Azalea’s Pride By A.J. Dixon Copyright © 2011 by A.J. Dixon Published on Smashwords SMASHWORDS EDITION Smashwords Edition, License Notes Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book may not be reproduced, re-sold or used for commercial purposes without the written consent of the author/publisher. If you wish to give this to family or friends, please purchase more copies for them. You respect for the author’s work is greatly appreciated. "Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky." Maria Rainer Rilke Chapter One The beats from the drums echoed, resonating through the multitude of oaks in the dark forest. Laughter was loud, faces awash with joy and confidence. A woman with wizened eyes of the brightest blue sat in the centre of all the excitement, smiling at the passers-by. The flames of the fire before her caused her purple wings to sparkle, casting flickers of colour along the pale skin of the small baby in her arms. The little thing shuffled, opening its mouth in a large ‘O’ to yawn before settling back to sleep. She pressed a kiss to its forehead and stared into the fire. Azalea Summerton, Princess of the Fae dwellers of Rueltin, was happy, as happy as she could be in this condition. Her people were perishing; the food shortage was getting out of control. And yet, they were celebrating the birth of her son, Atticus. He was a miracle among her people, and that word had travelled fast. From the near barren lands of Tyrida and Gamelsh, and the prosperous village of Yadher, people had come. Granted, Azalea’s kin had not been on the best of terms with Queen and Princes of Yadher, but they had been more than generous in the months past, providing Azalea with all the healing wonders of their kind and allowing her to have a swift and easy delivery. They were more than prepared for a girl Fae; they were cherished among the Fae, raised as warriors and strong leaders. Thankfully though, she’d borne a son, and named him Atticus, the same as his father. “He is a miracle, you know.” The light voice came from the shadows behind Azalea. She smiled, knowing who it was before she turned and looked. “He is your son after all,” she laughed. She smiled at her husband as he took their son. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said softly. He fell beside her, sitting on his haunches and cradling the week-old child as if he were as brittle as a feather. “May I ask what for?” She smiled. “For providing me with a miracle child. I remember once when I had not the ability to - -“ “Hush, Lea. Do not fret yourself over unimportant things. What matters is that he is here now, and that I love you.” Atticus, Third son of Gerty and Hert of Rueltin, had wedded Azalea on her sixteenth birthday; Fae often eloped a few years short of their eighteenth birthdays. She was no exception. Her father had wanted her married as soon as possible, but her mother had protested against it, saying that she was much too young to be married at her father’s chosen age of fourteen. She was already betrothed to Atticus and he courted her until the day of their wedding. For years she had tried to get pregnant, her family trying everything from magic to using blessed flowers in the farthest lands. None had worked, and she was dubbed barren. Until the day her sister Lily had died. Three days later she found out she was several weeks pregnant; hence the miracle. She smiled and kissed his cheek tenderly. “Thank you, Atticus.” “You’re welcome, Azalea.” There was a crash by the forest. Screams bellowed out of whoever had the strength to shout them. “It’s a raid!” one of the faeries shouted. Azalea looked from her husband’s eyes to her child still cradled in his arms. “Go, Lea!” He thrust the child into her arms and propelled her toward their dwelling. “Go, and do not look back!” He spun around so fast he was a blur; his wings unfurled, dark and as beautiful as the other Fae who were preparing to fight. Azalea caught a flash of pale white skin before she ran into the palace; white skin and wavy black hair. A gasp left her lips as the guards shut the doors behind her. A human! A human was in their world, fighting with their kind. With no time to think amount how to get out of the village, Azalea ran down the lengthy corridors and upstairs to her and Atticus’ dwelling. She shut the doors and fell back unto the bad, the only place she could go. Atticus stirred in her arms and began to wail. “Hush, benuh,” she said in their native tongue. He wailed a little louder, as if taunting his mother. Azalea clamped her hand over the baby’s mouth, being careful enough to miss his nose so that he could still breathe. “It’s going to be alright, benuh. You father is going to come back to us.” Azalea said those words to comfort her child, but she couldn’t be certain whether they were really for Atticus or her. The screams escalated outside, the sounds stinging Azalea’s ears. The harsh masculine shouts she heard came closer and closer to her door until…they stopped. She held her breath, staring at the door. Her eyes held the crack where the door joined the wall and her mind sent signalled to