Post by inkith on Dec 14, 2012 1:49:15 GMT -5
I've been writing this story recently and I just wanted some feedback on it. I have a smut chapter which I won't post on here because it has to be PG13 or something. But I wrote one, and it happens sometime later in the story. I'll post the plan for the story as well. So yeah. Just check it out please 
Plan
Two warring castles
The Nights raid a small party of Storm men. Lord Seth Night takes a hostage.
The hostage he just believes is some random woman. Is actually Transiit Storm. Sister of Lord Travers Storm.
Turns out she’s a really good swords person.
They’re both attracted to one another but they don’t admit it.
First day Transiit tries to escape. Seth follows they get captured by the army. (they have to work together, turns out they really like one another)
Get told they can either give up everything or fight. Duh, they fight.
They are a new lot of people who want to ‘colonise’ or something. After they return from being captured, the raid scene happens.
Transiit is worried about her family. When Leith gets hurt on a raid. She tells Seth she is Travers Storm’s sister.
He has a spaz. Terrified that he is in love with his worst enemies sister. And throws her out.
She makes it home, tells her brother about the army.
He realises the only way they’ll be safe is if they band together with the Nights.
They travel to the Nights under a peace banner. Transiit goes with. Really awkward ‘cause everyone is looking at her weird ‘cause people thinks she’s a traitor.
The Nights and Storms come to an agreement. They go to battle. Transiit still loves Seth and tells him so however he just rejects her (really sad)
Then she goes to battle as well with her bro (cause remember she’s a really good fighter)
She gets her and is basically on her deathbed although the other army is defeated...
Seth realises her loves her and blah blah blah. All teary and lovey dovey.
Then they get married yay!
Characters
Transiit Storm – blue eyes, red curly hair
Pyke – Storm Commander at Arms
Travers Storm – Laird of Storm keep, Transiit’s elder brother
Seth Night – green eyes, sandy hair
Morag – Head of the hall – Night – Margo’s younger sister
Margo – Healer – Night – Morag’s elder sister
Leith – Seth’s second in command
Dom – Night – warrior
Eva – Night – Becomes Transiit’s friend
Natalie – Leith’s “friend” – black hair
General Edward Montiato – In charge of the armies.
Captain Vince Hiess – Is the person Seth and Transiit first meet when they get captured and told that they are going to have to surrender or die.
Zane – Gets called Z. He helps Transiit to escape when Seth is sent back to bring the message to his ‘Laird’ they pretended they were common folk. And then he almost gets spotted so she takes him with her. Ends up being good friends with Leith and Seth and everyone.
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The Raid
Lightning flashed, streaking the purple sky with white light and thunder rolled menacingly through the night. As the rain battered the ground, people melting into like from the shadows of the copse of trees. ADD MORE?
They headed towards the only source of light on the ground for miles around. A campfire flickering in the night. Suddenly a cry rang through the night. “IT’S THE NIGHTS!” The attackers started running towards the fire and the shadows crouched around it, diving into battle with the figures leaping to their feet.
But the attackers outnumbered the campers two to one, and soon they fell one after the other. Only two were left, they were standing back to back fighting with deadly accuracy.
One had their hood drawn up about their face and was slimmer than you would expect from a warrior.
“Run, Transiit!” A hoarse cry sounded from the bigger of the two.
“There’s no way I’m running from a good fight, Pyke!” A high-pitched, determined voice sounded from the other.
“You must get back to the keep!” Pyke’s voice sounded desperate now, pleading. But any choice that might have been made by the slimmer of the two was cut short when one of the attackers broke through his defence and drove his spear into Pyke’s foot. When he cried out and fell to his knees, the attackers swarmed the final valiant fighters. They were grabbed roughly by their arms and pulled between two warriors each. A tall warrior with sandy brown hair stepped through the warriors who were now searching the corpses littered around the still blazing fire and stepped in front of the slimmer fighter, whose hood still shrouded any discerning facial features. Reaching the grasp the fighter’s neck, he yanked down the hood revealing a very angry, very petite, woman.
Capture and they meet
Transiit was angry. Actually she was beyond angry, she was livid. Of course, she knew who the man standing in front of her was. Power radiated of him in waves, and his eyes flashed with confusion and disbelief before being replaced by an emotion that Transiit found hard to place.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here? A woman?” His deep green eyes regarded her intently, as if trying to discern that she was actually the same person who had just taken down 10 of his own men by herself.
“Of course I’m a woman, what else do you think I am? Or are you so inexperienced that you need to ask before you embarrass yourself?” She smirked at him, not at all afraid of his menacing manner. His mouth tightened and his eyes hardened at her comment.
So what if he’s a gigantic warrior who will probably kill me when he gets the chance? I’m not going to let him intimidate me.
Pyke cast a quick look in her direction, it was a warning. Don’t antagonise the giant people with swords. Her brother’s commander at arms was entirely too careful. She just rolled her eyes at him but shut her mouth anyways.
The giant examining her was Seth Night. Her family, the Storms, and his family, the Nights, had been at war with one another for thousands of years. No-one even remembered how it started now, but it didn’t matter, this war was part of their life style now. It would always be part of their lives.
Seth Night had turned away from her, issuing orders to his men, who were now packing up the objects they had salvaged and were awaiting Night’s commands. As they received their tasks they separated and the men holding Transiit’s arms disappeared, blood rushed back into her limbs from where they had been holding her so tight and she rubbed them to be rid of the unpleasant feeling that needles were jabbing into her arms.
As she turned towards Pyke, Seth took a step placing himself between them, his attention now focussed solely on her.
“I’m not stupid enough to try and escape now. I would get a mile before I was cut down by your men.” He didn’t say anything in reply, just nodded.
Pyke was still being restrained, but Transiit took a step towards him, around Seth, and brushed the Night soldiers hands off him, they didn’t try to stop her and just let go, walking away before coming to stand beside Seth.
When she turned back to look at him, she realised that it was Seth that had allowed his warriors to release Pyke. He had given her time to talk to Pyke, alone. That seemed like a bad plan on the Nights behalf, but she wasn’t going to complain.
“Transiit are you alright? I knew I shouldn’t have allowed to on the raid. I should have taken you straight back to the keep the moment I realised you had come with us.”
“Shush.” Transiit lowered her voice and whispered in his ear.
“They’ll send you back to relay a message to my brother and say they have a hostage. I need you to convince my brother not to come after me.”
Pyke sent her a startled look and she glanced over her shoulder to check that Seth was still there and still just out of hearing range.
He was. Just standing there. Watching. The rain was slackening off now, only a few trickles fell from the sky now.
“They won’t harm me. I’m just a woman. And you know that we don’t have the man power at the moment to have a full-blown battle with the nights. Most of the soldiers are escorting mother to the funeral. I’ll make my way back eventually. I’m a Storm through and through.”
Pyke sent her a pained look. “I can’t just leave you behind.”
“Yes. You can and you will. I need you to look after Travers. And the Night’s will never need to know that I’m the Lairds sister, okay? I’ll make my way back eventually.”
“I will come back for you.”
She just shook her head, not agreeing nor disagreeing with his statement. “When mother comes back.” Transiit glanced over her shoulder again at Night, before raising her voice slightly, so it was still natural but was now loud enough to carry to Seth.
“Now father, we’ll be okay. I’m too pretty for them to permanently harm.” Seth beckoned to her and grinned at Pyke before making her way over to Seth Night and composing her features into a mask of indifference. His men left him and went to stand by Pyke again.
“My Lord, what will you be wanting of me?” She kept her eyes trained to the ground, acting for the moment to be the submissive woman that most women would be in this situation.
Tells him her name
His eyes narrowed suspiciously at her change of behaviour. The ice blue eyes that had stared so defiantly back into his earlier were now trained carefully upon the ground.
Seth’s hand when to her chin, raising her eyes to his own. “What is your name, sweet?” Her eyes flashed in anger. Ah, that was what he remembered from before. He grinned. She scowled.
“Don’t call me sweet.”
“Why not,” he paused for effect, “sweet? I have nothing else to call you by as you haven’t graced me with your name as of yet.”
She was still scowling with her chin in his hand when she answered, seemingly through gritted teeth. “Transiit. My name is Transiit.”
“Ah, sweet. That’s a beautiful name.” Her jaw clenched again. But this time she refrained from responding. Dropping his hand from her face, he stepped away, gesturing for her to follow before he started walking.
Transiit stared at his back as he walked away from her. This man was infuriating. And he just expected her to calmly obey his command and follow. He didn’t even stop as he walked into the trees. Letting out a frustrated groan, she took off after him.
After what seemed to be just randomly wandering in the trees, Transiit spoke up.
“So why am I following you into the dark?”
“Why? Are you afraid?” Seth glanced back at her over his shoulder, his gaze amused.
She just laughed, rolling her eyes. “Of course not. You’re not that scary.”
And suddenly, before she could even register the movement, he had her pinned against a tree. The bark rough against her back, his body hard as he pressed against her and his eyes dangerously dark.
Her breathing grew harsh, as did his. She was aware of every inch of his body against hers and his arms on either side of her head. Her chest rose up and down, breasts brushing against his chest with every breath.
His head bent to hers, their lips so close to touching. Now all
Transiit could see were his eyes. They were a deep sea green, multi-faceted, with flecks of brown and gold within.
