Read Online Lord of the Forest by Dawn Thompson - Free Book Online

direction from where Ravelle had landed, followed by Esau, diving and swooping through the trees. She reached out her arm to the wounded bird and he grasped desperately for her wrist, flapping unevenly with so many feathers gone. Linnea flinched as the tiny claws of his feet dug in to the marks of her bondage, but the bird held on until she could draw him close to her bosom.
    She clung to Marius’s mane for the rest of the wild ride, her fear pounded out of her by the jolting swiftness of the centaur’s race to safety, ducking branches. Most of the trees leaned back to allow them passage, but a few did not, bending down as if to sweep her off her rescuer’s back and stab out his eyes while they were at it.
    The forest had its betrayers too.
     
    He galloped on and on, and, finally winded, his sides lathered with foaming sweat, brought her to another pool. He went in circles around it, slowing his pace, gasping. The pool was untroubled and serene, though that, she now knew, could be an illusion as well. Her fear came back but it was paralyzing, slowing her thoughts to a state that felt like an opium dream. Linnea eased off Marius’s back, hardly able to think. She was barely aware that she was still holding Esau.
    Marius turned to look at her and smiled sadly. “Lucky magpie.”
    Linnea looked down at the bird nestled between her breasts and her hand supporting it. “He is safe enough. Are we?”
    “For now,” was all Marius said.
    “What is this place? Why have you brought me hence?”
    “There is healing here. You will need it.”
    “And you? Your tail is in bleeding tatters.”
    He didn’t answer, but looked down at his body, willing it to change. She saw the horse’s glossy hide heave, twitch, and roll back until his own flesh was revealed. It was as if he was being flayed alive—and the pain he seemed to be feeling was commensurate. Marius cried out in agony. Four legs became two. Hooves turned into feet. Linnea could only stare. He had been magnificent as a centaur, but to her, he was more so as a man.
    The skin and hooves of his centaur body, shed and stepped out of, drew together in a crumpled heap of hide, flesh, and cartilage. She watched with fascinated revulsion as it got smaller and smaller and sank into the ground, remembering that the demon too had shed a skin, though she had not seen Ravelle do it.
    The scratch he’d given her throbbed upon her chest, though it no longer bled. But something of his ill temper and distrust had infected her from it. She was too overcome to fight off her growing unease.
    Indeed, she had no way of knowing if this Marius was any more real than the demon version. She must remain on her guard—but oh, she was weak. Dangerously so. She could not bound away into the woods like the wise little doe. Nor could she remember the words that would summon her father, the Great White Stag. She had only seen him twice in her life.
    Fully himself again, Marius sat down heavily upon a rock, breathing hard, still sweating profusely. He rubbed the spot at the base of his spine where his tail had been as if it still pained him.
    “You should have become a man when he left you tied by your tail.”
    “I would not have been able to reach you quickly. As it was, I sent Esau ahead. He could see more than I could from the air and sound the alarm.”
    “He took Ravelle unawares. But the poor bird was in mortal danger from the imps.”
    Marius looked over at Esau, his head tucked under his wing and his breast puffing out in frightened little breaths. “He too will be healed, Linnea. But you must go first.”
    “Go where?”
    He pointed at a tree. “The being who lives in this place is a true healer. I am not.”
    She gazed at him with suspicion. “And where is this being?” She gestured around them at the silent trees and mirrorlike pond. “I see nothing but these damned woods and yet another pond. What if we have to run again?”
    Marius looked at her steadily. “Indeed we