Moonshadow (25 page)

Darien laid Diana on the ground and then stood with his back to her, surveying the area for the attackers. He stood firm with his hands out in a strange posture that Diana assumed to be a magical battle stance. Darien looked like he was about to kill someone and Diana knew he probably would if it meant keeping her safe.

The next few moments felt like an eternity as Diana stared into the blackness of night, looking for the enemy. Only the nothingness of the dark woods lay before her eyes. Even though she could feel the intense heat of the burning house, she shivered uncontrollably.

She knew where the attack was coming from.

“Behind you!” she shouted, and Darien swiftly turned around to see a ball of fire the size of a basketball hurtling towards them.

Darien’s arms moved with such grace and precision that Diana almost forgot the fiery ball of death. At his movements, the dirt surrounding them moved with lightning speed and form into a shield, turning from a dark brown into an onyx black in a fraction of a second. Diana felt the surge of the impact between the fireball and the now-stone barrier and then quickly fell to the ground in a ball—as tightly as humanly possible—as the heat of the explosion passed by on all sides.

When Diana opened her eyes, she found Darien on the ground as well, covering her with his body. Seeing her unharmed, he formed a small, arrow-head shaped, flint blade in his hand and swiftly stood up to throw it. With a
thwip
sound, the blade headed in the direction of the fireball attack.

As Diana peeked around the barrier to see if the weapon had hit its mark, she heard the sound of several more blades being thrown from behind her.

It was then that she finally saw the shadowy figure of their attacker, now illuminated by the raging flames of the burning house.  It was a woman—dressed in black leathers with a matching hooded cloak, her face covered by a menacing black mask.

Sensing danger, the shadowy assassin turned around and started to run. Darien quickly threw another flint blade in her direction and the weapon hit its mark at the back of the attacker’s hooded head.

The assailant didn’t fall, however, the blade having only made shallow contact and slicing open the back of her black hood. As the fire mage with murderous intent continued to run, like water from a newly tapped spring, flowed a current of scarlet red hair.

Chapter 13

Though I am Queen I am not free,

Nor is my beloved summer country.

With spear in hand and Chalice at my breast,

I will smite the flames of Rome’s injustice.

“Nothing happened?!” Lani asked in surprise and disbelief from her bed. “How could
nothing
have happened?”

All Diana could do was shrug. She knew this was going to be an uncomfortable conversation. Then again, almost any conversation with Lani Bradley turned uncomfortable, eventually.

“Let me get this straight,” Lani continued. “The two of you go for a romantic drive through the hills, looking at all the pretty leaves; you find an old abandoned plantation, or farmhouse, or whatever; Eric’s car won’t start, and it’s getting dark, so you decide to spend the night in the creepy old house, snuggled up close by the fire; you roll in the next morning doing the walk of shame; and you have the gall to tell me
nothing happened?”
Lani laughed hysterically, “Yeah right!”

“Well, it’s true—sort of,” Diana replied from her own bed.  She pulled her knees up to her chest.

“What do you mean,
sort of
?” Lani gnawed on it like a dog with a bone.

“Well, we did kiss and things started to get very intense,” Diana continued. “
Intense”
is the understatement of the century,
she couldn’t help but think. She still couldn’t shake the term “bonded for life” out of her thoughts.

“What, he couldn’t seal the deal or something?” Lani asked.

Diana felt the heat rushing to her cheeks, no doubt reddening with embarrassment. “No; not like that. We were interrupted.”

“Interrupted by what?” Lani sounded rather skeptical.

By a murderous flame throwing bitch name Terra—or Terraiyah—or whatever the hell her name is—that’s what.

“A pack of crazy rabid raccoons,” Diana lied. “They burst out of the attic into the room. Darien took a piece of wood and shooed them away, but there was no way I was going to stay there all night, so we traipsed through the woods with the flashlight. By the time the battery died we could see the town.”

That part of the story was fairly true. After Terra ran off, they decided not stay amongst the burning ruins of Flinders’ house and brave the forest in the dark. The flames had bathed the woods in enough light that they could find their way. When they finally saw the town it had felt as if they had died and gone to heaven. Sometime later, they happened upon an old mechanic’s garage with a beat up old 50’s pickup truck out parked out front. The kindly old man who owned the garage was sensitive to their plight and offered to drive them back to Columbus.

