The Deliverance of a Wild Stallion

Image by Bhakti Iyata from Pixabay

Her initiation into love was vivid in her dreams.

The girl relived the bite of his lips, the caress of rough palms, the heat rising within her. 

The Phantom had been good to his word. 

The next time they coupled, he had taken his time, introducing her slowly to sensations in her body she never dreamed possible. 

The girl whimpered from the memory. 

But she was still caught unawares and bit her lip before the moan of flush tingled bliss split her open again. 

Sprawling her arms, she turned on her back and awoke when her hand fell on his bony trunk. 

The girl opened her eyes to the Sorcerer watching her. 

He was already dressed, his robes falling over the edge of the bed while her garments were in a heap on the floor. 

The girl pulled away, avoiding the Sorcerer’s eye as she reached for her rumpled gown. She was aghast when she saw red stains on the back of her skirts. 

Glancing to the bed, she saw drops of blood on the sheets. Loathing filled her when she looked up and saw the Sorcerer holding her petticoats with a discreet smile.     

“You have an hour before the rooster crows,” he said. 

The girl laced up her boots and ran through the corridor as the loathing seeped into her bones and made it unbearable to be inside her flesh. 

She was relieved to see the Gateway was already open when she came to the main hall. 

The sky above was the deep lavender gray of a morning that was soon to come. 

She couldn’t get out fast enough, sprinting up the spiral and burying any lingering thoughts about the night before.  She was almost to the top when that deep voice echoed up the tunnel and arrested her.

“Tonight?”  

The girl looked down at the Sorcerer. She forced herself to go numb when she looked into his colorless eyes and nodded.

“After everybody has gone to sleep, I’ll come to you then.”

The loathing made her flesh crawl when she came out of the Caverns. 

Now outside, the girl pushed that sentiment away when she saw thick trees stretching in all directions. 

She’d given no thought to her return when she left the house, and now had no idea the best route out of the woods. 

She smiled at the thought that it would likely make no difference if she were caught coming back. 

Then she realized she’d a fool to humiliate her father. 

The girl ran through the woods, praying to her mother to get her back before the first servants woke up.

Finally, she came out to the north where the river severed the Ancient Grove from the expanse of the Abandoned Valley.

The giant gray stallion was at the river again. 

In the dim light before sunrise, the glossy coat of shadows made him invisible until he moved, raising his long neck from the water. 

The girl stopped when she saw him, the magnificent animal making her forget her distress for a moment. 

He had been a colt when he ran away, yet he had already possessed the size and strength of a full-grown stallion as well as an untamable spirit. 

The day he had been branded, the colt felled the stable hands who had seared the Patron’s crest into his flank and escaped to the Abandoned Valley where he had run wild ever since. 

She remembered how badly she’d wanted to ride him and how insistent the Trainer had been when he refused.

“He’s almost more horse than I can handle,” he’d said. “So forget it, little Miss. This is one who will choose his master, if he ever does at all.”     

She stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe, knowing the wild equine would flee if she made a move. 

The stallion regarded her for a moment. 

But instead of running for distant fields as she expected, he crossed the river, snuffling where the current was strongest. 

When he reached the other side, the girl’s head was no higher than the lower half of his trunk. 

Then the giant steed folded his front limbs and kneeled before her, low enough for the girl to climb on his back.  Her legs didn’t stretch down half his flanks. 

But the girl knew she would ride him perfectly well, clutching strands of his silvery mane and clicking her tongue.

Her breath caught in her throat when he lurched into a run. 

She had ridden the fastest stallions in her father’s stable since she was a child, but she had never encountered power like this. 

As the stallion ran her through the fields and orchards, the girl was cleansed of the loathing inside her, its poison purged into breath and motion. 

It was the most exquisite ride of her life, and it ended too soon when the shadowy equine came to a stop at the edge of the garden, where newborn lilies were almost fully open. 

Reluctantly the girl dismounted.

As soon as her feet touched the ground, her mount turned away.

Before stealing back inside her father’s house, the girl watched the wild gray stallion run for the Abandoned Valley, his massive shape emerging from the shadows as the first rays of gold and rose broke over the horizon.

This excerpt is out of my novel, Ella Bandita and the Wanderer. If you’d like to buy the ebook off the Free Flying Press website, Click Here.

Or if you’d like a free novelette that is Part 1 of the novel first - of which this scene is a part, Click Here.