“Are you sure?” His voice was deep and husky.
Ok, she was wrong, he was pretty scary. But like she was going to admit that.
“Yep. You’re like a little pussy cat. Not scary at all.” Hell, she didn’t even believe herself. Transiit voice had turned weak and breathy at his close proximity.
Seth smiled, a spark of an idea forming in his eyes. And that made Transiit even more afraid. Why would he be smiling at a time like this? She realised his intent as he bent his head and captured her mouth with his lips.
His lips moved against hers and Transiit hit his chest with her fists, but it was only half-heartedly as even as she did so, her lips started responding to his gentle coaxing. Gentle? Gentle coaxing? Surely not. Even though she knew he was trying to scare her, was kissing her without her consent AND was her bloody enemy, he was being gentle. Uh? What?
However, as his tongue flicked out across her lips, urging her mouth to open to him. All thoughts of his gentleness fled as she had to keep her mind focussed on not giving in and opening her mouth. He chuckled darkly at her stubbornness and growled against her lips. “Open your mouth.” She did, but it wasn’t to submit to him, it was to argue. “N-“ She realised her mistake as he recaptured her mouth and thrust his tongue in, while she was trying to refuse him.
He tasted like no-one she’d kissed before. And sure, she hadn’t kissed that many people. But she wasn’t frigid either. Sighing she accepted his tongue and stroked hers along the length of his. Seth groaned, sounding like he was in pain. His kisses continued to ravage her, taking her breath away. But she had to stop. Had to stop him. She tore her mouth from his, her hands resting on his chest, exerting a light pressure, only just keeping him at bay.
“Um. Don’t you have to get back and order your men around a little more?” Her voice was husky and a little breathless which took away a lot of the effect from her words.
He just smiled at her seemingly unaffected from all that just happened.
“What? You don’t like me kissing you?”
“Of course not. And we should really go, so that your men don’t think I’ve overpowered you and cut off your balls or something…”
In his stunned silence and scowl at her comment, she brushed past him and headed off into the forest, in, hopefully, the direction of the camp.
Meets Leith, at the camp
As she was turned away from him, Transiit missed his eye roll in her general direction. He trotted over to her side, easily keeping pace with her determined strides. “Um. What are you doing?” He enquired.
“I’m heading towards the camp.” She said this with a lilt to her voice that suggested he was simple or something.
“You do know the camp is that way.” As he said so, he pointed over her head behind her.
She threw him a scowl as Transiit spun on her head, stalking back in the opposite direction. “I knew that. I was just testing you.”
He just smiled at her, not at all put off by her bad mood. “Sure.”
Before she could reply with a scathing response, they emerged from the trees into the clearing where the warriors had now set up camp.
A few heads rose from their work, glancing speculatively up at the two of them, but at a look from their Lord, they quickly cast their eyes back to whatever they were doing. Only one didn’t look back at the food cooking over his fire. He was quite a handsome man, with strong rugged features, and the smile that split his face as they emerged from the trees only added to his charm. Well it would if the smile didn’t infuriate Transiit even more than Seth. The man was smiling as if he knew what the two of them had been doing.
Transiit glared at him, daring him to comment, but he didn’t stop smiling. Even at the scowl from his Lord which would have usually sent someone scrambling for the hills, the man just chuckled.
“What’re you so happy about?” Seth growled and dragged a longish log close to the fire opposite the man. He plonked himself down on the wood and gestured for Transiit to sit next to him. She considered ignoring his command and going to sit at the same fire as Pyke, but it was all the way on the other side of the camp and didn’t have any delicious smelling food cooking on it. So, much to her chagrin, she took the seat next to Seth and listened to the conversation continuing on in front of her.
“Oh nothing, nothing.” His eyes slid to Transiit before going back to Seth. “I was just about to send people after you. Thought maybe she had overwhelmed you or something.”
Transiit grinned and mumbled under her breath. ‘’See? It wasn’t too far-fetched that maybe I had cut off your balls.”
The man across the fire coughed, spitting out the ale he was drinking back into his cup. Seth just rolled his eyes. “So. Who is this delightful young lady?”
Seth glanced at her as he picked the food from the fire and started eating. “This is Transiit. Eat. You must be hungry.” He poked one long finger at the food.
She had to admit, she was incredibly hungry, not bothering about asking for any eating implements, as it was obvious they didn’t care, due to the grease now all over Seth fingers, she reached over and picked a piece of meat off the carcass on the fire. She plopped the meat into her mouth and blew on her fingers to cool them off. It was delicious, just what she needed and she moaned as the meat hit her taste buds.
Seth cast a sharp look in her direction at her sound, his eyes darkening with an emotion Transiit couldn’t quite pick out. The man across the fire took note of Seth’s reaction and chuckled softly.
Transiit looked at him, “So, who, may I ask, are you?”
His eyes danced with amusement at her clipped tone, as if she was offended that he laughed. “I am Leith, my lady,” He sent her a mocking bow from his position across the fire, “and I’m pleased to meet your acquaintance, but probably not as pleased as Seth is.” Her eyes darted to Seth, but his eyes were narrowed at Leith.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Seth growled at the other man.
Leith just grinned happily at the two of them across the crackling
fire. “Nope.”
“Why are you my second in command? I should have chosen someone who would actually help me out sometimes.”
Leith didn’t bother to comment, his ever-present grin just widened.
“So, my Lord. Where will we be heading tomorrow?”
“Well, I was thinking of going back to the keep. The snows will be upon us soon, and we will need to make sure there is enough game to get us through the winter.”
Leith nodded his agreement at the statement before grabbing another piece of meat from the fire, tossing it from hand to hand the alleviate some of the heat on his fingers.
“I’ll pass along the message to the men. I’m on first watch, you don’t have one tonight, so you best be getting some rest.” He rose from his seat and inclined his head at Transiit before looking between the two of them. “Have a,” pause for effect, “pleasant, night.” Before grinning and taking off.
Transiit scowled at his retreating figure and Seth just shook his head before glancing up at her. “That man’s going to get himself hurt one day.” There was no heat in his words; it was obvious the two of them were close. “Come. He’s right. We’ll want to get an early start tomorrow so we can make it to the keep by nightfall tomorrow.”
Sleep
He led her towards a blanket laid out on the ground, just within the circle of warmth radiating from the fire. “Um. If this is yours where am I going to sleep?” She glanced accusingly at him.
Seth glared at her. “You don’t have to be ungrateful. I was going to let you sleep on MY special blanket while I slept on the ground. But if you really don’t want to, I suppose YOU can sleep on the ground.”
She spluttered in anger as he lay on the ground on his blanket, turning his back to her. “I-I-I don’t want to sleep on the ground, not when you get to sleep on a blanket.” Usually she wouldn’t care that she had to sleep on the ground, it just annoyed her that he was making such a big deal about it.
Turning onto his side to face her, he propped himself onto an elbow looking at her. “Hmmm. I’m pretty comfortable now, but I suppose I could move over a little bit and share.”
She scowled at him. “There is no way I’m sharing with you.” He snorted, still propped up on an elbow as she lay on the ground, back to him, staring into the fire. Chuckling at her stubbornness, he lay down to make himself comfortable.
It wasn’t long until Transiit started fidgeting. She was uncomfortable. Actually, uncomfortable was too subtle a word. She had a rock digging into her side, a twig jabbing into her leg and the ground was damp from the earlier storm.
Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at Seth, his eyes were closed, his breathing soft, perhaps he was already asleep. Maybe he wouldn’t notice if she shuffled over and rested just on the edge of his blanket. She made up her mind as the twig jabbed her thigh again and she wiggled backwards until she could feel the soft edge of the blanket under her.
Seth’s eye opened as she crept onto his blanket and he grinned. He had heard her fidgeting and knew she wouldn’t last long. Before she could register the movement, Seth’s arm snaked out and wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him, spooning with her.
Transiit struggled for a bit against him, but gave up when it was obvious he wasn’t going to let go of her. “What are you doing?”
But even as she voiced her complaint, she snuggled deeper into his arms.
“I’m keeping you warm. Now don’t complain. Sleep.” Even as she scowled up at him, she could feel her exhaustion catching up to her. His warmth was overwhelming, his arms surrounding her and his masculine scent wrapping her up.
She mumbled something under her breath about him being an oaf, with no manners or something before his chuckle lulled her into a deep sleep.
Morning
Transiit woke up feeling deliciously warm. Warm? Why was she warm? She groaned under her breath. Hoping that memory of where she had slept last night was wrong. As she opened her eyes, she knew she wasn’t. Seth’s arms were still wrapped tightly around her. Transiit tried to subtly untangle her limbs from his embrace, but his body was firmly encircling hers.
Trying again to be free of him, she wiggled but achieved nothing. Giving up on being subtle. She raised a hand and thumped him on the chest. Seth’s eyes opened and started to blink away the last of the sleepiness dulling the green orbs as he stirred.
He grinned up at her scowling face. “Hmm, good morning.”
Standing up, she glanced around at the camp around her, it was still early, but men were already awake, tending fires and shouting morning greetings across the campsite to one another. Leith was sitting at the fire, the smell of poached eggs and sizzling pork wafted up to her nose and she inhaled the scent deeply.
Behind her, Seth had risen and was packing the blanket away.
