Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] Read Online Free Page A

herself for starting in surprise. After all she’d faced, a tiny animal was nothing.
    As she walked, she used a retractable pencil to make additions to her old map. The hills rose up more sharply three miles from where the cottage stood, and they continued on in rough peaks, with hardly any access to their summits. No grasses were flattened into trails, not even game trails. A small pond lay four miles from the cottage, its green edges choked with waterweeds and long-legged insects skimming across its surface. If fish lived in the pond, they hid themselves in its silty bottom. She’d have better luck catching fish off the beach.
    But her note-taking was another delaying tactic. She had to press farther north to find out the origin of the light and last night’s humming sound.
    Edging along the gravel-covered base of the hills, she moved slowly onward, telling herself stories of goddesses who’d braved hordes of demons without fear.
    Yet she was no goddess. Only a woman, completely on her own.
    A shape appeared out of the mists. A large, dark shape. Heading right toward her. It moved noiselessly over the gravel, notwithstanding its size.
    She grabbed her revolver, aiming it at the shadow.
    It immediately stopped moving. Then it spoke.
    “You’re not from the Admiralty.”
    A man. With a deep, rasping voice. As if he hadn’t spoken in a long time.
    Even through the heavy mist, she saw that he didn’t hold up his hands, despite the gun trained on him.
    “No,” she answered, her mouth dry. “Not the Admiralty.” Yet she didn’t want to tell him where she was from. She’d no idea who this stranger was.
    “Anyone with you?” he demanded. He spoke with an air of command, as though used to obedience.
    Despite the authority in his voice, she kept silent. Telling him she was alone could endanger her. At least she was armed.
    He didn’t seem to care about the revolver in her hand. He moved closer, emerging out of the fog.
    Oh, God. He was big. Well over six feet tall, with shoulders as wide as ironclads. His body seemed a collection of hard muscles, knitted together to make the world’s most imposing man. He had black hair, longish and wild, as if he hadn’t seen a barber in some time, and a thick beard, also in need of trimming. He stood too far away for her to see his eyes, but she could feel his gaze on her, dark and piercing, hyper-vigilant like a feral animal.
    And he stepped still nearer to her.
    “My father was in the army,” she said, clipped. She raised her gun. “He was a crack shot. He trained me to be one, too. Stay where you are.”
    She thought a corner of his mouth edged up in a smile, but the beard hid his expression. “I’d knock that Webley out of your hand before you could pull the trigger.”
    Words poised on her lips that no man could move that quickly—he was still ten feet away—but those words faded the more she looked at him. His massive hands could likely crush a welder’s gas tanks. But more than the raw strength he exuded, a palpable but unseen energy radiated from him, something barely contained.
    She couldn’t tell if she was fascinated or terrified. Or both.
    “You’re doing a poor job of putting me at ease,” she answered.
    Again, that hint of a smile. “Never said I wanted to put you at ease.”
    “Not another step,” she snapped. Instinctively, she moved back, out of striking distance. But as she did, her left boot caught in the rocks, and she stumbled.
    Unseated, the stones tumbled down in a small rockslide. They knocked her down, twisting her leg at an unnatural angle. She sprawled on the ground.
    Instantly, the stranger darted forward, a frown of concern between his brows.
    She kept the gun pointed at him, despite lying awkwardly upon the rocks. “Back. I’m fine.”
    “Your leg—”
    Her skirts had come up, revealing both her limbs.
    The stranger must have been civilized at one point, because he quickly turned his gaze away.
    “Go ahead and look,” she said.