Several heart-racing moments went by before another deer came bounding through the area. And another. They were scared and running as if they were being chased.
Orhunted.
A crack of a shot exploded at far too close a range. Isobel dropped to the forest floor, landing in a bed of dried leaves, before scrambling around the tree’swide trunk.
She’d somehow managed to put herself between the hunters and their prey.
Isobel liked to think she was an intelligent woman, but she hadn’t considered that as a possibility.
Another shot, the impact of which shook the tree she was crouched behind.
She squeaked, ducking and covering her head instinctively. “It’s me!” she called out, hoping that Henry, oranyone, heard her. “It’s Isobel. Stop shooting!” Her heartbeat drowned out all other noise, but she didn’t think anyone responded.
Another shot barreled through the trees around her.
Neither Henry nor Lord Richard were bad shots. It was something they spoke about at great length. But they’d been out for hours by now, and if they hadn’t caught anything, they were perhaps just excited to be shooting.
A shadow fell over her, and only then did she find the courage to look up.
Ved was there, lifting her up in an instant. It left her pressed to his body, her feet dangling, his hands wrapped securely around the back of one of her thighs and her waist respectively.
His eye shields blazed.
Voices filtered through the trees. Lord Richard and another one of the lords Henry had invited were bickering.
“You have to hide,” she hissed, squeezing Ved’s forearms. “If they see you… Oh, devil, if they seeus.”She couldn’tfinish the sentence. It was what she had feared would happen.
Blazes, she had ruinedeverything.
But then Ved pressed her against the tree, letting her slip down his body until her feet were on the ground again. For a brief moment, there was only Ved, his hulking form all-consuming, and she sworeshe smelled his scent—heated metal and dark ocean. She breathed it in, willing her lungs to remember it.
There was a snap of a sound, and then he placed something around her wrist.
Their predicament slammed back into her awareness. “We have to—”
He put his hand over her mouth gently, muffling her words.
The party was so close. They were going tofindthem.
Twigs popped and leaves shifted beneath numerous boots.
The hounds huffed and panted.
Then the hunting party stepped into view.
With eyes wide, she stared at them. How was she to explain this? How could she keep her reputation intact and Ved safe? Even now, he was practically pressed into her, a position far too intimate to explain.
Not to mention the trivial matter of him being a giant, armoredXaal.From another planet.
“I think we may be the worst hunters to have ever lived,” her brother declared as he rested his rifle against his shoulder. He scanned the area around him before his brown gaze locked onto her and Ved. And then moved away again.
Wait…
He couldn’tseethem?
Isobel slowly looked up at Ved, but he was too busy studying the men. This was impossible. But, then again, days ago it had seemed impossible that there were beings who traveled through the stars, or entire planets with life of their own. Frankly, being invisible wasn’t nearly as shocking as it should be.
More of the hunting crew came into view, their footsteps heavy. The gamekeeper, hound handlers, and the men employed to carry and maintain their rifles stood farther away from the sixgentlemen.