“Something smells nice Leith. You must’ve gotten someone else to cook it.”
Leith grinned at Seth as the Lord walked over to the fire before sitting down at the log that had been dragged over the night before. Leith didn’t appear offended at the obvious slight to his cooking skills and he just smiled up at him. “You’re right. Dom did it. He took pity on me when he realised I was trying to burn the forest down.” He gestured towards the scorch mark on a tree nearby.
Seth shook his head in bewilderment. “How did you manage to get the food all the way over there?”
“For some reason, the eggs burst into flame.”
“Yeah, but how did they end up on the tree? You weren’t playing with your food again were you?”
Leith rolled his eyes, “I was trying to flip them,” he muttered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yeah, right. Next time wake me up, ok?”
Transiit settled herself next to Seth on the log and shot him a disbelieving look. “You can cook?”
“Of course I can.”
Leith coughed under his breath, sounding like he was trying to hide a chuckle.
“I can!”
“Only if you like your food incredibly spicy, so spicy it will burn your mouth from the inside out.”
Seth whacked him on the back of the head. “Stop sassing your Lord. Now Dom has made us what I know will be an incredibly delicious breakfast, so I suggest we eat it before Leith can ruin it.”
Transiit looked in astonishment at the two men. No-one would dare talk to her brother like that. Even Pyke, his commander at arms and closest advisor. Pyke had basically been like a second father to the two of them growing up. Speaking of Pyke, she glanced around to see where he had gotten to.
She spotted him on the other side of the camp, a bruise was forming on his cheek from the battle the day before, both other than that, she could tell he was okay. He was sitting, eating.
Admittedly he was silent and tense, eyes darting around the camp, but that was to be expected when one was being kept hostage.
Transiit frowned as the direction her thoughts were going made her realise something. She wasn’t even afraid. She was in the middle of a Night raiding camp, the majority of the men protecting her had been killed AND she was sitting demurely next to Seth Night himself. But. She wasn’t afraid.
Maybe it had something to do with the man sitting next to her.
Looking sideways at him through her lashes, she quickly looked him up and down. He was still her arch enemy, that part hadn’t changed. But she wasn’t afraid of him anymore.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts she began to check her arms and legs for any scratches she may have received the day before. None on her left leg. None on her right. Her right arm was spared too and there was only a cut on her left wrist, running sideways along the bone. It might leave a scar, but it would heal soon enough. Transiit ran her finger over it, the blood was dry, already crusted over. She would be fine.
Seth noticed the action and reached to take her wrist in his, examining the wound.
“You need to get this checked out by the healer when we get back to the keep.” He too ran his thumb over the wound, harder than she did and she winced slightly.
“I’ll be fine. Really. I’m your prisoner. You don’t need to worry.”
He took her chin in his hand and lifted to face to look into his eyes.
“You will get it looked at. I will decide what I should worry about.”
She tugged her head out of his grasp and looked determinedly across the camp. Away from him. Why should he care about her welfare? She was a prisoner of war. A member of his arch enemy’s clan. She supposed she should be thankful. If he knew that she was the sister of the Lord. He might not be so worried about her.
“I will send your father back to the keep tomorrow.” Seth said without looking at her.
Transiit blinked. Father? Oh right, she remembered that she had called Pyke father last night so that Seth wouldn’t have any idea who she was. She knew that Pyke would be sent back, it wasn’t a surprise to her so just nodded that she had heard Seth’s statement.
“I hope that he will inform Travers Storm that we have a hostage. Tell me Transiit, who are you? Why were you with a Storm raiding party? How much are you worth to Travers Storm?”
The lie came easily to her lips. “I am but a simple crofters girl. I’ve never met Lord Storm before. My father was only with the raiding party because he went looking for me after, I, well, left.
The party picked me up a few leagues from the border, they were worried that I shouldn’t be walking around unattended. But father showed up not an hour after that. By then it was nightfall and we were going to head back to the croft in the morning. I doubt my family would be able to afford any ransom money, so sending my father back is the best thing you could do for me. I guess you’re stuck with me for a little longer.” Transiit knew she shouldn’t have made up such an elaborate lie. If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember what to say.
Seth’s eyes narrowed at her. She was trouble. Too easily resigned to her fate of having to stay with them, perhaps indefinitely. He didn’t believe her for a moment that she had never met Travers Storm. He resigned himself to being in the dark about her true identity for a moment. She would tell him eventually.
Ride to the Keep
“I’m not sitting up there.”
“Why? It’s a horse?” Seth looked at the woman standing in front of him like she was crazy or something. Could she not ride? He highly doubted that. Then why was she refusing to get on the horse?
“Thank you Captain Obvious. I know it’s a horse. But it’s your horse. And I am going to have to share with you. If I’m going to be your prisoner, I want my own horse.”
Seth rolled his eyes. So that’s what it was about. She was too proud to share a horse. Well maybe he would just have to convince her.
“Look. I know you don’t like me, but…” Seth took a step closer to her, forcing her to crane her head to look him in the eyes. It annoyed her that she had to look up at him, it made it very difficult to seem intimidating. “I’m sure I can make it worth your while.” He placed his hand on her lower back and pulled her towards him, pressing her stomach into his hardness.
Hardness that hadn’t disappeared since he had woken up with her pressed to his side.
Transiit’s breath rushed out of her. Wow. Is that what I think it is?
But how can it be so…. Big?
Shaking her head to clear her mind, she squirmed out from under his arm to put a little extra distance between what was quickly becoming a very dangerous situation. She just glared at him letting him know that she wasn’t impressed at his actions, even if she was impressed.
“Look, unless you want to walk, or be dragged along behind me, and I’ll let you know, that can be arranged. I would get your pretty little butt on the horse.” His face had turned hard, and she knew he wasn’t kidding. It looked as if she wasn’t going to get her own horse.
Transiit glared at him at stuck her tongue out even as she moved towards his horse.
He grinned at her back, she was just too damn cute. Without waiting for her permission, his big hands wrapped around her waist, and lifted her up onto the horse. She oomphed in surprise, he wasn’t even straining as she was by no means a tiny woman, she was only just smaller than him.
Without saying a word, he swung up behind her, his hard body melding against her back, she sat up straight to try and get as far away from his warmth as possible and he chuckled, sliding his hands around her to grasp the reins. Sticking two fingers in his mouth, he gave long high whistle, tapping his heels into his horse to lead the stallion into a smooth walk, then into a canter, as the rest of his raiding party gathered into formation around him.
Arrival at the Keep
The wench on his lap stirred, her eyes blinking sleepily. They stared up at him, without any reservations, no fear, and not hiding anything. And then they registered that it was him. She was lying unreservedly in his arms. Her blue eyes widened, and she sat up straight. Immediately he missed her warmth, her soft body in his arms.
He sighed softly, “We’ll be at the keep soon.” Transiit just nodded her understanding at his words.
She was shaken. When she woke up, all she felt was contentment. She was warm and happy, wrapped in the arms of someone big and strong, someone who could protect her. And then she realised that it was the exact same man who had attacked her men and kidnapped her.
The sun was just setting, making the sky glow a myriad of bright colours. Pinks merged into reds and oranges with tinges of yellows as well.
Houses popped up every now and then, the inhabitants occasionally emerging to wave at the returning party. Seth called out greetings to his people, polite greetings to some with more good-natured greetings to several, older, and grinning men.
He reminded her of her brother. He was on good terms with everyone and never hesitated to stop whenever one of his people wanted to complain or just chat.
Transiit turned her head to look at the man sitting behind her, and he grinned down at her. Again she sighed, she seemed to be doing that a lot lately, before turning to cast her gaze around the keep they were just entering, under a low archway.
It wasn’t really anything special, actually, it was quite similar to her brother’s keep. With low archways and wide doors, they could have been built by the same family. Usually the highlanders keep’s had slightly different architectural designs as each family had different tastes, but the Night keep and the Storm keep were frighteningly similar.
Transiit’s mind was torn away from the architecture as the raiding party came to a stop. Seth vaulted off the horse behind her, and stood with arms outstretched, waiting to help her dismount. Ignoring his hands, she slid demurely off the horse.
A portly, older woman bustled through the large doorway, leading into what Transiit assumed was the main hall.
“Seth! You had me worried! You said you would be back yesterday.” She hurried over to him and started to brush the dirt on his cloak away with her hands. She reminded Transiit a little bit of a hen, shuffling around and clucking orders at the men dismounting and heading into the hall. They smiled at her good-naturedly, surprisingly allowing her to mother every single one of them. Seth was just the same, he stood still as she tsked at a wound he had received before steering her over to Transiit.
“Morag. This is Transiit. She will be our… guest… for a little bit.”
Morag started suspiciously at her, eyes narrowed. Transiit could tell that Morag wasn’t at all deceived by Seth’s light introduction of her.
“A guest, huh? I’m sure… Well. I’ll make her feel right at home.”
Seth raised his eyebrows at the woman before adding.
“You do actually have to be nice to her.”
She gawked. “Nice? I’m not nice to most of the people around here, let alone, um, ‘guests’.”
Transiit stared at her, “I believe your Lord gave you a job to do and you back chatted him. That’s complete disrespect.” The woman stared at her, before she a hearty, loud, laugh burst from within her. It seemed to come from deep in her lungs, bubbling up to the surface.
