The Dark Side of Light: A Medieval Time Travel Fantasy [Paperback]

My jaw is stuck on open. Did he really kill someone? Maybe he killed an animal. Yet, even that is disturbing. I must escape this situation. Having failed to defend myself like a man, time for feminine wiles. I soften my face and feign appreciation. "For . . . me?" I point to my heart. "You killed someone--" I step back in a slow motion circle as if to eloquently dance myself away from him. Facing him again, I say, "--for me."

He steps forward. "Aye, for thee."

I continue my disguised get away dance touching an oak tree trunk and ballet stepping behind it. I peek my head out to see him. "I appreciate you . . ." I roll my back against the tree and peek out on the other side, "watching over me." I step lightly away from the tree and he steps along in a straight line watching me.

My words are as soft as my footing, "But I am fine now," I put my palms out to him as a gesture of `I don't need you anymore,' "just fine."

He watches me closely and keeps in alignment with me, as if observing my movements more so than caring about what I am saying. I glimpse my pepper spray on the ground behind him. If only I could get it.

That being my goal, I continue speaking softly as I weave in and out of the oak trees, touching my hand to leaves overhead, and brushing my fingers along branches low enough for me to reach. I am getting closer to the pepper spray. "There's something . . . I have to do, and I have to . . . do it alone . . . but I will come back and--"

Suddenly he walks firmly toward me.

I thrust out my palms. "Wait!" I back up quickly. If he grabs me I won't be able to get away, and if I run in a straight line, he can outrun me. He's about a step away, so I swoop down toward the ground and turn in an artful dodge sweeping around a tree trunk. Set on catching me now, his movements toward me are swift and agile. I dart about, zigzagging between trees, circling this trunk and that. Suddenly, I don't see him. Uh oh, where did he go?

I slowly peek out from behind the tree trunk from which I am hiding. I gasp, seeing his face smiling playfully, as if saying, `Gotcha.'

I gasp, turn fast, and make a galloping run for it. But two steps into it, arms lasso me from behind. "Thou art like a playful little pony that challenges me not to ride it. But I shall, my sweet, I shall."

My arms are pinned beneath his. I can't move, and I almost can't breathe. "Let me go," I say pleadingly, "please, please, please let me go."

"Never again," he says.

Feeling thoroughly defeated, I go limp. I have failed.
Failed! I start crying.

A warm breath comes in my ear, "Cry not, my sweet; I am not thine enemy."

"You are," I blurt, "because you won't let me go, and you want to ride me!"

"I shall ride thee because thou shalt want it."

He's so conceited!

"And I keep thee for thine own protection. And protect thee I will, to my very death if I must."

Protect me to the death? Oh my god, he doesn't even know me. "You mistake me for someone else. You must let me go."

"Nay. I must protect thee from harm."

"You claim you've killed someone. That makes you harmful!"

"Aye, I am harmful, but what kind of warrior would I be if I were not?"

I shake my head lightly, realizing I cannot reason with him. And whatever the truth is, the common denominator is that I must escape him. Clever. I must be clever. If I can make him believe that I concede, I might still be able to get my pepper spray. I grow quiet and very still so that he will loosen his hold. I relax my muscles. I sigh hard, "All right, maybe you are trying to protect me. If so, what now?

I am trying not to panic.

His one hand creeps over my arms to keep them pinned, while the other hand rises to my temple, then slides down my cheek in a coveting way.