She dropped gracefully from the center of the tree they’d been walking on, landing on all fours like any proper cat should. However, there was nothing graceful about the huntsmen. She thought it best not to turn when she heard a loud oomph behind her. Pulling her lips into her mouth she bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep him from hearing her, but she must not of been very successful at it, because he was back to growling again.
She thought it best to put him out of his misery. “Man, we are here.” She drew her arm out encompassing the whole of the healing waters. “The spring. As promised.”
“You mean this trickle of water cutting through the land?” His nose wrinkled with obvious disgust.
She was tempted to toss a bucket at his head. There were only two problems wrong with that idea. One, she had no bucket. Two, she had no bucket.
“Dip your foot in it. And before you ask, the one with the cast on it.”
“Bloody hell.”
Why was it so much fun for her to tease him? She must be a little sadistic, because she was enjoying herself far more than she probably should. But if she didn’t tease him, she’d likely make a fool of herself. Because every time he came near her and she smelled his scent of pine and man, it made her heart hammer almost painfully.
Aeric didn’t look convinced, but at least he didn’t ask any more dumb questions either. He awkwardly sat at the bank, and did as she instructed. It was instantaneous, the moment his foot touched the water sparks shot off the stone, like metal grinding on metal. At this point in the process she expected to hear him whining and crying and yelping like he’d done for the past hour. But he surprised her, as he was beginning to do, he didn’t even cringe. There was no facial movement whatsoever. She knew it had to burn like holy hell, because she’d done it once before and shamefully had screeched. Of course her thigh had been split wide open.
So there was that.
The gray stone, that was actually just hardened clay, melted right off like wax in his hand. At this there was finally a flicker of life. He looked up at her and something strange happened when their eyes connected, she felt a crazy fluttering in her chest. A strange bump, bump the she wasn’t sure she liked that much. He intrigued her when she first spotted him. And his constant snarkiness was mildly entertaining, she should have left him to his own devices, he was a hunter, no doubt a good one. Anyone employed by the Red Queen had to be good.
So why was she still finding reasons to stay? It certainly couldn’t be the fact that he was so easy to look upon, or the fact that his lips had been…delicious. Or even the fact that he made her think of the Vikings of which she was so fond.
No, that definitely couldn’t be why.
Fairies, looking like little lightning bugs danced throughout the soon to be night sky. The night rang with the chirp of crickets and the haunting melody of twilight sparrows. Soon the cerulean sky would give way to the navy of night, fairy games would be played, cider ale would be drunk, the festivities of the fairy garden would come to life.
The Huntsman looked confused. “How is it that the fairy garden is in Wonderland?”
She shrugged. “Kingdom is a magical realm, but there is no place as powerful or magically potent as the fairy gardens. The fairies magic comes from nature itself, the magic imbued within the soil of Wonderland is ten times more powerful than in any other place in kingdom. They reside here to tap into that wellspring.”
“I didn’t know that.”
She clipped her head. “I’m sure there’s a lot about Wonderland you didn’t know.”
“I can’t disagree with that, each minute only reinforces those truths for me,” he said it absentmindedly, but she imagined that maybe there was an apology in there.
Or maybe that’s just what she wanted to hear.
Aeric looked down at the trickle of water in obvious perplexion, and bending over, he dipped his pinky finger in the waters. Brows dipping again when the shooting sparks of light danced across his hand. “A copperhead beetle tweezered me three nights ago. I feared the wound would never heal.” He wiggled his healed finger in front of his face.
He had nice fingers, long and tapered, the nails were smooth but blunt, her flesh tickled when she remembered how he’d danced those same fingers along the inside of her arm which had been present at that time. She never could control which parts of her body would appear, or not appear as it were. Most annoying
Lissa was a guardian of the woods; a keeper of the magic, there was no duty as sacred as what she did. Her life had been nothing but guarding and protecting what lived and breathed inside of Wonderland, she’d never known the touch of a man. Not in a sexual way, not even in a friendly way. And up until the moment he’d touched her, she’d never known touch in her life.
Her stomach went topsy-turvy. Blowing out a breath, she cleared her throat and moved several steps away from him.