The Duke and the Dryad (Elemental Series) Read Online Free

strength giving way as her knees buckled beneath her. She slipped back down the side of the horse, and fell into his arms. Her head tilted back against his chest. He held her with one arm and the torch with the other as he lit up her face to have a better look. She gazed into his eyes, the flames of the firelight mixing with moonbeams creating shadows dancing across her face. Her clear, green, eyes that mimicked nature bore into him.
    “Please,” she begged him, the word softly flowing from her mouth. “Please put out the flame.”
    Then her body went limp in his arm, and he dropped the torch to the ground in order to catch her from falling.
    “Damn,” he spat, surveying her body and face and thinking she looked as drained as his dead bull. He had to get her back to the ca stle quickly. And these damned druids better not have given him a sickly, dying girl. Because if she died too, there would be hell to pay!

Chapter 2
     
     
    Wolfe was in a foul mood by the time they’d returned to Castle Manterra. The girl lay limp against his chest and he felt the coldness of her body right through his cloak. He rode across the moat, the clip clop of his horse’s shod hooves echoing against the wood of the drawbridge. His men followed him through the gate and into the bailey where they finally stopped. ’Twas still hours before daybreak, but his courtyard was filled with not only his soldiers, but servants and peasants from his demesne as well.
    Commotion stirred as onlookers came to view the girl lying half-dead against his chest. A squire ran up to greet them and he tossed the reins into the boy’s hands as h e slid from the horse and threw the limp body of the girl over his shoulder.
    “What is everyone looking at?” he growled to the crowd. “And why the hell are the villagers even here? The drawbridge should have been raised after my departure.”
    “My lord,” said Sir Braden, dismounting and coming quickly to his side. “It seems the people are concerned that you’ve brought the girl into the security of the castle’s walls.”
    “’Tis my concern, not theirs.”
    He strode forward toward the great hall, mothers pulling their children out of his way and gathering them to their skirts. A stray goat scurried into the shadows as he stomped across the cobbled stones. A mangy dog shot out from the shadows, barking and nipping at his heels. He turned and eyed the animal with a fierce stare. ’Twas irritating him to no end. He didn’t need any of this after the night he’d just had.
    “Get the hell out of here,” he ground out and took a threatening step toward the animal. Its tail between its legs, it whimpered slightly and ran off behind the well.
    That’s when he heard the howling of a different canine far off in the distance. He looked up to the full moon and then out to the high peaks of Mount Calila that rose majestically into the sky, separating Manterra from Thorndale and Lornoon, the lands adjacent to the sea. The moonlight on the horizon illuminated the fog, making the hills look mystical and magickal as they rose from the bogs of the unknown upward toward the heavens of a star-filled sky.
    “’Tis the cry of the lone wolf again,” announced Sir Braden, rushing to his side. “It has been spotted many times in the past few weeks making its way over the mountains and through the bogs. ’Tis huge and black. Quite larger than any wolf ever seen. I think its home is somewhere in the forests of Manterra.”
    “Aye,” he answered, having seen the wolf several times himself while out riding late at night. He often left the castle when he couldn’t sleep, to ride the moors and to let the breeze flowing down from Mount Calila clear his head. The huge black wolf was a demon of sorts, he was sure of it. But something about it called to him and intrigued him. Just the same as the odd girl of the forest he now carried over his shoulder.
    “Sir Braden, instruct the steward to ready the tower room at once. And