Just to be safe, Darien rode in the truck bed the whole way home.

When they arrived back at campus, Darien had the old man to drop Diana off first and all she had wanted to do was sleep—she’d even been ready to brave the nightmares of the Veil if she’d had to. Unfortunately, Lani had been wide awake and staring at Diana as she walked into the room, eager for juicy gossip.

With an exhausted sigh, Diana looked at the clock on her dresser—it was already 3:00 AM.
So much for sleep.

“Raccoons chased you off, eh?” Lani repeated, obviously not buying Diana’s story. “Have any plans to take up where you left off?”

“I don’t know,” Diana replied sardonically. “Do you and Eric have any plans to actually go out to a nice dinner or something
besides
just going at it all the time?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Lani said playfully. “We are usually so busy that it’s a miracle when we actually do get to spend some time together. Why waste it on the pre-game when the main event is much more fun?”

“I suppose you do have a point,” Diana admitted. “But there’s a lot more to a healthy relationship than sex, you know.”

“Oh yeah, what?” Lani called her out.

“Well, there’s having a meaningful conversation.”

“What do you think pillow talk is?”

“Okay; there’s sharing a nice meal together.”

“We order take out, eat a little before, and eat a little after,” Lani said with a smug smile and a taunting wave of her hand. “Keep them coming.”

“What about getting to know each other’s friends and family?” Diana knew she was grasping at straws.

“Both of our families are hundreds of miles away and we already know our friends. You done?”

“Yes,” Diana admitted in defeat. “I’m sorry; I guess sex is just the greatest thing in the world and it solves everyone’s problems and makes everyone’s relationship perfect.”

Lani smiled wide with satisfaction. “Yep; pretty much.”

Diana sighed in frustration. She knew Lani was just playing but the whole situation had reached a world-crushing magnitude. Since Diana last spoke to Lani, the simple act of having sex with her boyfriend had gotten exponentially more complicated. Not only would Darien be bonded to her for the rest of his life—which would be a great deal longer than hers—if the wrong people found out, he would be sentenced to the Nightmare and she would be put to death. Was having sex that worth it? According to her roommate it was.

“What’s the matter, kiddo?” Lani asked, sensing Diana’s inner turmoil. “I was just messing around.”

“Things are a lot more complicated than it seems,” Diana blurted out and then immediately regretted it.

“How so?” Lani asked her.

Diana scrambled inside her head for an adequate cover story but couldn’t think of much.

“Darien can’t have sex until he’s married,” she finally said, and supposed it was sort of true.

The look of surprise on Lani’s face was priceless. The whole notion seemed ridiculous to her.

“What—is he super religious or something?” she asked.

“Kind of,” Diana replied. “He was forced to pledge to only have sex with the woman he was betrothed to—or something like that. If he breaks his vow, he loses his inheritance.”

“So the parents are super traditional,” Lani said with a nod.

“Um yeah, his great-grandfather—Lord Gregory Shepherd—was a religious zealot in England and drew up all these contracts for his descendants and whatnot.”
Wow; where did that come from?
I’m a better liar than I thought.

“That’s rough,” Lani said as she got up from her bed. “Well, you better be earning that diamond ring
m’Lady
.” She finished with a mock curtsey.

“Wha—what?” Diana said in shock. “We’ve only been dating a few weeks, Lani! Plus, I’m only eighteen. I can’t even
begin
thinking about spending the rest of my life with someone.”

“Who said anything about the rest of your life?” Lani replied. “No one ever said you had to
stay
married. You get the rock on your finger, and he gets to finally mine your nethers without losing his inheritance. It’s a win-win for all parties involved.”

Diana just shook her head. “You really have no shame, do you?”

“Nope, none at all,” she replied. “And you love it.”

Diana laughed. “That I do, my trollopy friend. That I do.”

With Lani’s hunger for gossip satisfied, Diana was finally able to get a few hours of much desired sleep.

—

In the morning, breakfast didn’t go quite as smooth as Diana had hoped.

“You left my car where?!” Eric demanded a repeat.

“In a forest clearing in the Hocking Hills,” Diana said with a look of anguish, preparing for the backlash. “It wouldn’t start and we were forced to walk into town to get a ride home.”

“Why didn’t you have someone tow it home?” he asked.