her retracted wings, telling them to be ready for flight. One crack and the door flew off its hinges. It sailed across the room toward Azalea. She tucked Atticus closer to her chest and ducked her head into the bed. The door sailed over her, the wind that followed ruffling her hair. She set her jaw and looked up into the dark green eyes of a man, dressed in a bloodied white shirt. She felt a sharp pain in the back of her head and then saw nothing but darkness. Chapter Two Azalea felt a stinging chill emanating from the centre of her body. Her eyelids flew open, her will fighting against the sheer drowsiness in them. The sunlight hit her square in the face, burning her and heating the frost. She sighed and went to move her hand to wipe the perspiration on her forehead. They wouldn’t move. Though it hurt her, she tilted her head upward to look at where her arms where. Her wrists were bound in thick, blood-soaked ropes. She felt the sting of the material cutting into her flesh as she tried to move her hands. She tried to move her legs, but found when she looked down that her feet were also bound. She felt a something hard pressing into her back and realised that she was tied to a long cylindrical piece of wood. Her toes rested, bare, on hardwood, salty water seeping into her cuts and stinging as well. Then, the event of the past night started to come back to her. She was in her village, celebrating the birth of her child when they had attacked, the humans. Somehow they had figured out where they dwelled, although the Fae had lived in secrecy for millennia. That’s when the fear started to seep into her, clouding her thoughts. Where was Atticus? Where were her husband and her son? Where was she? Azalea looked around her. She took in the blinding sunlight and the open air, breathing in the salty scent. She saw unusual things though; a mast and a hull, a steering wheel as well. Sails flapped above her head. Was she on a boat? She tried to unfurl her wings, but they wouldn’t budge. They were as tired and weary as she was. She couldn’t remember if she had fought, or if she had just given up. As soon as the thought left her mind she reeled it in. No Fae Princess just gave up. They fought, with everything they had. She hoped that was what she had done. If not, she had greatly disappointed the two most important men in her life. She heard a door open and quickly shut her eyes, keeping them open just a little so that she could see around her. A man walked out of a small wooden door on her left. There was a gust of wind, one which blew his scent directly into her nostrils. He smelt of sweat and hard work and…mortality. He was human! She looked at his hair, uncaring that her eyes had now been flung open as she made her appraisal. It was pulled back from his face with an embellished clip and secured at the nape of his neck. It was black and wavy. Just as in Rueltin! His skin was exactly the same pale white. When he turned and stared out at the water she caught a glimpse of his eyes; they were a deep shade of green. Azalea’s eyes were glued to the man and her mouth fell open. “No,” she whispered, unable to stop the sound before it left her lips. His head turned slowly and she watched as he regarded her with those green eyes. His chuckle was loud, but humourless. “Well, you’re finally awake.” Pelruta. The word was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. When she didn’t answer he stepped closer to her. “Well, do you speak English?” he asked in a rather amused tone of voice. “Orey uniga opata!” she bit out in her native tongue. Go to hell, she said. His hand shot out and he grabbed her chin. “Little lady, I have just about had it with you and your people’s profanities. Now answer the question, do you speak English?” Azalea saw no point in holding this charade out any longer, though she would love to make the human upset. “Yes,” she said. He smiled. “There that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, do you have a name?” She nodded. “What is it?” “Petrivy,” she replied. He raised an eyebrow and twisted his mouth in thought. “Petrivy,” he tested the word. After a few moments he said, “Nice to meet you Azalea.” Chapter Three “Are you going to let me go?” she asked. He laughed. “That’s a good joke, were you a comedian among you people?” “Derto mutar,” she snapped. “I want to know when you plan on releasing me,” she said. He saw her twist her wrists around in the rope and saw the wince on her face. He sighed and walked over to her. He placed a wet cloth on her wrist and wiped the smeared blood that was dried unto her forearms. “Don’t do that; it only hurts more.” Her face twisted in a grimace and he knew she was in pain. She relived some of the pressure and continued to wipe away the blood. He went back to the upper deck of the boat and rinsed out the cloth. Before he went back he put some of the herbs they’d found in her village on the cloth. She seemed to be in much less pain as he wiped her arm now, even as he wiped the herbs directly into the cuts. There was the faintest hint of a smile on her face. He looked at her face as he moved the cloth