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The good thing about being chased by giants: you could always hear them coming.
The bad thing about being chased by giants: ...you were being chased by giants.
The friends kept to their hiding place for only a moment before those thundering boots got too close and they were forced to retreat, lest they be crushed beneath them. It was a dangerous ploy, but instead of scattering as they did before they stuck close together—keeping tight hold of each other as they moved quickly and silently through the dense underbrush.
It was a slow process, especially because giants’ eyes had accustomed themselves to detect even the slightest bit of movement. When a creature stood sixty feet above the world around them, picking up on those little things was often their best chance at capturing their prey.
As if they needed another advantage.
The princess bit back a scream as a massive shadow hovered over her, temporarily blocking out the sun. At first she thought it was their old captor, then she realized it was only his shoe. It dropped out of nowhere, crashing to the ground before she had time to move. Only a decade’s worth of training gave her the edge she needed to leap away in time. Even then, she was yanked immediately backwards as the toe of his boot caught the edge of her cloak.
Evie!
She didn’t know whether Asher had actually said the word, or if he was simply screaming inside his head that loud. Either way, their eyes met for a split second before she was pulled to the ground. She didn’t know whether or not the giant had seen her. From the second her face hit the grass, she’d been too afraid to lift her eyes. It was perhaps the only thing that saved her life.
While she might not have been able to see the giant, the faces of her friends were perfectly clear. All four of them were crouched safely in the underbrush, hidden from sight, but each one shared the same look of terror. No, the giant obviously hadn’t seen her yet. But yes, he would the second she moved. Of course, if she didn’t move...
I’m going to die here, she thought with a gasp. He’s going to step on me.
...he probably won’t even know.
Oddly enough, the second part bothered her almost as much as the first. It was one thing to go out fighting a giant in a blaze of glory, but it was quite another to become some faceless after-thought forever smeared on the bottom of his shoe.
As she lay there hyperventilating, a silent struggle was going on just beneath the leaves.
“Let me go,” Asher hissed, straining frantically against the imprisoning grip of the fae. “I need to get over there—let me go!”
“AND NO EATING!” the giant called suddenly, remembering he’d given only partial instructions. “THEY ARE STILL MINE!”
The men stared up at him for a moment before returning to their desperate battle.
“You go out there now—he’ll see you and kill her,” Ellanden muttered, straining against the effort of holding the vampire against his will. The only thing making it remotely possible was that Cosette was standing right alongside. “No movement. It’s the only chance she has.”
Asher’s face tightened in resignation, though his feet were still angled in the grass.
“I can’t just watch,” he panted breathlessly. “I can’t just—”
But in that moment, several things happened at once.
There was a shout from the other side of the garden. The giant in question whirled around in surprise. Evie went flying backwards as her cloak finally came free...
...and landed in the vampire’s arms.
The friends fell down like dominos. Even Freya, who hadn’t been connected to the rest, was too close to avoid the collision. They landed in a pile beneath a flowering laurel, trying desperately to keep quiet as they peered up through the leaves.
Sure enough, the giant was leaving.
But their flight toward freedom had only just begun.
“On three,” Ellanden breathed as they pushed to their feet. He pulled in a breath, about to begin the countdown, when the ferns in front of them suddenly parted and they found themselves in the spotlight once more. “Three!”
* * *
IT WAS LIKE SOMETHING out of a dream. More terrifying than the princess could have imagined.
No sooner would they evade one giant than another would rise up in its place. No one saw them directly—a fact that repeatedly saved their lives—but there were only so many close calls a group of people could sustain before they began to lose people along the way.
It had almost happened already.
Freya had just begun to scramble over a fallen tree trunk when the entire thing got kicked sideways, sending her flying into the air. Ellanden was almost crushed to death when a giant took an unexpected step backwards but Asher streaked out of nowhere, tackling him around the waist.
The two men tumbled across the grass, trying to slow the momentum of the fall. When they finally came to a stop, Ellanden blinked twice then shoved the vampire’s arm away from him.
Whether it was a belated reflex from their fight or something else, they would never know.
“This isn’t going to work,” Cosette whispered, eyes flickering around the grass as they re-joined the others. “They’ll catch us long before we’re free of this garden. We need a new plan.”
