Variants of Shade : Shadows and Shade Alternate Universes

Harper

Harper

Soot-servant

Five horses and a cart finally weave their way into view on the long dirt road. Not an impressive noble's carriage, just a cart. Open with a flat bed that's covered in crates.

We don't get many visitors, and the way Lord Martin has been carrying on, I was expecting the King himself.

I wasn't interested in the arrival of the King, but the arrival of five unassuming riders that have the power to turn Lord Martin inside out with panic, that's interesting.

The riders are all wearing hooded cloaks, the kind that button from chest to waist and flare out over their saddles, with hoods deep enough that their faces are lost in the darkness. So all I know is that their body language is decidedly masculine and they're adults – or, less likely, very big and well defined children?

No, not possible, they have to be adults.

The procession moves straight to the front gate, then splits up. The biggest guy dismounts first and heads for the front door, through the recently decorated rose garden. And I'm talking big, this guy was either born of the freaking huge trees in that forest or one of the beasts I've seen come out of it. He flicks his hood back, revealing rough hair grown too long to be called short but too short to be tied up and out of his face. It's pitch freaking black, matching the shadows over his face. Not to mention he moves like pure muscle.

Lord Martin rushes to greet him, stumbles back a step, then moves aside and simply lets the guy breeze on past.

A second guy dismounts and approaches the sweating Lord, but the other three have kept moving. One heading off toward the barn and two dismounting outside the high kitchen garden wall.

For a second, the two that have come closer to me on my torture post look like they might be going to unload the cart, but they swagger into the garden without much care for the crates. The both of them pull back their hoods to take in their surroundings.

"Mortals," the first guy almost spits. He saunters between the rows of vegetables and herbs growing neatly in raised timber beds, occasionally leaning down to run his fingers through the mint or lavender then breathe in the scent.

I lose sight of the second guy, the one with soft brown hair and a gentle face, all of my attention on the man moving closer to me. On his broad shoulders, chiseled jawline, intense eyes – damn my list just keeps going. He moves with power and confidence, running his inked fingers through his hair. He's wearing a tailored blue cotton shirt, the type with leather lacing at the neck that he's left open, and stretching out from underneath, over his chest, up his neck, and over half his face are more inked lines.

Tattoos.

I've only ever heard stories.

Before I can stop myself, I swing down off my pole and land with a sudden bounce right next to the guy.

He jumps and exclaims like I both scared and disgusted him, but doesn't back away. With his arms slightly raised and crossed between us as a kind of barrier, he regards me. I'm not much to look at. I'm small, 'delicate' Cook calls it, my brown hair's long and on the wild side, and right now I must be grinning like a crazy person.

"Puss, what is it?" he asks, looking at me but throwing the question at his companion.

It? I guess, as far as name calling goes, I've been called worse, but not normally by strangers.

Hot strangers. Very very hot and sexy strangers.

I work hard to unpurse my lips and assess the third it in the garden.