Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) by Dawn Steele Page A

swiftly towards Aein. Clop, clop, clop, went the shod hooves of the heavy stallion. As Gorm closed in, he slammed his beefy arm into Aein’s chest like a sledgehammer, knocking Aein off his horse.
    Aein tumbled to the forest ground. His wrists were still bound to the reins however. As his startled horse kicked up its heels and sprang forward, whinnying, the lower part of Aein’s body was dragged along. Tufts of grass and little stones bit into his flesh through his pants. This continued painfully for about twenty feet until Milky Eye galloped ahead to stop the runaway horse.
    “You’re getting to be more trouble than you're worth,” Gorm said as Milky Eye half-dragged a bruised and bleeding Aein back.
    Aein’s pants were torn at the knees and his raw skin was exposed. Little bits of grass and twine were embedded in his new wounds. His flesh stung though he stubbornly refused to acknowledge the pain. This new body was weak. How he longed for his hard carapace, which would have protected him from such rigors, and even for the one wing that hung uselessly from his back – the one that no biologist could grow a viable companion to no matter how many cells they harvested from him. The bullies here were worse than Dimynedon.
    “We’ll stop here for the night,” Gorm conceded. From the darkening sky and the rumbles of the men’s soft underbellies, Aein knew that it had nothing to do with him being more trouble than he was worth.
    As they built a bonfire and settled in for a meal of snared rabbit, Aein’s thoughts were dark. Thulrika wasn’t far off the mark. If the hearts of the inhabitants were as black as these men, then the Blue Planet was better off in the hands of Spora. He wondered if these men knew they were manhandling a prince of the blood, or how dangerously the fate of their world tipped in their hands. He wondered how they would react when their population was mowed down by the millions the way Sporadeans had suffered at the advent of the blight.
    For planets that skewed far to the dark side, Thulrika championed total annihilation. It was too difficult to build holding pens to keep them in, she said. They would only breed and plot to overthrow their new masters.
    The men seated Aein on the ground, and tied his wrists around a tree trunk. They did not offer him anything to eat or drink, let alone a dandelion – possibly to punish him for his insolence earlier. He watched them carefully until the silver ball of moon rose high among the stars, and all the men save one settled into slumber beside the flickering bonfire, which thankfully was far away from where he was tethered.
    The only one who did not sleep was Scarface. Aein presumed he was the appointed lookout, until the older man crept to him.
    “Here.” Scarface raised a leather sac of water to Aein’s parched lips. Aein drank thirstily, water dribbling down his chin and dampening the front of his tunic. Before he could finish, Scarface withdrew the sac. “Not too much. There’ll be more for you later if you behave.”
    Aein licked his wet lips. Scarface observed them. He held up a piece of black bread. The crusty aroma of it made Aein’s mouth water.
    “Ah, so you are hungry.” Scarface’s eyes burned in his deformed face. He smiled, but made no move to raise the bread to Aein’s mouth. “A trade, I say. Water and bread . . . for a small token.”
    He laid his hand on Aein’s thigh.
    “What is it that you wish?” Aein said warily. He thought Scarface’s face far more interesting than Snow White’s. At least that livid scar gave it character.
    Scarface’s gnarled and calloused fingers caressed and pinched the firm skin of Aein’s thigh, and inched closer to dormant flesh that curled between his legs.
    “You have a beauty that surpasses most women, a beauty that excites me,” Scarface said, his breath reeking of interesting fumes: mulled wine mixed with roast hare. “When you were strung up naked on the rack, I felt stirrings of lust