I could feel the skin on my heels peeling off with the itchy socks that Rowan had provided me along with the baggy clothes and leather boots that fit a little too snug. Currently, the shirt that no longer held a faint scent of his cologne stunk of the sweat that had it plastered to my back and heaving chest. The strained breaths that had my chest rising and falling had the waistband of the sweats I tied too tight digging into my side that also held a stitch that had me favoring it. The cold morning air hurt as it sawed in and of my lungs in shallow breaths that didn't satisfy my thundering heart's demands.
I couldn't go on much longer. I couldn't. It was too much.
I felt the faintest of tremors in the ground as an army of pounding footsteps gained on me from behind. My dragged and sluggish steps weren't fast enough to even attempt to maintain the distance between us. There was no point in trying. It wasn't the first time that they had caught up to my pathetic efforts to keep standing let alone outpace them. They could have walked faster than I was dragging my feet, trying to pass my sluggish movements off as something that resembled running.
I don't know how much time had passed since I had started, when my legs weren't shaking and were able to steadily carry me, but the ticking seconds seemed to have slowed to match my pace. An hour or two must have passed at the very least given how much the sky had lightened since Rowan had found me, but it was difficult to tell. I was too distracted by the burn in my chest, the pain in my side, and my peeling heel to keep track of how long I had been running.
It would be meaningless too. There was no time limit. I couldn't stop until he let me. Or my legs refused to carry me further.
The toes of my borrowed boot dragged on the ground as I moved it to take my next trembling step, but got caught on a rough patch of the packed dirt I had been running on. The path was worn around a field of lush green grass that rustled in the wind. It lifted strands of my hair, blowing them into my face to stick to my sweat-coated skin. But lifting my hand to brush them away with my fingers was the least of my worries as the ground rushed towards me for the second time that day.
My teeth rattled against one another as my knees hit the ground. I tried to stop the rest of my body from following by straightening my arms to land on my hands, but the dirt path was wet enough from the thin morning fog to have them slip out from under me. Pain ricocheted through my torso as it hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of me moments before pain bloomed on my chin. My eyes slammed shut. Unable to express my pain in obscenities, a long drawn-out moan hummed on my clenched lips as I rolled onto my side, cradling my chin in my dirt-smeared hands.
The thunder of footsteps grew closer as the air shifted with the speed of the large-bodied fae. A gentle breeze created by their movements cooled my skin where the warmth of the blood seeping through my fingers didn't reach. I cracked my eyes open at the sound of snickers and laughter that came from a few as they parted their uniform formation to pass my downed form on neither side. Though most of the fae kept their heads high and eyes forward as they ran, a few looked down at me with schadenfreude lacing their cruel smirks.
And here I was thinking I had grown numb to humiliation after they had lapped me more times than I could keep track of with my fingers. Despite their consistent and unwavering pace, their breaths were level and calm. The only sigh of their exertion after running for so long was the sweat slicking their matching t-shirts to their chests.
As they ran past me, another figure made his way from across the grass field, his quick stride breaking into a light jog. He barked orders at the group of fae that had them breaking off into pairs and positioning themselves around the field. I managed to struggle my way up into a seated position by the time he reached me.
