The Forest of Adventures (#1 of The Knight Trilogy) Read Online Free

the throw
flicking through the T.V channels. I snuggled in beside him,
feeling the warm certainty of his body. Out of habit my hand traced
the muscles of his forearm causing him to turn towards me. He
smiled and leant over, kissing my cheek before putting his arm
around me and pulling me in. His lips found mine with the ease of
familiarity. Sam was a good kisser, firm and soft all at once.
Being together for almost two years, he’d perfected his skills and
when he kissed me it was easy to believe that the world was a
silent place and that we were the only two people in it.
    This evening was no different
and as he kissed me I could feel all the doubt and uncertainty heal
over with a warm acceptance and love. I felt the warm contact of
skin on skin as his hand moved under my clothing, his kiss becoming
more urgent as we headed towards a place I wasn’t ready for. I
pulled away but Sam moved himself so that I was pinned to the sofa
with nowhere to go. Panic hit me as his kisses became increasingly
aggressive. All at once everything was wrong. I pulled my
face away as best I could, putting my hands out in defence.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
I shout-whispered.
    He looked at me, almost as
shocked as me and pulled himself away to the far end of the
sofa.
    “I’m so sorry Mina – that was
really out of order. I don’t know what came over me.”
    I stood up and looked at him,
crumpled at the edge of the sofa, his eyes filmed with water as he
fought back tears.
    “What the hell was that all
about Sam?” I said pulling down the bottom of my top.
    “I’m sorry, I got carried away.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – shit I’ve really messed this up. I
just wanted to check that everything was okay.”
    “What? You thought that the
best way to check was by forcing the situation?”
    “I didn’t mean to…force….God
Mina, don’t use that word it’s not as if I was going to ….as if I
was going to do that to you. I love you. I just thought maybe you
wanted me to…Shit, I don’t know what I thought!”
    The situation was spiralling
quickly out of control and I knew that whatever Sam had been
thinking, it wasn’t that he’d meant to hurt me. The whole day had
been weird and it was no real surprise we’d ended up here.
    “It was a mistake Sam; I’m not
happy about it but I know you wouldn’t hurt me. I’m going to bed.
We need to sleep on this and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.” I
pressed a tight smile, “Night Sam.”
    As I went through the door I
heard Sam whisper, “I’m sorry. I love you.”
    From upstairs in my room, I
could hear the sound of the television travelling through the white
painted floorboards and in order to drown out the ghost, I stuck in
the earphones of my iPod and turned the volume up to the borderline
of pain. The deep rhythmic drums of Florence and the Machine drowned out Sam’s presence but didn’t make me feel any better, for
as I lay there, I realised with startling clarity, that falling out
of love with someone was like pulling a plaster – shockingly
painful but surprisingly quick.
    The deep, rich scent of the
hyacinth blooms filled my room and it was so overpowering that it
made it almost painful to breathe. Opening my window to let in the
cold air seemed to have little effect and seeing no alternative, I
took hold of them roughly by their slender green necks and threw
them out into the night sky where they fell into the garden below
and scattered across the navy green grass like grounded stars.
    *
    All that night, I was attacked
by dreams that made no sense. Dreams full of blood and mud, of cold
grey glinting steel and a winter sky cut through with a flock of
cawing black birds. And even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she
was there; standing at the side of my bed, her one crone hand
pressing the air from my lungs, the other injecting my heart with a
terrifying love poison When I woke, breathless and half terrified
at the breaking of the dawn I felt I’d been