Eden-South (24 page)

Thankfully, her father had notified the
guards that she would be leaving the city after dark, so she didn’t
have to sneak across the field like she had the other night she had
visited the cabin. She knew they’d be up there watching her
progress carefully, ready to protect her should the situation call
for it. As she neared the edge of the forest, she heard footsteps
behind her, and turned to see something she hadn’t expected.

As they walked toward the tavern, Aiden
couldn’t help but feel bad about leaving Elisa alone again. She
always seemed to be absent during the evenings. No one really knew
what she did with herself exactly. Logan seemed to be regaining his
spirits slowly, trying his best to put on a brave face. Aiden could
only imagine the conflict rising inside him at that moment. It was
unimaginable to think that your family was in immediate danger, and
there was nothing you could do about it. Wolf tried to keep the
mood light, joking around with them about the women they’d each
take home that night. Aiden had yet to sleep with a girl, finding
himself painfully awkward around them when put in those situations.
He hadn’t told the others that, knowing they’d never leave him
alone if he did.

“How about one with a big butt, eh, Logan?
You always like the curvy girls,” Wolf said playfully.

Aiden laughed, trying to keep his mood as
positive as he could for Logan’s sake. His thoughts were focused on
all the other people that had already died, and about poor Felix,
who sat alone in his room, certainly crying for his loved ones.
They had been talking about them only moments before he found out
that they were now all gone.

The tavern was just around the corner. As
they turned, the three of them came to a sudden halt in front of
Captain Turk.

“Good evening,” he said in his deep voice.
The three of them greeted him together. “Off to get a drink, were
you?”

“Yes, sir,” Wolf answered. “Logan here needs
a good drink, after hearing the news about his village.”

The Captain slowly nodded his head. “I see
my daughter has already come to talk to you. Did she not tell you
the other news?”

They all looked confusedly at one another,
and Logan shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t think so?” Wolf answered.

The Captain sighed. “Figures,” he muttered.
“That girl is one of the most stubborn creatures I’ve ever met,” he
said, almost to himself. Aiden saw Wolf nod in agreement beside
him. He tried to hold back his smile. “I’ve sent her to see the
witch, and ask Diana to send her to the emerald fields this
evening.”

“How is that possible?” Logan asked.

“The witch has a way. Don’t ask me to
elaborate, because I don’t know. I need her to find a position in
the trees there, before the battle takes place. I instructed her to
tell the lot of you, so you could go with her. I don’t need her in
a place like that at night, all alone.”

“She never said a word to us about it,”
Aiden said, shocked that she would want to go somewhere like that
alone. Wolf didn’t look surprised at all, Aiden noted.

“Don’t worry, sir. We’ll catch up with her,”
Wolf said firmly.

The three of them headed back toward the
city gates in a hurry.

“Why does she do things like this?” Wolf
muttered angrily to himself. He was clearly annoyed with her,
although Aiden guessed he was also a bit concerned.

“Aw, this is just how she is,” Logan said
lightly. “She always thinks she can handle any situation by
herself. It would have killed her to ask us to come along. She
would have seen it as asking us for help, which she would probably
rather die than do.” Aiden smiled, thinking he was probably 100
percent right. Elisa was stubborn like that.

“I almost wanted to curse in front of the
Captain right now,” Wolf continued, seeming to ignore them. “I
should have known something was up. I could tell she was hiding
something.”

Logan looked over at Aiden and rolled his
eyes, smiling. “They just drive each other nuts, don’t they?” he
remarked, laughing. Aiden laughed back, but inside he felt a sudden
pang of jealousy. They hated each other, didn’t they? Every time he
saw them together they were at each other’s throats. Elisa couldn’t
stand him, Aiden told himself. He tried to push the feelings away,
focusing on reaching her before something happened.

As they came to the gates, they saw Felix
standing there.

“Hey,” Aiden called out. He was happy to see
him already out of his room. Felix’s face looked red, probably from
crying, but he wore a weak smile on his face.

