Her chest tightened. She didn't know how far she had run, whether the horrible flaming burning in her lungs was because she had been completely exhausted before. Her arms and legs felt like rubber, and her fingers ached. Although it was cold, her whole body was glowing - and certainly not from the two coats she was wearing.
She pressed herself against the wood at her back. The tree was almost cool in contrast to her heated body, while a gentle wind rustled the leaves above and around her. As if the fresh wind wanted to slip between them to brush her damp forehead and then her glowing cheeks. A tugging tingle lay at several points on her body, telling her that perhaps she had scraped her skin here or there, or irritated it too much. Like fine little needles, they pricked her heated cheeks, too.
Luke did not move, nor dare close her eyes and make another attempt to breathe more deeply. The rustling could be heard around them. Far away, fortunately far enough in the distance that it could not be dangerous to her, she heard pirates cursing in harsh voices. Expletives that could make any English lady blush blared against the trees and mingled with the sounds of cracking underbrush. Leaves crackled under heavy boots, accompanied by small dots of light when one of the pirates carried a lantern or torch instead of trudging blindly into the night...
But the sounds moved away and she expelled her breath, trembling, as she placed a hand on her chest. Just as the sounds were moving away and she wanted to breathe a sigh of relief... there was a sound after all. Quieter than the others and yet cracking small twigs and leaves rustled softly wild warnings in a language unknown to her unheard and as she leaned to the side her heart seemed to stop.Impossible. Of ALL the lost, how could he have chosen her...? The moment the question shot into her mind like lightning, the answer already flickered after her like thunder: the coat!
She looked down at herself, almost venomously at the bright red fabric of the captain's coat, as if she could punish him with it and as if he were to blame for all the evils of this evening as well as her misfortune. A soundless curse escaped her before she let the back of her head fall back against the tree trunk and grimaced. Please... damn it, just go on! she pleaded silently into the night, perhaps asking all the stars, gods, and anything else that might help her lead the predator off her scent. But the footsteps didn't just pass by.... but slowed down.
OhGodpleasedon'tthinkthatcan'tbetrue!
She shifted her weight and her boot lost its grip, slipping over one of the roots. Only briefly, a fleeting movement, before she pressed back against the tree, her heart pounding wildly.
No. He COULDN'T have seen her.
The forest was full of noise. Pirates were making noise everywhere. The wind drove into the thicket, making the leaves rustle and dance... plus the sound of the wilderness. She pressed her lips together so her heavy breathing wouldn't betray her. Pressed them together into a thin line and squinted her eyes as if it might make a difference. But... the next time she peered to the side under the wild drumbeat of her pulse- she looked him straight in the face. Determined features, just as iron as they had been on the Jolly Roger. The storm-gray gaze of a sharpened blade, of a deadly hunter, the moonlight falling in his back, casting an eerie shadow around his shoulders like a cape for a king.
The lightning did not strike her from above or from below her body to the tips of her toes as her muscles instinctively contracted and she held her breath. It rattled her heart felt from all sides at once. The certainty that SHE was the prey.
YOU ARE READING
A Neverland Tale - HOOKED (eng)
Fantasy** Only one thing can still prevent Neverland's downfall: In the dark times when a star's light perishes, a new one must be found! ** Neverland - a world in which simply everything was possible as long as you could dream it. But behind a shining lig...
