Free Coven: a dark medieval paranormal romance (Witches of the Woods Book 2) by Steffanie Holmes Page B

cast the glow around my cabin, searching for some signs of Ulrich’s presence. But everything of his was gone. His sword and scabbard that leaned against the back of the door had vanished, as had his tunic and the breeches draped over the chair. Even the scent of him on the wool blankets had faded. He must have been gone for hours.
    Ulrich’s gone. He left me.
    My chest clenched with fear, my heart felt as if it were tearing in two. I knew he was going, but I had thought I’d be able to say goodbye. There was so much he hadn’t told me. How could he just leave like that? Did I not matter at all to him?
    I felt tense, panicked. I pulled my cloak over my shoulders, grabbed the candle, and ran out into the night. A cold breeze below up from the river, and my skin broke out in gooseflesh. “Ulrich!” I called out, my heart pounding against my chest. I swung the candle around, searching the twisting trees for his shadow. “Ulrich, where are you?”
    But all that answered me were shadows and silence.
    I walked down to the edge of the water, where we had eaten our meal that night, and the women had danced skyclad around the leaping flames. I remembered how Ulrich’s eyes had watched me every moment, following me as I went to fill my plate again, or moved to talk to the women. Now the fires were dark smudges of ash, the only sound the lapping of the water against the stony shore. A tear rolled down my cheek, followed by another. And soon my whole body shook with sobs. Ulrich was far away now, he had left me alone here, and I felt an intense fear deep inside that I would never see him again.
    “What are you doing?” A harsh voice stabbed into the darkness. I whirled around, dropping my candle. It flickered and went out, but not before the light caught the fury in Maerwynn’s eyes.
    I sniffed back my sobs. Maerwynn bent down, and picked up the candle. She ran her finger over the wick, and a bright yellow flame burst from thin air. The light flickered across her features. She looked furious.
    “It’s not safe for you to wander around the forest at night,” she said, her voice harsh. “Especially not when you yell the name of a witch hunter at the top of your lungs.”
    “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I was looking for Ulrich. He—”
    “Ulrich is gone.”
    “I know … but why?”
    “He could not stay here,” Maerwynn said. “It was his time to leave.”
    “But …” my stomach twisted. “He didn’t say goodbye.”
    “He has been saying goodbye to you all evening, in his own way. Perhaps the words themselves were too painful for him,” she said simply.
    “Why would words be painful?”
    “You are young, and have little understanding of the minds of men. This is obvious from this ridiculous outburst.” Maerwynn frowned at me, and I felt shame burning on my tear-soaked cheeks. “Ulrich is going to kill his father, Ada. You have not encountered Damon of Donnau-Ries before, so you cannot possibly understand what your lover faces. But you should know that to take the life of the one who gave you life is a deplorable act, even if committed for the most noble of reasons. Ulrich is disrupting the order of things, the great chain of being that binds us all together. And when someone breaks the chain, the goddess is charged with putting it right again, and usually, that is by taking back what has been stolen. Even if Ulrich succeeds in killing his father, which is unlikely, he will probably not survive. The Goddess won’t allow it.”
    “But—” I gulped. Ulrich had never talked about his mission as dangerous. He’d made it sound as though finding his father were easy, as easy as all the other brave acts he had committed in the past. In my head I saw Ulrich’s father as a stooped old man, slow and arthritic and easily overpowered by his strapping son. But the way Maerwynn was talking, Ulrich would be lucky to escape with his life.
    “Oh yes, Ulrich learned everything he knows from that man. The same