“I was just going to come looking for you
guys,” he said as they approached. “The guards said they saw you
head toward the tavern.”

“We were, until the Captain told us we
needed to go on a little trip with Elisa,” Aiden explained.

“She’s already gotten a head start, so we
have to keep going,” Wolf said, moving past Felix in a hurry. “You
coming?”

Felix looked at Aiden, who just shrugged his
shoulders. He fell in beside them, heading out of the gates,
without even knowing where they were headed. She hadn’t gotten very
far—they could see her still in the field. Wolf instructed them to
run, so they all hurried across the field, reaching her just as she
made it to the forest’s edge.

“What are you all doing here?” she asked,
her voice betraying her annoyance. Her father had told her to bring
them, afraid that it could be dangerous for her to be so far from
home in the middle of the night. She knew she didn’t need them,
though. She was skilled enough to defend herself.

“You were supposed to bring us,” Wolf said
accusingly. This made her defence rise to its fullest. She hated
when he used that tone of voice with her. It was like he was
talking down to her, like he was in charge. No one was in charge of
her, but her. She straightened herself up and walked over to him
defiantly.

“I don’t need you here,” she spat back,
keeping her body close to his, so he wouldn’t think she was
intimidated. She saw the other boys stand back hesitantly, none of
them wanting to get in the middle of things.

“Yes, you do, and even if you think you
don’t, your Captain gave you an order! How dare you just disregard
his instructions!”

“Oh, you’re one to talk, like you listen to
instructions that are given to you! Nothing bad is going to happen.
I don’t need you all here.” She turned to look at the others,
seeing the nervous faces on poor Aiden and Felix. Logan was used to
their bickering. “No offence to you guys, of course.” They smiled
slightly, if not somewhat strained.

“Just because you can use a bow and arrow,
doesn’t mean you’re invincible. If a man who is much stronger than
you came up and grabbed you, you’d be helpless.” Wolf’s eyes, she
noticed, burned with anger. Elisa didn’t know what it was—the idea
that he was being left out of something or the fact that he
couldn’t control her like he did most women.

“That’s not true,” she started, but stopped
as the breath got squeezed out of her. Wolf held her in a tight
embrace, crushing her to his body. Her arms were pinned to her
sides. As she tried to wiggle her way out, she realized quickly it
was useless. It killed her to admit it, but he was right. Her bow
and arrow were only inches away on her back, but she had no way to
get to them.

“Okay, okay,” she gasped, finding it hard to
breathe. All the muscles in his arms were flexed as he held her in
his embrace.. “I said okay, Wolf! I get your point. You win.” As
the last two words came out, he released his hold, and she fell
with a thud to the ground. Her ribs were sore, and it took her a
minute to regain her normal breathing. Aiden walked over to help
her up, reaching a hand down toward her.
At least one of them
has manners,
she thought bitterly.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling. Rubbing her
ribcage, she looked over resentfully at Wolf. “Did you have to do
that so hard?”

“How else would you learn?” he said,
smirking. She hated it when he smirked; it made her want to walk
over and slap it right off his face. He always thought he knew
everything, and it killed her to have given in this time.

“Well, if you’re all coming, then let’s go.
We don’t have all night,” she said, turning around to head into the
forest.

Elisa led the way, since she was the only
who had been to the cabin before. Aiden obviously had been there,
but the others didn’t know that, and he wouldn’t have been able to
remember his way anyway. Certainly not in the dark like this. She
crouched along the forest floor, putting her hand up to halt the
others behind her. Wolf was close behind—she could hear his
breathing as if it were right in her ear.

“Could you stop that for one minute,” she
hissed.

“Stop what?” he whispered.

“Breathing!” She heard him suck in his
breath and hold it. She smiled triumphantly in the dark, and then
focused on hearing the sounds in the forest. The others weren’t
used to things like this, not like she was. As an archer, she would
often spend her time in the forest, training amongst the trees and
animals. It was much harder to hit a moving target with a bow, than
it was to just hit a target board. Suddenly, Wolf let out all his
breath in one whoosh.

