• “Is this your coat?” I ask sheepishly, keeping still as he tore it off my shoulders. He didn’t say anything as he tossed the coat back onto the rumble and circled around behind me again, not looking at my face and not letting me see his.

    “What are you doing here?” He says finally as the cold revealed that he had also torn through Devarian’s coat and makes me shiver violently.

    “I was-” I trail off and weigh the options of telling the truth and getting that creep back for kidnapping me or lying. The first was more appealing, but what if I have nowhere else to go? “I was on a walk. I just stumbled on this place by accident.”

    “Really? It takes a special person to find this place without meaning to. Who are you?” I bite my lip and jump as the forest echoed back his next phrase. “Tell me!”

    “Lezalie Ravencrow.”

    “Ravencrow?” I nod and feel his hand skim across my waist. “That’s a Warlock name.”

    “I know that.” I snap and listen to him chuckle. “What do you want? I haven’t done anything to you personally.”

    “You ran away from me.” Devarian’s voice finally returns to normal as he grabs me back up and throws me over his shoulder. “So you really do have a Warlock name.”
    “You’re absolutely horrible you know that?” I snap at him.

    “You may have gotten away if you hadn’t stopped,” he laughs and grabs up his other jacket in his other arm. “I’m surprised that you actually stopped.”

    “Shut up,” I shout at him and pound on his back. It was tough, like a tree trunk or something, and sounded like a drum when I hit him. “God damnit, put me down!”

    “Your legs are on the verge of collapse, I can’t let you get too weak by making you walk all the way back, you have chores you need to do.”

    I marveled at how he could act as both a gentleman and a slave-driver at the same time. “I just get here and you already have chores for me?”

    “Yes, I do.”

    I sigh and try kicking him but my legs had gone numb and were tingling in protest at the long walk. “Why do you insist on carrying me?”

    He ignores me and begins down the path toward home.