“I like her, Seth. Hmmm. Yes. I do believe I like your little… ‘guest’.” And with that statement she strode back into the hall, grabbing Leith along the way and berating him about one thing or another.
“She is actually harmless and she runs this place much better than I could do by myself and without a wife or my mother really. Now. I will introduce you to our healer, she can take a look at your wrist.”
Transiit tried to object, “I really don’t think that’s necessary. It’ll be fine.”
“I said you will visit the healer. End of story.”
Too tired to argue, she allowed him to lightly grasp her elbow and lead her through a door, not the main door of the hall, but a smaller one off to the side.
Seth knocked with a large fist on the door and opened it when he got a soft, ‘come in’, in response.
The large Lord had to duck to enter in the small doorway. A woman sat on stool in front of a fire. As she stood, Transiit realised that she was tiny, only coming up to midway on Seth’s chest, Transiit had to look down at the woman as well.
Compared to the Night’s Lord, she looked incredibly frail, as if someone could poke her and she would disintegrate.
“So who is this?” The voice was soft and high, but beautiful, like many tiny, tinkling bells.
“Margo, this is Transiit. Transiit, this is Margo, she is our healer, she is also Morag’s sister.”
Transiit’s mouth dropped open and Seth’s eyes twinkled with amusement. A grin split the little healers face at Transiit’s reaction.
“Oh yes, everyone is always surprised when they are told we’re sisters. But we have been. And as much as I look like I would float away with the slightest breeze, I looked after my little sister for a long time before Morag took over little Seth’s household.”
“Little sister?” Transiit looked up at Seth. “Little Seth?”
The healers soft light blue, almost white-looking eyes twinkled with amusement. “Yes, strangely enough, I was born before the boisterous Morag over in the hall. And yes, Seth is little, at least in age and intelligence compared to me.” She smiled again.
Seth grinned, “Well, if you’ve finished slighting my intelligence and discussing your family tree, I wanted you to look at a slice on Transiit’s wrist.” He grabbed her hand gently and tugged her more into the room towards the healer.
Her wrist was swapped between the leathery, callused hands of Seth’s to the soft, small but strong hands on the healer. She examined Transiit’s wrist with a practised eye before tutting, sounding much like her sister with that exclamation.
“What did you do to her Seth?” She sounded disapproving.
“I swear it wasn’t me.” He held up his hands in a gesture to ward away her disapproving gaze. “This little one held her own in the fight.”
“You had her fighting?” The healer raised her small hands to her hips and glared up at Seth, surely she wouldn’t take on the gigantic Lord?
“Margo. It’s ok. It wasn’t precisely his fault, but it’s a long story. He has, um, looked after me since then.”
The healer turned her gaze to Transiit’s before sighing. “Well.
That’s going to need stitches little one.”
Did she call everyone little?
Transiit sighed, it was what she expected, but she had never really liked people sewing her up like she was a piece of cloth.
She gulped and hoped that her discomfort wasn’t shown on her face. Obviously it did, because Seth took her other hand in his and guided her to a chair not letting go of her hand even when she had settled.
The little healer turned away to gather what she needed, waving a needle through a flame to sterilise the metal. When the healer turned to face the two fighters again, Transiit blanched.
Seth squeezed her hand and strangely enough, she took comfort from the gesture.
Transiit squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and clamped Seth’s hand in hers. He ran in thumb in circular motions over the soft skin of her wrist to soothe her frazzled nerves. The light touch distracted her from what was happening to her other hand. The swirling pattern was light, almost ticklish, but sent sparks shooting up her arm and deep into her stomach that had nothing to do with the light-hearted feeling of being tickled. It was something from deeper within. Carnal.
The spell was broken when the healer gave a sharp tug as she finished the final knot on the stiches. Looking down, Transiit saw that it was very well done, evenly spaced, small and neat.
When Transiit met the small woman’s gaze, she flushed, the eyes she encountered seemed too all-knowing. As if she knew exactly who and what she was thinking about just before.
Transiit removed her hand from Seth’s grip. But the woman didn’t seem unhappy, in fact, she seemed sort of smug about the whole situation and a little bit proud. Seeing Transiit’s blush, the little healer grinned.
“Well, now that your battle scars are all attended to, I believe Morag was just setting up dinner if you would like to east. You must be starving after your journey.” As she spoke, Transiit became aware of her ravenous hunger and her stomach growled in agreement. That got them all laughing and Seth took her hand to lead her towards to larger hall that Morag had disappeared into earlier.
Eating Food
Her hand felt small in his as he led her to the hall. As they entered, Transiit heard the loud sound of people, readying themselves to eat. She had underestimated the size of the Night keep. This hall alone would be as big as the two main Storm halls put together.
Seth strode through the threshold, the smell of freshly cooked food drifting and Transiit’s hand slipped from his, he thought nothing of it until he made it to the Lairds table and turned around to find her gone. He quickly raked his gaze across the room before he found her standing, just inside the threshold of his hall, gazing up at the ceiling and the stain glass windows with a look of utter amazement.
When she had finished her perusal of the ceiling, her wonderstruck gaze fell to him. He grinned at her, and she grinned back. He was stunned by her smile, it lit up her whole face and made her even more beautiful than she already was.
She started to walk towards the table, her eyes still trained on him with a small smile still on her face, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Seth scowled when Leith met her halfway and she focused her gaze on the other man.
Soon enough Leith led her up the middle of the hall to Seth, she laughed at something he said and her face lit up again, twinkling with humour. Leith glanced from her to his laird and looked taken aback at the dark scowl on his lairds face.
Seth quickly schooled his expressions into one of bland indifference and Leith raised an eyebrow at the unspoken denial.
“Transiit, you can sit next to me this morning.”
She looked shocked at to what he supposed. “Me? Sitting on your right hand side?” Transiit knew that spot was usually reserved for the Lairds wife and would remain empty until Seth married.
“Yes? Why not?”
“Because your future lady wife should sit there.”
“Well,” he lowered his voice, “how do you know you’re not my future lady wife?”
Transiit snorted unbelievingly at his question despite the shiver that went down her spine at the promise in his tone. “Because I’m your prisoner.”
Seth looked at her for a moment before he responded, “Fine, Leith you sit on my right then. I’ll marry you instead and she can sit on my left.”
Leith just laughed, “No way, I was going to find Natalie this morning anyways, I’ve been gone for so long she probably missed me terribly.” He winked roguishly at Transiit which left her no question as to what their ‘meeting’ would entail.
Seth groaned. “Gross. At least lock the door next time, or put your kilt on the handle to let people know what you’re doing. You only made it to the storage cupboard last time and if Morag finds you again she’ll have your hide.”
“As you wish my lord.” Leith winked at the two of them before sauntering away grabbing a blonde wench on his way out, and vanished through a side door.
Transiit looked at Seth. “Please tell me that blonde was Natalie.”
Seth walked around the table and pulled out the seat that sat to his left out, so that she could sit. “Not a chance, Natalie has black hair.” He winked at her and she muttered something that sounded something like, ‘bloody men’ under her breath.
First Night at Night Keep
Seth noticed his guest’s eyes closing briefly for a moment or two during their meal, before she seemed to realise that she was falling asleep and forced herself to stay awake.
After the fifth or sixth time, Seth stood up and held his hand out to her to take. “Come on. You’re exhausted, I’ll show you where your room is.”
She must be incredibly tired because she didn’t even argue with him, she just slipped her hand into his and followed him up the stairs.
Her eyes were slipping ever frequently closed when he opened the door to a large chamber. It was about the size of hers back at the Storm Keep, but this one’s interior decorating was much different. Transiit’s back home, had been sparsely furnished and messy but well-loved. It only contained a small bed and a chest, but the floor had been littered with stacks upon stacks of books. This room however was draped with delicately hung curtains, lace pillows and faded pink rugs. It had obviously belonged to the previous mistress of the keep.
Seth cleared his throat. “It was my mother’s old room before she passed away after my father, and since then I haven’t found anyone to fill it. I guess you can keep it warm for the next mistress of the keep.” He winked at her and turned to leave.
“Where’s your room?” Transiit burst out before thinking of what she was saying.
He looked back at her with an amused expression on his face.
“Is there any particular reason that you want to know.” He smirked in a smug sort of way.
“Ew, gross. Definitely not for what you’re thinking.”
He laughed at the way her face screwed up at the thought of them sharing a bed. If he had anything to say about it, there would come a time when she didn’t seem so scandalised at the thought.
“Well, in case you decide to attack me in my sleep,” He voice lowered suspiciously, “anyway you want. It’s right across the hallway.” He started to leave the room but stopped just under the threshold. “Good night Transiit. Sweet dreams.” He gave her a wink and closed to door behind him.
Plopping onto the bed Transiit let out the breath she didn’t even know she had been holding in. Seth was a puzzle to her. He knew that she was a Storm. And yet that didn’t stop him being nice to her. Maybe a bit too nice at times, but it was flattering. Every girl had to admit it was nice to have a gorgeous man hitting on them. Whether they intended to shoot them down or not, it was still nice.
But Transiit couldn’t let herself like him. Sure he was nice. But he was still a Night and her brother was the Storm Laird. And if she let herself get close to Seth now, she knew that he would still hate her when he found out she was a storm. She would be the worst guest he had ever had. And would make his life hell until he gets so sick of her, he chucks her out and sends her home. Yes. That would work. She hoped.