“Are you trying to kill me, Elisa?” he cried
out softly. She smiled to herself, motioning with her hand for them
to move on. They all made their way through the forest in good
time. Elisa could see the river that was close to Diana’s property
not far away. As she reached the clearing, she held up her hand for
them to stop again. There were no animals drinking by the water,
but Elisa knew that Aziz’s beasts often kept to the shadows,
waiting for unsuspecting animals to come and drink before
attacking. She looked carefully into the darkness that surrounded
the small clearing, trying to make out any shapes hidden there.
They had yellow eyes, the beasts, but they didn’t quite glow in the
dark like most animals’, making them harder to spot.

Everything looked clear, but they’d have to
move fast just to be sure. Elisa turned her head back to speak to
them, knocking her forehead into Wolf’s. They both cried out, Elisa
falling over, holding her head in pain, and Wolf rubbing his with a
smile on his face. Aiden and Logan started to laugh.

“What the hell are you doing?” she spat
out.

Wolf started to laugh. “I didn’t expect you
to turn so suddenly.”

“Why were you so close?”

He shrugged casually. “I wanted to see what
you were looking for.”

“Are you all right?” Aiden asked, still
laughing at her.

Elisa tried to hold onto her anger, but as
she looked back at Aiden, she couldn’t help but start laughing. It
really was a stupid move on their part, and it was quite funny.
Even Felix started to laugh from somewhere behind Aiden in the
dark. Wolf walked over and reached down, grabbing her hand and
pulling her up in one fluid motion.

“Sorry about that,” he said, chuckling.

“All right, all right,” she said, trying to
get them to calm down. “If the beasts didn’t know we were here
before, they do now, so we’d better hurry. Be careful through this
clearing: they wait in the dark for other animals to enter it, so
it is quite possible they’ll attack us as we cross the water.”

This speech sobered them up quickly. They
all prepared themselves to run, waiting for her signal. She
crouched over to the edge again, looking around the clearing to see
if anything had changed. She didn’t see anything at first, and was
about to turn and tell them to go, but then she saw him. It was
only a slight movement of its ear, but it was all she needed to
make out his position. The beast lay on his stomach on the far side
of the river, keeping his body rounded, to make it look almost like
a rock. Other animals would most likely mistake it for this,
without realizing its true nature before it was too late. Elisa saw
him, though—he wouldn’t outsmart her. She held up her hand and
placed her finger to her lips, telling them to be quiet.

Slowly, she lowered herself down on the
ground, flattening her stomach on the forest floor. She pulled out
an arrow from her bag, extra slowly, so she didn’t alert the beast.
As far as he was concerned, his disguise was working. She counted
on his not breaking it, at the risk of showing himself to them. She
lay the bow horizontally on the ground, keeping her face only
inches above it. Taking the arrow, she pulled it back to her chest,
and then she waited patiently. The beast would become curious as to
why they were taking so long and would most likely open its eyes to
look their way. She couldn’t see them at the moment, so he must
have been keeping them shut to hide himself. She would need to see
them, though, if she was going to judge where his head was amongst
the furry mass of his body.

It didn’t take long for the stupid thing to
give in. She saw the yellow of his eye gleam only slightly in the
dark, but it was enough. Elisa let the arrow go in one smooth
motion, and it wisped through the air, sinking deep into the
animal’s skull. She smiled slightly to herself, getting back up on
her feet. She looked back at the boys.

“All right, we’re good to go,” she said,
leading the way into the clearing. All four guys looked stunned as
they followed her out. She smiled again to herself. They were close
to the cabin now—their journey was almost over.

The arrow flew through the sky effortlessly,
finding the target within seconds. Aiden’s jaw dropped when he
realized what she was shooting at. None of them had even seen the
beast before she killed it. As she lay on the ground, they had all
looked at one another confusedly, but now it all made sense. As
they followed her into the clearing, each one of them looked at her
with admiration. If they weren’t all in love with her before, they
were now, thought Aiden. Elisa was literally the most beautiful,
skilled woman he had ever laid eyes on.