Honestly, the thought had never occurred to Diana. She had been so distraught over the evening’s ordeals, that the fate of Eric’s car had been the least of her worries. It was just as well—whoever towed the car would have likely asked why it was parked in front of a burning house.

“We thought that you’d want to take care of it yourself,” she said, hoping it would be enough.

Eric was fuming and Diana couldn’t blame him—she would be too if their places were reversed.

Lani finally came to her rescue.

“Calm down, Eric,” she commanded. “It wasn’t her fault. It was
your
car that broke down on them in the middle of nowhere. And why was that, hmm? Maybe you aren’t the awesome mechanic you think you are.”

“That’s not the point,” he said, still mad.

“Then what is the point?” Lani demanded to know. “Your piece of junk car got our friends stranded, at night, in Deliverance-town, Ohio. They
both
could have been raped and murdered.” Her words had broken through his berserker rage and he appeared to calm down.

“I’m sorry,” Diana sheepishly apologized. “I’ll pay for the tow, just let me know how much it costs.”

Eric sighed. “It’s fine. I’m just glad the two of you are all right. I’m sorry for flying off the handle.”

Lani patted him on the head. “Good boy.”

“I’m not your dog,” he said, annoyed at the patronization.

“No, you’re my bitch,” Lani replied with an amused grin.

Diana burst out in laughter and Lani followed suit.

Eric just smirked. “Well played.”

After they finished eating, Diana and Eric walked together to their History class. On the way, she told Eric the name of the town where the Flinders house was located, and by the look on his face, it was obvious that Diana had just confused him. When they arrived at class she drew him a makeshift map on a piece of paper.

Surprisingly, Diana stayed awake through class. Luckily the subject matter piqued her interest—the ancient Greeks. The only civilization left in the semester was Rome. Diana could only marvel at how fast time had flown by. Fifteen weeks wasn’t nearly enough time to adequately study four thousand years of human history. Although, Diana often wondered how much of that history had been altered by the elves. She’d probably never know.

At least she had good grades.

The rest of Diana’s classes failed to hold her attention and she went through them in a haze. She managed to not fall asleep but she’d been in a waking coma, nonetheless. It was most likely her steadily growing anxiety that kept her awake while consuming her mind at the same time.

She hadn’t heard anything from Darien at all today, which wasn’t like him. Diana usually found him waiting with a warm smile just outside of her Quantitative Reasoning class, eager to eat lunch with her. Today, he’d been alarmingly absent.

With classes over for the day, Diana felt the uncontrollable urge to venture to the Shepherds’ house but stopped herself before taking one step in that direction. It would be dangerous—and stupid—for her to go over there. Diana had no way to know if Terra would be there or not, and she could be burning alive from the inside out before she reached the doorbell.

I wish they could just use a damn cell phone.
It was highly inconvenient not to be able to contact Darien anytime she pleased. At least she wasn’t in any danger of seeming too clingy.

With an anxious sigh, Diana headed towards the library. Maybe reading
The White Wraith
again would take her mind off of Darien.

Diana stopped in front of the Gothic church building of stone and stared up at the bell tower, unable to cross the threshold into the library.

When the bell chimed once to signal the half-hour, she turned around and walked the other way. Diana’s desire to know Darien’s fate eclipsed her sense of self-preservation and she began the trek to the Shepherd house.

Regardless of Terra’s murderous intentions, it would be ludicrous for her to make a magical attempt to end Diana’s life in the middle of an area so densely populated by humans. Someone would definitely notice a fiery explosion of death.

When Diana finally found herself standing before the front door, she couldn’t bring herself to ring the bell.
What if Terra answers the door? She may not use magic—she may just use a knife.

With beads of perspiration quickly forming on her brow, Diana reached for the metal door-knocker. She felt the finality of each bang deep in her chest.

After a few moments, the door opened wide and Diana sighed in great relief when she saw Marjorie’s kindly visage in the entryway.

“Ah, Miss Selene,” the elderly woman greeted her with warmth. “Darien is currently indisposed at the moment. Would you like me to pass along a message for you?” Marjorie was all politeness but Diana knew the housekeeper was only being a buffer.

She didn’t know what to do. What if Darien was in danger? What if he needed her? Diana couldn’t simply just turn and walk away. Terra was now keenly aware that Diana knew their secrets—what greater danger could there be for her?

“Marjorie, please take me to Endymion,” Diana politely demanded, stressing Darien’s true name.