Plan
Two warring castles
The Nights raid a small party of Storm men. Lord Seth Night takes a hostage.
The hostage he just believes is some random woman. Is actually Transiit Storm. Sister of Lord Travers Storm.
Turns out she’s a really good swords person.
They’re both attracted to one another but they don’t admit it.
First day Transiit tries to escape. Seth follows they get captured by the army. (they have to work together, turns out they really like one another)
Get told they can either give up everything or fight. Duh, they fight.
They are a new lot of people who want to ‘colonise’ or something. After they return from being captured, the raid scene happens.
Transiit is worried about her family. When Leith gets hurt on a raid. She tells Seth she is Travers Storm’s sister.
He has a spaz. Terrified that he is in love with his worst enemies sister. And throws her out.
She makes it home, tells her brother about the army.
He realises the only way they’ll be safe is if they band together with the Nights.
They travel to the Nights under a peace banner. Transiit goes with. Really awkward ‘cause everyone is looking at her weird ‘cause people thinks she’s a traitor.
The Nights and Storms come to an agreement. They go to battle. Transiit still loves Seth and tells him so however he just rejects her (really sad)
Then she goes to battle as well with her bro (cause remember she’s a really good fighter)
She gets her and is basically on her deathbed although the other army is defeated...
Seth realises her loves her and blah blah blah. All teary and lovey dovey.
Then they get married yay!
Characters
Transiit Storm – blue eyes, red curly hair
Pyke – Storm Commander at Arms
Travers Storm – Laird of Storm keep, Transiit’s elder brother
Seth Night – green eyes, sandy hair
Morag – Head of the hall – Night – Margo’s younger sister
Margo – Healer – Night – Morag’s elder sister
Leith – Seth’s second in command
Dom – Night – warrior
Eva – Night – Becomes Transiit’s friend
Natalie – Leith’s “friend” – black hair
General Edward Montiato – In charge of the armies.
Captain Vince Hiess – Is the person Seth and Transiit first meet when they get captured and told that they are going to have to surrender or die.
Zane – Gets called Z. He helps Transiit to escape when Seth is sent back to bring the message to his ‘Laird’ they pretended they were common folk. And then he almost gets spotted so she takes him with her. Ends up being good friends with Leith and Seth and everyone.
----------~~---------~~----------
The Raid
Lightning flashed, streaking the purple sky with white light and thunder rolled menacingly through the night. As the rain battered the ground, people melting into like from the shadows of the copse of trees. ADD MORE?
They headed towards the only source of light on the ground for miles around. A campfire flickering in the night. Suddenly a cry rang through the night. “IT’S THE NIGHTS!” The attackers started running towards the fire and the shadows crouched around it, diving into battle with the figures leaping to their feet.
But the attackers outnumbered the campers two to one, and soon they fell one after the other. Only two were left, they were standing back to back fighting with deadly accuracy.
One had their hood drawn up about their face and was slimmer than you would expect from a warrior.
“Run, Transiit!” A hoarse cry sounded from the bigger of the two.
“There’s no way I’m running from a good fight, Pyke!” A high-pitched, determined voice sounded from the other.
“You must get back to the keep!” Pyke’s voice sounded desperate now, pleading. But any choice that might have been made by the slimmer of the two was cut short when one of the attackers broke through his defence and drove his spear into Pyke’s foot. When he cried out and fell to his knees, the attackers swarmed the final valiant fighters. They were grabbed roughly by their arms and pulled between two warriors each. A tall warrior with sandy brown hair stepped through the warriors who were now searching the corpses littered around the still blazing fire and stepped in front of the slimmer fighter, whose hood still shrouded any discerning facial features. Reaching the grasp the fighter’s neck, he yanked down the hood revealing a very angry, very petite, woman.
Capture and they meet
Transiit was angry. Actually she was beyond angry, she was livid. Of course, she knew who the man standing in front of her was. Power radiated of him in waves, and his eyes flashed with confusion and disbelief before being replaced by an emotion that Transiit found hard to place.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here? A woman?” His deep green eyes regarded her intently, as if trying to discern that she was actually the same person who had just taken down 10 of his own men by herself.
“Of course I’m a woman, what else do you think I am? Or are you so inexperienced that you need to ask before you embarrass yourself?” She smirked at him, not at all afraid of his menacing manner. His mouth tightened and his eyes hardened at her comment.
So what if he’s a gigantic warrior who will probably kill me when he gets the chance? I’m not going to let him intimidate me.
Pyke cast a quick look in her direction, it was a warning. Don’t antagonise the giant people with swords. Her brother’s commander at arms was entirely too careful. She just rolled her eyes at him but shut her mouth anyways.
The giant examining her was Seth Night. Her family, the Storms, and his family, the Nights, had been at war with one another for thousands of years. No-one even remembered how it started now, but it didn’t matter, this war was part of their life style now. It would always be part of their lives.
Seth Night had turned away from her, issuing orders to his men, who were now packing up the objects they had salvaged and were awaiting Night’s commands. As they received their tasks they separated and the men holding Transiit’s arms disappeared, blood rushed back into her limbs from where they had been holding her so tight and she rubbed them to be rid of the unpleasant feeling that needles were jabbing into her arms.
As she turned towards Pyke, Seth took a step placing himself between them, his attention now focussed solely on her.
“I’m not stupid enough to try and escape now. I would get a mile before I was cut down by your men.” He didn’t say anything in reply, just nodded.
Pyke was still being restrained, but Transiit took a step towards him, around Seth, and brushed the Night soldiers hands off him, they didn’t try to stop her and just let go, walking away before coming to stand beside Seth.
When she turned back to look at him, she realised that it was Seth that had allowed his warriors to release Pyke. He had given her time to talk to Pyke, alone. That seemed like a bad plan on the Nights behalf, but she wasn’t going to complain.
“Transiit are you alright? I knew I shouldn’t have allowed to on the raid. I should have taken you straight back to the keep the moment I realised you had come with us.”
“Shush.” Transiit lowered her voice and whispered in his ear.
“They’ll send you back to relay a message to my brother and say they have a hostage. I need you to convince my brother not to come after me.”
Pyke sent her a startled look and she glanced over her shoulder to check that Seth was still there and still just out of hearing range.
He was. Just standing there. Watching. The rain was slackening off now, only a few trickles fell from the sky now.
“They won’t harm me. I’m just a woman. And you know that we don’t have the man power at the moment to have a full-blown battle with the nights. Most of the soldiers are escorting mother to the funeral. I’ll make my way back eventually. I’m a Storm through and through.”
Pyke sent her a pained look. “I can’t just leave you behind.”
“Yes. You can and you will. I need you to look after Travers. And the Night’s will never need to know that I’m the Lairds sister, okay? I’ll make my way back eventually.”
“I will come back for you.”
She just shook her head, not agreeing nor disagreeing with his statement. “When mother comes back.” Transiit glanced over her shoulder again at Night, before raising her voice slightly, so it was still natural but was now loud enough to carry to Seth.
“Now father, we’ll be okay. I’m too pretty for them to permanently harm.” Seth beckoned to her and grinned at Pyke before making her way over to Seth Night and composing her features into a mask of indifference. His men left him and went to stand by Pyke again.
“My Lord, what will you be wanting of me?” She kept her eyes trained to the ground, acting for the moment to be the submissive woman that most women would be in this situation.
Tells him her name
His eyes narrowed suspiciously at her change of behaviour. The ice blue eyes that had stared so defiantly back into his earlier were now trained carefully upon the ground.
Seth’s hand when to her chin, raising her eyes to his own. “What is your name, sweet?” Her eyes flashed in anger. Ah, that was what he remembered from before. He grinned. She scowled.
“Don’t call me sweet.”
“Why not,” he paused for effect, “sweet? I have nothing else to call you by as you haven’t graced me with your name as of yet.”
She was still scowling with her chin in his hand when she answered, seemingly through gritted teeth. “Transiit. My name is Transiit.”
“Ah, sweet. That’s a beautiful name.” Her jaw clenched again. But this time she refrained from responding. Dropping his hand from her face, he stepped away, gesturing for her to follow before he started walking.
Transiit stared at his back as he walked away from her. This man was infuriating. And he just expected her to calmly obey his command and follow. He didn’t even stop as he walked into the trees. Letting out a frustrated groan, she took off after him.
After what seemed to be just randomly wandering in the trees, Transiit spoke up.
“So why am I following you into the dark?”
“Why? Are you afraid?” Seth glanced back at her over his shoulder, his gaze amused.
She just laughed, rolling her eyes. “Of course not. You’re not that scary.”
And suddenly, before she could even register the movement, he had her pinned against a tree. The bark rough against her back, his body hard as he pressed against her and his eyes dangerously dark.
Her breathing grew harsh, as did his. She was aware of every inch of his body against hers and his arms on either side of her head. Her chest rose up and down, breasts brushing against his chest with every breath.
His head bent to hers, their lips so close to touching. Now all
Transiit could see were his eyes. They were a deep sea green, multi-faceted, with flecks of brown and gold within.
“Are you sure?” His voice was deep and husky.
Ok, she was wrong, he was pretty scary. But like she was going to admit that.