The others wanted to argue, it felt like suicide to stop moving, but the fae was right. The rest of the forest was perfectly silent, the search was narrowing, and they needed another way. Instead of looking around they turned their gaze upward, staring into the canopy of trees.
“What do you think?” Evie whispered, not needing to say the words out loud.
The boys nodded slowly, already of the same mind.
“That could work,” Ellanden murmured, “but it’s a long climb in the open before we get to the cover of that first branch.”
At that point, Freya realized what they were talking about for the first time.
“Are you guys crazy?!” she hissed. “You want to put us at biting height?! They won’t even have to lift us to their mouths, they can just lean forward!”
“It’s better than getting trampled to death,” Cosette whispered, tugging on her arm.
The witch resisted, fiercely. “No—it actually isn’t!” Her eyes flickered again to the towering redwood before she dug her feet firmly into the mud. “I’m not going up there. There’s not a chance in—”
Ellanden swung her over his shoulder, sprinting with the others towards the trunk.
“—seven hells!”
She banged uselessly on his back. She even debated firing a volley of sparks, but it was sure to draw attention. That being said, if that spotlight could be shifted somewhere else...
“Hang on,” she gasped suddenly. “Lift me a little higher!”
By now, they’d reached the base of the tree. The fae had been in the process of removing the witch from his shoulder, but stopped when she grabbed a fistful of his hair.
“Freya, we’ve got to keep moving—”
“Just a little higher,” she insisted. Their eyes met for a brief moment as the giants ripped up the garden just beyond. “Trust me. They’re attracted to movement, right? Then we need a little diversion.”
He gave her a bracing look, then wrapped his hands around her legs and lifted her onto his shoulders. Ironically enough, it was the same way he’d carried her through the forest as a child.
“Whatever you’re doing—do it quickly.”
She nodded hastily, gazing out over the woodland glen.
It was hard to see much of anything past the giants rampaging through the trees, but amidst the chaos she managed to catch sight of a tiny flutter of wings.
“Perfect.”
With precision aim she sent a shiver of golden light through the underbrush, hitting a bush on the far side. In a flash the air exploded with dozens of butterflies, clouding skyward in a burst of confusion, sunlight glinting off the colorful patterns as they swirled towards the heavens.
The giants turned at the same time, drawn by all the movement, allowing the friends the split second they needed to scramble up the base of the tree. At least...that was the plan.
The princess lodged one foot after the other, digging her fingers into the bark as her long cloak fluttered in the breeze. There was a reason these kinds of things were supposed to be done in the daylight, with branches and other things to help you along. Fit as she was, trained as she was, there simply was no way to scramble up the unending trunk of an evergreen tree.
Both of the fae were already on the nearest branch, having simply sprinted upward with that infuriating natural grace. Freya was making good progress, but no sooner had Ellanden settled himself than he dove right back down—lifting the young woman straight off the bark and swinging her onto his back. Her arms and legs tightened as she leaned down with a roguish grin.
“Be honest...is this flirting?”
He actually slipped a bit in surprise, throwing a quick glance behind him. One look at her teasing face and he began climbing again, laughing quietly as he went.
“You are completely deranged.”
The princess was making good progress behind them, but the soon-to-be-famous butterfly defense would only buy them so much time. She doubled her speed, trying to tap into some of that elusive shifter strength, when a pair of cool fingers wrapped around her wrists.
There was a blur of fiery hair as the world vanished. A moment later, she was on the branch.
Her cheeks flushed as she cast a sideways look at the vampire—the one who was staring out into the garden as if he hadn’t done a thing. If it weren’t for the clan of giants intent on eating them, the whole thing might have been funny. As it stood, she couldn’t resist poking him in the ribs.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
They said it at the same time, then turned to each other with a little smile. It might have been the bond—the princess had yet to even wrap her head around that one. But somehow, she didn’t think so. The two had been finishing each other’s sentences since they were just five years old.
“So I was thinking...” she began tentatively, watching as the giants circled the grass, “if we make it through this—”
“I know,” he interrupted with a quiet sigh. “We need to talk.”
She looked at him in surprise, unable to resist a smile.
In the last few days, they’d been tracked across a frozen tundra by a pack of undead leopards, fallen off a cliff, captured by a giant, only to narrowly escape setting themselves on fire.
