Why won’t you let them take you?” I chastised him. “I can take you – let me take you to your healer’s tent.”

He shook his head. “Nothing the healers can do now.”

Then he groaned in pain, and I helped him lay on the ground, where he hissed in and out as he tried to hold onto consciousness. I plucked off his helmet, and to my horror, I found the metal had singed burn marks across his skin.

“It’s a good thing,” he muttered. “Good that you came tonight. That way I’ll still be wearing a kiss from you… when I cross the Styx.”

“Don’t, don’t talk like that,” I insisted. “You’ll be fine.”

I stroked the hair from his face as he went on wheezing with difficulty.

“Are you the one… that summoned him?” he asked. “Pan… I heard Pan’s flutes.”

“I did.”

He grinned. “See? I told you he’d come. Nobody could hold a grudge… against a sweet thing like you.”

I sniffed, wiping at my face. He closed his eyes, and I knelt there, holding onto what part of him I could even as his blood seeped across the grass.

Pan’s flutes were on the air again. This time it was low and far more bearable; twin notes that looped together in a plaintive melody. As though he were letting us know that he was still there.

Hoplites gathered around us again. For a moment they all hovered there, mute before the sight of their vanquished captain.

And an idea struck me. Pan had taken up his flutes and defended this place of his own volition; I hadn’t really asked for a favor tonight. Not yet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.