“Yep. You’re like a little pussy cat. Not scary at all.” Hell, she didn’t even believe herself. Transiit voice had turned weak and breathy at his close proximity.
Seth smiled, a spark of an idea forming in his eyes. And that made Transiit even more afraid. Why would he be smiling at a time like this? She realised his intent as he bent his head and captured her mouth with his lips.
His lips moved against hers and Transiit hit his chest with her fists, but it was only half-heartedly as even as she did so, her lips started responding to his gentle coaxing. Gentle? Gentle coaxing? Surely not. Even though she knew he was trying to scare her, was kissing her without her consent AND was her bloody enemy, he was being gentle. Uh? What?
However, as his tongue flicked out across her lips, urging her mouth to open to him. All thoughts of his gentleness fled as she had to keep her mind focussed on not giving in and opening her mouth. He chuckled darkly at her stubbornness and growled against her lips. “Open your mouth.” She did, but it wasn’t to submit to him, it was to argue. “N-“ She realised her mistake as he recaptured her mouth and thrust his tongue in, while she was trying to refuse him.
He tasted like no-one she’d kissed before. And sure, she hadn’t kissed that many people. But she wasn’t frigid either. Sighing she accepted his tongue and stroked hers along the length of his. Seth groaned, sounding like he was in pain. His kisses continued to ravage her, taking her breath away. But she had to stop. Had to stop him. She tore her mouth from his, her hands resting on his chest, exerting a light pressure, only just keeping him at bay.
“Um. Don’t you have to get back and order your men around a little more?” Her voice was husky and a little breathless which took away a lot of the effect from her words.
He just smiled at her seemingly unaffected from all that just happened.
“What? You don’t like me kissing you?”
“Of course not. And we should really go, so that your men don’t think I’ve overpowered you and cut off your balls or something…”
In his stunned silence and scowl at her comment, she brushed past him and headed off into the forest, in, hopefully, the direction of the camp.
Meets Leith, at the camp
As she was turned away from him, Transiit missed his eye roll in her general direction. He trotted over to her side, easily keeping pace with her determined strides. “Um. What are you doing?” He enquired.
“I’m heading towards the camp.” She said this with a lilt to her voice that suggested he was simple or something.
“You do know the camp is that way.” As he said so, he pointed over her head behind her.
She threw him a scowl as Transiit spun on her head, stalking back in the opposite direction. “I knew that. I was just testing you.”
He just smiled at her, not at all put off by her bad mood. “Sure.”
Before she could reply with a scathing response, they emerged from the trees into the clearing where the warriors had now set up camp.
A few heads rose from their work, glancing speculatively up at the two of them, but at a look from their Lord, they quickly cast their eyes back to whatever they were doing. Only one didn’t look back at the food cooking over his fire. He was quite a handsome man, with strong rugged features, and the smile that split his face as they emerged from the trees only added to his charm. Well it would if the smile didn’t infuriate Transiit even more than Seth. The man was smiling as if he knew what the two of them had been doing.
Transiit glared at him, daring him to comment, but he didn’t stop smiling. Even at the scowl from his Lord which would have usually sent someone scrambling for the hills, the man just chuckled.
“What’re you so happy about?” Seth growled and dragged a longish log close to the fire opposite the man. He plonked himself down on the wood and gestured for Transiit to sit next to him. She considered ignoring his command and going to sit at the same fire as Pyke, but it was all the way on the other side of the camp and didn’t have any delicious smelling food cooking on it. So, much to her chagrin, she took the seat next to Seth and listened to the conversation continuing on in front of her.
“Oh nothing, nothing.” His eyes slid to Transiit before going back to Seth. “I was just about to send people after you. Thought maybe she had overwhelmed you or something.”
Transiit grinned and mumbled under her breath. ‘’See? It wasn’t too far-fetched that maybe I had cut off your balls.”
The man across the fire coughed, spitting out the ale he was drinking back into his cup. Seth just rolled his eyes. “So. Who is this delightful young lady?”
Seth glanced at her as he picked the food from the fire and started eating. “This is Transiit. Eat. You must be hungry.” He poked one long finger at the food.
She had to admit, she was incredibly hungry, not bothering about asking for any eating implements, as it was obvious they didn’t care, due to the grease now all over Seth fingers, she reached over and picked a piece of meat off the carcass on the fire. She plopped the meat into her mouth and blew on her fingers to cool them off. It was delicious, just what she needed and she moaned as the meat hit her taste buds.
Seth cast a sharp look in her direction at her sound, his eyes darkening with an emotion Transiit couldn’t quite pick out. The man across the fire took note of Seth’s reaction and chuckled softly.
Transiit looked at him, “So, who, may I ask, are you?”
His eyes danced with amusement at her clipped tone, as if she was offended that he laughed. “I am Leith, my lady,” He sent her a mocking bow from his position across the fire, “and I’m pleased to meet your acquaintance, but probably not as pleased as Seth is.” Her eyes darted to Seth, but his eyes were narrowed at Leith.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Seth growled at the other man.
Leith just grinned happily at the two of them across the crackling
fire. “Nope.”
“Why are you my second in command? I should have chosen someone who would actually help me out sometimes.”
Leith didn’t bother to comment, his ever-present grin just widened.
“So, my Lord. Where will we be heading tomorrow?”
“Well, I was thinking of going back to the keep. The snows will be upon us soon, and we will need to make sure there is enough game to get us through the winter.”
Leith nodded his agreement at the statement before grabbing another piece of meat from the fire, tossing it from hand to hand the alleviate some of the heat on his fingers.
“I’ll pass along the message to the men. I’m on first watch, you don’t have one tonight, so you best be getting some rest.” He rose from his seat and inclined his head at Transiit before looking between the two of them. “Have a,” pause for effect, “pleasant, night.” Before grinning and taking off.
Transiit scowled at his retreating figure and Seth just shook his head before glancing up at her. “That man’s going to get himself hurt one day.” There was no heat in his words; it was obvious the two of them were close. “Come. He’s right. We’ll want to get an early start tomorrow so we can make it to the keep by nightfall tomorrow.”
Sleep
He led her towards a blanket laid out on the ground, just within the circle of warmth radiating from the fire. “Um. If this is yours where am I going to sleep?” She glanced accusingly at him.
Seth glared at her. “You don’t have to be ungrateful. I was going to let you sleep on MY special blanket while I slept on the ground. But if you really don’t want to, I suppose YOU can sleep on the ground.”
She spluttered in anger as he lay on the ground on his blanket, turning his back to her. “I-I-I don’t want to sleep on the ground, not when you get to sleep on a blanket.” Usually she wouldn’t care that she had to sleep on the ground, it just annoyed her that he was making such a big deal about it.
Turning onto his side to face her, he propped himself onto an elbow looking at her. “Hmmm. I’m pretty comfortable now, but I suppose I could move over a little bit and share.”
She scowled at him. “There is no way I’m sharing with you.” He snorted, still propped up on an elbow as she lay on the ground, back to him, staring into the fire. Chuckling at her stubbornness, he lay down to make himself comfortable.
It wasn’t long until Transiit started fidgeting. She was uncomfortable. Actually, uncomfortable was too subtle a word. She had a rock digging into her side, a twig jabbing into her leg and the ground was damp from the earlier storm.
Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at Seth, his eyes were closed, his breathing soft, perhaps he was already asleep. Maybe he wouldn’t notice if she shuffled over and rested just on the edge of his blanket. She made up her mind as the twig jabbed her thigh again and she wiggled backwards until she could feel the soft edge of the blanket under her.
Seth’s eye opened as she crept onto his blanket and he grinned. He had heard her fidgeting and knew she wouldn’t last long. Before she could register the movement, Seth’s arm snaked out and wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him, spooning with her.
Transiit struggled for a bit against him, but gave up when it was obvious he wasn’t going to let go of her. “What are you doing?”
But even as she voiced her complaint, she snuggled deeper into his arms.
“I’m keeping you warm. Now don’t complain. Sleep.” Even as she scowled up at him, she could feel her exhaustion catching up to her. His warmth was overwhelming, his arms surrounding her and his masculine scent wrapping her up.
She mumbled something under her breath about him being an oaf, with no manners or something before his chuckle lulled her into a deep sleep.
Morning
Transiit woke up feeling deliciously warm. Warm? Why was she warm? She groaned under her breath. Hoping that memory of where she had slept last night was wrong. As she opened her eyes, she knew she wasn’t. Seth’s arms were still wrapped tightly around her. Transiit tried to subtly untangle her limbs from his embrace, but his body was firmly encircling hers.
Trying again to be free of him, she wiggled but achieved nothing. Giving up on being subtle. She raised a hand and thumped him on the chest. Seth’s eyes opened and started to blink away the last of the sleepiness dulling the green orbs as he stirred.
He grinned up at her scowling face. “Hmm, good morning.”
Standing up, she glanced around at the camp around her, it was still early, but men were already awake, tending fires and shouting morning greetings across the campsite to one another. Leith was sitting at the fire, the smell of poached eggs and sizzling pork wafted up to her nose and she inhaled the scent deeply.
Behind her, Seth had risen and was packing the blanket away.
“Something smells nice Leith. You must’ve gotten someone else to cook it.”
