Bound (A Faery Story 1)

of my frantically shaking him. I was surprised that worked. He’s

weaker than I thought.”

Beck slapped his cousin on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine now.” He

turned to his horse and released the saddle on its back. With an easy

strength, he hefted the heavy saddle with one arm and smacked the

horse’s rump with the other. “Go on now, go rest.” The great beast

lumbered off to wherever it went to rest.

“You haven’t seen him.” Dante rushed after Beck. “He’s worse

than ever. I don’t know if you can bring him back.”

Meg followed the small procession, trying to take in her new

home as she hurried to keep up. It looked like a farm out of the shire

from Lord of the Rings, if the inhabitants had averaged six and a half feet and let everything fall down around them.

The front yard was badly in need of attention. There was a small

flower garden, but whatever had grown there lost the battle against

invading weeds. There was also an odd-looking motorcycle leaning

against a fence. Meg noted the bike proudly boasted a Harley

Davidson logo.

Bound

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Beck sighed as he looked at the garden, completely ignoring the

bike. There was an air of unsurprised disappointment about him. “I

suppose the vegetable garden is the same.”

“Worse.” Dante’s boot kicked the dirt where there should have

been flowers growing. “Flanna and some girls from the village came

and saved what they could. She said she would preserve the

vegetables and make jelly from the strawberries, but that was all she

could promise.”

Beck nodded. “I’ll be sure to thank Flanna in the morning. Her

family is good to us. We’ll need every bit we can salvage if we’re

going to make it through the winter.”