Building an Empire [M/M]

Chapter Three

Alexander’s POV

The first rays of the sun had only just peeked over the horizon when Siobhan woke me. I was surprised I had actually fallen asleep. Last night Siobhan had carried me to a campfire where there sat ten other men. He’d introduced all of them, but... yeah, like I was going to remember that. The only thing about the ten men that mattered was the way they looked at me. And they had had the courtesy to not blatantly stare at me like a dog when you eat, but they did stare. At least when Siobhan wasn’t watching them. Siobhan had demanded that they all handover their blankets and then made a makeshift bed for me.

There are odd people in this world who will willingly go out into the wilderness with the mosquitoes and the wasps. They’ll make a fire, enjoy the fresh air, test their skills.

I’m not one of those people. So a pile of blankets in the mud had not exactly been sleep inducing and neither had the stares burning into me from all-around. Yet here I was, trying to rub the sleep put of my eyes. Guess that’s what adrenaline and being frightened for too long will do to you. You body crashes and needs to reboot.

“Come Alex, we have to get going.” Siobhan lifted me again - I could get used to that - and ordered the other men to pack up the camp then join us. Where were we even going? Around us the men looked like they’d been up for hours. But most of them didn’t look like they were preparing to leave.

I looked up at Siobhan, hoping he would guess my question and answer it despite believing I couldn’t understand him. He didn’t. His eyes were trained on the men around us, systematically going over the surroundings. Though I was happy he was so thorough in his protectiveness, it also robbed me of my info. I sighed and went back to looking around me.

I stretched my neck when I saw a group of men running around a carriage. Horses were whinnying and shaking their long heads while their riders - or so I assumed - fastened bags to the saddles. A rock of dread fell from my eyes and down to my stomach. Siobhan was headed straight for the group. I saw four possible outcomes:

He was going to say goodbye to someone and we were not going with them

I was going to be riding in the carriage

I was going to be riding on a shitting creature from hell

I was going to be walking

Siobhan smiled down at me and nodded towards a dark-brown horse with long black hair around its hooves. And let’s give it up for option C! Okay, no problem, just a horse. Probably a nice horse. Not an I’ll-throw-you-of-my-back-and-crack-your-skull-open horse. Nope, a nice horsey horsey.

“Iiiiihiihii!” The horse neighed and shook its head up and down when it spotted Siobhan. I clutched Siobhan’s shoulders in a deathgrip. Nope.

Nope, nope, nope, nope.

Fuck. Shit. Fuckedy fuck fuck.

I slapped my hand lightly on Siobhan’s cheek - fear made me brave - to get his attention on me. His gun-metal grey eyes swung down at me and I immediately shook my head while pointing at the horse. Siobhan cocked his head to the side in curiosity.