Yet through all that...it seemed the vampire had something else on his mind.
“I was going to say,” she continued, “I’m banning all bird cages in the High Kingdom.”
He shot a glance at her face, unable to tell if she was joking, then froze with sudden tension as the giants’ search party came to an abrupt halt. The largest of the group—the one who’d been holding them prisoner—stared around the garden before throwing up his hands with a roar.
“How did this HAPPEN?!” How are they GONE?!”
The friends shrank farther beneath the cover of the branches, watching as the other giants shifted around uneasily. Most of them seemed more concerned with the fiery demolition of their companion’s cabin than with the loss of whatever occupants might have been inside. Given the average attention span of a giant, Evie could only imagine how long such a thing must have taken to build. Only the tallest of the group, the one who’d demanded his share of the leopard, seemed to share his friend’s frustration—perhaps thinking there was a tiny royal snack involved.
“We split up?” he suggested. “Search the rest of the woods?”
It was a stupid plan, even for a giant. Once they were through the gate and back in the outside world, there would be little chance of finding them. Hiding places were endless, and that was if the giants picked the right direction to start looking and the friends didn’t simply run away.
That’s what made it so bloody difficult to stay put in a tree. Hoping they wouldn’t be seen.
The giant who’d caught them seemed to agree. His face tightened angrily, before crumbling at the same time. “Can’t find them in woods...they need to be here.” In a bizarre coincidence, the giant let out a sigh and actually leaned against the very tree in which they were hiding. He was so close, Katerina could see the grizzled coils of hair sticking out of his ear. “Good little pets...”
Again, the giants shared a bewildered glance. A savage breed by nature, they respected only those things too powerful to kill. The giant in question clearly met the criteria. And yet he lived in a cabin, not a cave. He read books and tried to domesticate the locals. The brute was a paradox.
“There’s more leopard,” one of them offered hesitantly. “If you want something to eat.”
The others nodded enthusiastically, several pointing up toward the cliffs.
“...was never going to eat them,” the giant mumbled, unheard by the others. “Only wanted a friend...”
Evie’s heart softened with a stab of sympathy as she remembered the giant’s lonely fireside, the look of peaceful contentment on his face as he drifted off to sleep. Her eyes tightened—
Then fingers dug into her arm.
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for him,” Ellanden mouthed.
She blushed, and pulled her arm away.
“We check the forest anyway?” another giant offered.
There was a mighty sigh, then the one who’d captured them shook his head, staring back at the remains of his cabin with a wistful regret. “No, we head to the snow...kill more kitties.”
The others seemed to think this was a great idea. The friends embraced it with open arms. It could have been a rather peaceful end to a volatile chapter of the gang’s history.
But, as usual, fate had other plans.
As he was leaving, the giant sighed once more in frustration—pounding his fist against the base of the tree. The evergreen rattled violently, quaking from its roots to the tips of its leaves. The ground was quaking below it, and a second later Evie fell silently off the branch into the open air.
The next few seconds felt like slow motion.
She remembered her hair flying up in front of her, blocking everything else from sight. She remembered the giant paused beneath her, unaware his little prize was about to land right on top of his head. And she remembered a hand reaching out to grab her and staring up into a pair of dark eyes.
He couldn’t risk losing her. He wouldn’t dream of letting go.
When the giant ran off with his kinsmen a second later, he simply jumped off the branch himself. Falling with her this time and then landing lightly upon the forest floor, with the princess cradled safely in his arms.
She stared up at him in wonder, feeling his pounding heartbeat echo in her own chest. All those years, it had been there all along. She didn’t know how she’d missed it.
“Ash—”
He kissed her.
Without thought. Without hesitation. Without an ounce of regret.
He just kissed her.
A second later, she was kissing him back.
There was a quiet rustling as the others friends landed beside them. They didn’t notice. They didn’t even pull back for breath until a throat cleared awkwardly, and they twisted their heads to find themselves staring into another pair of dark, eternal eyes.
Ellanden opened his mouth to speak, then closed it once again. A childhood dynamic subtly changed. The chaotic clearing went quiet as the three friends stared in silence.
Then Freya bounded up beside them with a beaming smile.
“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day...”