Leith grinned at Seth as the Lord walked over to the fire before sitting down at the log that had been dragged over the night before. Leith didn’t appear offended at the obvious slight to his cooking skills and he just smiled up at him. “You’re right. Dom did it. He took pity on me when he realised I was trying to burn the forest down.” He gestured towards the scorch mark on a tree nearby.
Seth shook his head in bewilderment. “How did you manage to get the food all the way over there?”
“For some reason, the eggs burst into flame.”
“Yeah, but how did they end up on the tree? You weren’t playing with your food again were you?”
Leith rolled his eyes, “I was trying to flip them,” he muttered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yeah, right. Next time wake me up, ok?”
Transiit settled herself next to Seth on the log and shot him a disbelieving look. “You can cook?”
“Of course I can.”
Leith coughed under his breath, sounding like he was trying to hide a chuckle.
“I can!”
“Only if you like your food incredibly spicy, so spicy it will burn your mouth from the inside out.”
Seth whacked him on the back of the head. “Stop sassing your Lord. Now Dom has made us what I know will be an incredibly delicious breakfast, so I suggest we eat it before Leith can ruin it.”
Transiit looked in astonishment at the two men. No-one would dare talk to her brother like that. Even Pyke, his commander at arms and closest advisor. Pyke had basically been like a second father to the two of them growing up. Speaking of Pyke, she glanced around to see where he had gotten to.
She spotted him on the other side of the camp, a bruise was forming on his cheek from the battle the day before, both other than that, she could tell he was okay. He was sitting, eating.
Admittedly he was silent and tense, eyes darting around the camp, but that was to be expected when one was being kept hostage.
Transiit frowned as the direction her thoughts were going made her realise something. She wasn’t even afraid. She was in the middle of a Night raiding camp, the majority of the men protecting her had been killed AND she was sitting demurely next to Seth Night himself. But. She wasn’t afraid.
Maybe it had something to do with the man sitting next to her.
Looking sideways at him through her lashes, she quickly looked him up and down. He was still her arch enemy, that part hadn’t changed. But she wasn’t afraid of him anymore.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts she began to check her arms and legs for any scratches she may have received the day before. None on her left leg. None on her right. Her right arm was spared too and there was only a cut on her left wrist, running sideways along the bone. It might leave a scar, but it would heal soon enough. Transiit ran her finger over it, the blood was dry, already crusted over. She would be fine.
Seth noticed the action and reached to take her wrist in his, examining the wound.
“You need to get this checked out by the healer when we get back to the keep.” He too ran his thumb over the wound, harder than she did and she winced slightly.
“I’ll be fine. Really. I’m your prisoner. You don’t need to worry.”
He took her chin in his hand and lifted to face to look into his eyes.
“You will get it looked at. I will decide what I should worry about.”
She tugged her head out of his grasp and looked determinedly across the camp. Away from him. Why should he care about her welfare? She was a prisoner of war. A member of his arch enemy’s clan. She supposed she should be thankful. If he knew that she was the sister of the Lord. He might not be so worried about her.
“I will send your father back to the keep tomorrow.” Seth said without looking at her.
Transiit blinked. Father? Oh right, she remembered that she had called Pyke father last night so that Seth wouldn’t have any idea who she was. She knew that Pyke would be sent back, it wasn’t a surprise to her so just nodded that she had heard Seth’s statement.
“I hope that he will inform Travers Storm that we have a hostage. Tell me Transiit, who are you? Why were you with a Storm raiding party? How much are you worth to Travers Storm?”
The lie came easily to her lips. “I am but a simple crofters girl. I’ve never met Lord Storm before. My father was only with the raiding party because he went looking for me after, I, well, left.
The party picked me up a few leagues from the border, they were worried that I shouldn’t be walking around unattended. But father showed up not an hour after that. By then it was nightfall and we were going to head back to the croft in the morning. I doubt my family would be able to afford any ransom money, so sending my father back is the best thing you could do for me. I guess you’re stuck with me for a little longer.” Transiit knew she shouldn’t have made up such an elaborate lie. If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember what to say.
Seth’s eyes narrowed at her. She was trouble. Too easily resigned to her fate of having to stay with them, perhaps indefinitely. He didn’t believe her for a moment that she had never met Travers Storm. He resigned himself to being in the dark about her true identity for a moment. She would tell him eventually.
Ride to the Keep
“I’m not sitting up there.”
“Why? It’s a horse?” Seth looked at the woman standing in front of him like she was crazy or something. Could she not ride? He highly doubted that. Then why was she refusing to get on the horse?
“Thank you Captain Obvious. I know it’s a horse. But it’s your horse. And I am going to have to share with you. If I’m going to be your prisoner, I want my own horse.”
Seth rolled his eyes. So that’s what it was about. She was too proud to share a horse. Well maybe he would just have to convince her.
“Look. I know you don’t like me, but…” Seth took a step closer to her, forcing her to crane her head to look him in the eyes. It annoyed her that she had to look up at him, it made it very difficult to seem intimidating. “I’m sure I can make it worth your while.” He placed his hand on her lower back and pulled her towards him, pressing her stomach into his hardness.
Hardness that hadn’t disappeared since he had woken up with her pressed to his side.
Transiit’s breath rushed out of her. Wow. Is that what I think it is?
But how can it be so…. Big?
Shaking her head to clear her mind, she squirmed out from under his arm to put a little extra distance between what was quickly becoming a very dangerous situation. She just glared at him letting him know that she wasn’t impressed at his actions, even if she was impressed.
“Look, unless you want to walk, or be dragged along behind me, and I’ll let you know, that can be arranged. I would get your pretty little butt on the horse.” His face had turned hard, and she knew he wasn’t kidding. It looked as if she wasn’t going to get her own horse.
Transiit glared at him at stuck her tongue out even as she moved towards his horse.
He grinned at her back, she was just too damn cute. Without waiting for her permission, his big hands wrapped around her waist, and lifted her up onto the horse. She oomphed in surprise, he wasn’t even straining as she was by no means a tiny woman, she was only just smaller than him.
Without saying a word, he swung up behind her, his hard body melding against her back, she sat up straight to try and get as far away from his warmth as possible and he chuckled, sliding his hands around her to grasp the reins. Sticking two fingers in his mouth, he gave long high whistle, tapping his heels into his horse to lead the stallion into a smooth walk, then into a canter, as the rest of his raiding party gathered into formation around him.
Arrival at the Keep
The wench on his lap stirred, her eyes blinking sleepily. They stared up at him, without any reservations, no fear, and not hiding anything. And then they registered that it was him. She was lying unreservedly in his arms. Her blue eyes widened, and she sat up straight. Immediately he missed her warmth, her soft body in his arms.
He sighed softly, “We’ll be at the keep soon.” Transiit just nodded her understanding at his words.
She was shaken. When she woke up, all she felt was contentment. She was warm and happy, wrapped in the arms of someone big and strong, someone who could protect her. And then she realised that it was the exact same man who had attacked her men and kidnapped her.
The sun was just setting, making the sky glow a myriad of bright colours. Pinks merged into reds and oranges with tinges of yellows as well.
Houses popped up every now and then, the inhabitants occasionally emerging to wave at the returning party. Seth called out greetings to his people, polite greetings to some with more good-natured greetings to several, older, and grinning men.
He reminded her of her brother. He was on good terms with everyone and never hesitated to stop whenever one of his people wanted to complain or just chat.
Transiit turned her head to look at the man sitting behind her, and he grinned down at her. Again she sighed, she seemed to be doing that a lot lately, before turning to cast her gaze around the keep they were just entering, under a low archway.
It wasn’t really anything special, actually, it was quite similar to her brother’s keep. With low archways and wide doors, they could have been built by the same family. Usually the highlanders keep’s had slightly different architectural designs as each family had different tastes, but the Night keep and the Storm keep were frighteningly similar.
Transiit’s mind was torn away from the architecture as the raiding party came to a stop. Seth vaulted off the horse behind her, and stood with arms outstretched, waiting to help her dismount. Ignoring his hands, she slid demurely off the horse.
A portly, older woman bustled through the large doorway, leading into what Transiit assumed was the main hall.
“Seth! You had me worried! You said you would be back yesterday.” She hurried over to him and started to brush the dirt on his cloak away with her hands. She reminded Transiit a little bit of a hen, shuffling around and clucking orders at the men dismounting and heading into the hall. They smiled at her good-naturedly, surprisingly allowing her to mother every single one of them. Seth was just the same, he stood still as she tsked at a wound he had received before steering her over to Transiit.
“Morag. This is Transiit. She will be our… guest… for a little bit.”
Morag started suspiciously at her, eyes narrowed. Transiit could tell that Morag wasn’t at all deceived by Seth’s light introduction of her.
“A guest, huh? I’m sure… Well. I’ll make her feel right at home.”
Seth raised his eyebrows at the woman before adding.
“You do actually have to be nice to her.”
She gawked. “Nice? I’m not nice to most of the people around here, let alone, um, ‘guests’.”
Transiit stared at her, “I believe your Lord gave you a job to do and you back chatted him. That’s complete disrespect.” The woman stared at her, before she a hearty, loud, laugh burst from within her. It seemed to come from deep in her lungs, bubbling up to the surface.
“I like her, Seth. Hmmm. Yes. I do believe I like your little… ‘guest’.” And with that statement she strode back into the hall, grabbing Leith along the way and berating him about one thing or another.