down to run over her ribcage. Her pale skin was showing black and blue bruises on both sides. Probably from when his men had unceremoniously flung her on the ground when she’d tried to fight them off. She was strong for such a little thing. Her straight as nails black hair was full of dark purple streaks. It hung past her shoulders to cover her bare stomach. He wondered if the faeries ever cut their hair. Her eyes were surrounded by intricate designs, in the same shades of purple as the ones he’d seen on her wings. With all the roughness she’d sustained, they hadn’t even been smudged. They gave a slightly mysterious look. She had strong, high cheekbones and a lush mouth. She was covered in a sheer purple and black material that stuck to her like a second skin and rounded her wide hips beautifully. When he got to her feet to wipe away the blood there he realised that the rope had cut into her ankles. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” he muttered. He cleaned the blood away and stood again. He saw a look of contentment on her face and heard soft snores escaping her slightly open mouth. He threw the cloth over the deck and stared out across the water. By now his men should have been checking with binoculars, or spy glasses. He gave a smile and a salute then headed below deck. The first place he went was to his closet. He took out a jumper and a red shirt, and laid them on his bed, prepared to offer them to her the next time she awoke. He sat at the small cherry wood table by the bay window in his chamber which faced the East; the radio static chipped in out. He spun the dial around and around until the static stopped. He picked up the microphone and spoke into it. “This is S.S.S Magician, radioing in from the Mid-Atlantic, over.” He listened for a reply. When he didn’t get one he said again. “This is Captain Jack Harper. This is S.S.S Magician, do you read me? Over.” “Magician, this is the S.S.S Mayweather. We read you loud and clear. What is your position, over?” He checked the compass by the radio, reading the coordinates aloud. “We are 054°north, 035°west, 135°South East, over.” “Ok, Magician. We have your position locked. Do you request any assistance getting back on land, over?” “No, I’m fine. As are my crew mates in the accompanying vessel. We only request an estimate as to how it’ll take for us to arrive ashore, over.” There was a brief pause then the man on the other end replied. “Close to four weeks, if you stay on the same speed you are now, over.” A whole month? He barely could feed the faerie he had on board now, let alone feed her for a month. He’d heard rumours that their kind ate like horses. “Ok, thank you Mayweather. I’ll be in touch, over.” “Roger that.” The communication went dead and he sat back in his chair. He’d just have to make the best of his time on board with the little vixen. His eyelids started to droop closed when he heard a harsh scream on deck. “No! No! Stay away from me! Get back!” She couldn’t stop screaming. She knew she was awake, but felt as if she were still having a nightmare. The Daemons had come after her, and her family. She’d tried to outrun them but got cornered in her bedchamber with her child. Then she looked into those dark red eyes and knew that all hope was lost. She’d never find her family, but she had to get away from the daemons. She felt fingers on her face warm and cool at the same time. A hand clamped over her mouth as the palm of another chaffed her side, soothing her. In a few minutes her screams had died down and she was breathing evenly again. She opened her eyes and stared into the eyes of her captor, happy for the first time since she was kidnapped. “Hey, hey. Azalea, calm down,” he whispered. His hands smoothed over her hair and cupped her cheek. He tilted her face up so that he could see into her eyes more clearly. “Hey. Are you okay? What happened?” She snapped her eyes shut to hold back the tears and frowned. “It is nothing to concern yourself with, mortal.” He stared into her eyes for a moment when she finally opened them and she felt herself sinking into their depths. Then something in her snapped. He raided your village, killed your family and friends. “Get away from me you worthless Htyal!” She struggled against the ropes, crying out when the materials cut into her skin more deeply. He reached out to touché her arm but she screamed at him. “Don’t touch me!” She tried to move her leg forward but the rope caught on a piece of steel poking out of the pole and her ankle got twisted. Azalea shrieked out her pain as the tears finally left her eyes. Now when the human reached out she let him touch her; she didn’t shrink away or shout at him. She let him help her. He pulled a knife from the waistband of his pants and used it to cut the rope around her ankles first. He put his arm around her waist to support her before he cut the rope off her wrists. Just as he’d thought; she fell forward unto his shoulder like a limp tree branch. Azalea didn’t bother to struggle; it seemed futile. She wasn’t going to get away from this man. Even if she tried she was probably going to die trying.