“She is actually harmless and she runs this place much better than I could do by myself and without a wife or my mother really. Now. I will introduce you to our healer, she can take a look at your wrist.”
Transiit tried to object, “I really don’t think that’s necessary. It’ll be fine.”
“I said you will visit the healer. End of story.”
Too tired to argue, she allowed him to lightly grasp her elbow and lead her through a door, not the main door of the hall, but a smaller one off to the side.
Seth knocked with a large fist on the door and opened it when he got a soft, ‘come in’, in response.
The large Lord had to duck to enter in the small doorway. A woman sat on stool in front of a fire. As she stood, Transiit realised that she was tiny, only coming up to midway on Seth’s chest, Transiit had to look down at the woman as well.
Compared to the Night’s Lord, she looked incredibly frail, as if someone could poke her and she would disintegrate.
“So who is this?” The voice was soft and high, but beautiful, like many tiny, tinkling bells.
“Margo, this is Transiit. Transiit, this is Margo, she is our healer, she is also Morag’s sister.”
Transiit’s mouth dropped open and Seth’s eyes twinkled with amusement. A grin split the little healers face at Transiit’s reaction.
“Oh yes, everyone is always surprised when they are told we’re sisters. But we have been. And as much as I look like I would float away with the slightest breeze, I looked after my little sister for a long time before Morag took over little Seth’s household.”
“Little sister?” Transiit looked up at Seth. “Little Seth?”
The healers soft light blue, almost white-looking eyes twinkled with amusement. “Yes, strangely enough, I was born before the boisterous Morag over in the hall. And yes, Seth is little, at least in age and intelligence compared to me.” She smiled again.
Seth grinned, “Well, if you’ve finished slighting my intelligence and discussing your family tree, I wanted you to look at a slice on Transiit’s wrist.” He grabbed her hand gently and tugged her more into the room towards the healer.
Her wrist was swapped between the leathery, callused hands of Seth’s to the soft, small but strong hands on the healer. She examined Transiit’s wrist with a practised eye before tutting, sounding much like her sister with that exclamation.
“What did you do to her Seth?” She sounded disapproving.
“I swear it wasn’t me.” He held up his hands in a gesture to ward away her disapproving gaze. “This little one held her own in the fight.”
“You had her fighting?” The healer raised her small hands to her hips and glared up at Seth, surely she wouldn’t take on the gigantic Lord?
“Margo. It’s ok. It wasn’t precisely his fault, but it’s a long story. He has, um, looked after me since then.”
The healer turned her gaze to Transiit’s before sighing. “Well.
That’s going to need stitches little one.”
Did she call everyone little?
Transiit sighed, it was what she expected, but she had never really liked people sewing her up like she was a piece of cloth.
She gulped and hoped that her discomfort wasn’t shown on her face. Obviously it did, because Seth took her other hand in his and guided her to a chair not letting go of her hand even when she had settled.
The little healer turned away to gather what she needed, waving a needle through a flame to sterilise the metal. When the healer turned to face the two fighters again, Transiit blanched.
Seth squeezed her hand and strangely enough, she took comfort from the gesture.
Transiit squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and clamped Seth’s hand in hers. He ran in thumb in circular motions over the soft skin of her wrist to soothe her frazzled nerves. The light touch distracted her from what was happening to her other hand. The swirling pattern was light, almost ticklish, but sent sparks shooting up her arm and deep into her stomach that had nothing to do with the light-hearted feeling of being tickled. It was something from deeper within. Carnal.
The spell was broken when the healer gave a sharp tug as she finished the final knot on the stiches. Looking down, Transiit saw that it was very well done, evenly spaced, small and neat.
When Transiit met the small woman’s gaze, she flushed, the eyes she encountered seemed too all-knowing. As if she knew exactly who and what she was thinking about just before.
Transiit removed her hand from Seth’s grip. But the woman didn’t seem unhappy, in fact, she seemed sort of smug about the whole situation and a little bit proud. Seeing Transiit’s blush, the little healer grinned.
“Well, now that your battle scars are all attended to, I believe Morag was just setting up dinner if you would like to east. You must be starving after your journey.” As she spoke, Transiit became aware of her ravenous hunger and her stomach growled in agreement. That got them all laughing and Seth took her hand to lead her towards to larger hall that Morag had disappeared into earlier.
Eating Food
Her hand felt small in his as he led her to the hall. As they entered, Transiit heard the loud sound of people, readying themselves to eat. She had underestimated the size of the Night keep. This hall alone would be as big as the two main Storm halls put together.
Seth strode through the threshold, the smell of freshly cooked food drifting and Transiit’s hand slipped from his, he thought nothing of it until he made it to the Lairds table and turned around to find her gone. He quickly raked his gaze across the room before he found her standing, just inside the threshold of his hall, gazing up at the ceiling and the stain glass windows with a look of utter amazement.
When she had finished her perusal of the ceiling, her wonderstruck gaze fell to him. He grinned at her, and she grinned back. He was stunned by her smile, it lit up her whole face and made her even more beautiful than she already was.
She started to walk towards the table, her eyes still trained on him with a small smile still on her face, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Seth scowled when Leith met her halfway and she focused her gaze on the other man.
Soon enough Leith led her up the middle of the hall to Seth, she laughed at something he said and her face lit up again, twinkling with humour. Leith glanced from her to his laird and looked taken aback at the dark scowl on his lairds face.
Seth quickly schooled his expressions into one of bland indifference and Leith raised an eyebrow at the unspoken denial.
“Transiit, you can sit next to me this morning.”
She looked shocked at to what he supposed. “Me? Sitting on your right hand side?” Transiit knew that spot was usually reserved for the Lairds wife and would remain empty until Seth married.
“Yes? Why not?”
“Because your future lady wife should sit there.”
“Well,” he lowered his voice, “how do you know you’re not my future lady wife?”
Transiit snorted unbelievingly at his question despite the shiver that went down her spine at the promise in his tone. “Because I’m your prisoner.”
Seth looked at her for a moment before he responded, “Fine, Leith you sit on my right then. I’ll marry you instead and she can sit on my left.”
Leith just laughed, “No way, I was going to find Natalie this morning anyways, I’ve been gone for so long she probably missed me terribly.” He winked roguishly at Transiit which left her no question as to what their ‘meeting’ would entail.
Seth groaned. “Gross. At least lock the door next time, or put your kilt on the handle to let people know what you’re doing. You only made it to the storage cupboard last time and if Morag finds you again she’ll have your hide.”
“As you wish my lord.” Leith winked at the two of them before sauntering away grabbing a blonde wench on his way out, and vanished through a side door.
Transiit looked at Seth. “Please tell me that blonde was Natalie.”
Seth walked around the table and pulled out the seat that sat to his left out, so that she could sit. “Not a chance, Natalie has black hair.” He winked at her and she muttered something that sounded something like, ‘bloody men’ under her breath.
First Night at Night Keep
Seth noticed his guest’s eyes closing briefly for a moment or two during their meal, before she seemed to realise that she was falling asleep and forced herself to stay awake.
After the fifth or sixth time, Seth stood up and held his hand out to her to take. “Come on. You’re exhausted, I’ll show you where your room is.”
She must be incredibly tired because she didn’t even argue with him, she just slipped her hand into his and followed him up the stairs.
Her eyes were slipping ever frequently closed when he opened the door to a large chamber. It was about the size of hers back at the Storm Keep, but this one’s interior decorating was much different. Transiit’s back home, had been sparsely furnished and messy but well-loved. It only contained a small bed and a chest, but the floor had been littered with stacks upon stacks of books. This room however was draped with delicately hung curtains, lace pillows and faded pink rugs. It had obviously belonged to the previous mistress of the keep.
Seth cleared his throat. “It was my mother’s old room before she passed away after my father, and since then I haven’t found anyone to fill it. I guess you can keep it warm for the next mistress of the keep.” He winked at her and turned to leave.
“Where’s your room?” Transiit burst out before thinking of what she was saying.
He looked back at her with an amused expression on his face.
“Is there any particular reason that you want to know.” He smirked in a smug sort of way.
“Ew, gross. Definitely not for what you’re thinking.”
He laughed at the way her face screwed up at the thought of them sharing a bed. If he had anything to say about it, there would come a time when she didn’t seem so scandalised at the thought.
“Well, in case you decide to attack me in my sleep,” He voice lowered suspiciously, “anyway you want. It’s right across the hallway.” He started to leave the room but stopped just under the threshold. “Good night Transiit. Sweet dreams.” He gave her a wink and closed to door behind him.
Plopping onto the bed Transiit let out the breath she didn’t even know she had been holding in. Seth was a puzzle to her. He knew that she was a Storm. And yet that didn’t stop him being nice to her. Maybe a bit too nice at times, but it was flattering. Every girl had to admit it was nice to have a gorgeous man hitting on them. Whether they intended to shoot them down or not, it was still nice.
But Transiit couldn’t let herself like him. Sure he was nice. But he was still a Night and her brother was the Storm Laird. And if she let herself get close to Seth now, she knew that he would still hate her when he found out she was a storm. She would be the worst guest he had ever had. And would make his life hell until he gets so sick of her, he chucks her out and sends her home. Yes. That would work. She hoped.
