Chapter 17
"You can’t return to the castle without any shoes on. Please take mine," he continued to take off his shoes to offer her. Wearing his boots was better than appearing barefoot.
"Cyrus, I just met king Killian Bune. My appearance should be the last thing anyone worries about. You are not going to win this one Cyrus. It’ll just be us returning to the castle both barefoot. It’s time we return so that I can have a little chat with my father," she walked back to the horse Killian gave her.
The poor horse would be killed if she took it back to the castle. Her father wouldn’t want even an animal belonging to his enemy being fed in his castle. "I release you before we enter the castle," she promised the animal. "Hopefully I can save one more life."
"We can remove the saddle on the horse and claim it to be a wild horse we found. When we release it, there’s no telling what kind of owner it might find. Death might be better than a horrible owner."
"I could claim it to be my new horse but my father wouldn’t care. He killed my pet cat in front of me before. I’ll take a risk and claim you as my own. Let’s go home."
Cyrus hoisted himself up on the horse first then held out his hand for Amelia to take for him to pull her up.
Amelia was suspicious of this considering his arms were supposed to be hurting. She saw how large the teeth on each wolf were and knew he should be in a great amount of pain. Still, she ignored it, for now, accepting his help considering they had more pressing matters to deal with.
Amelia sat in front of Cyrus while he took control of the horse to get them back to the castle safely. He wasn’t going to allow there to be another instance where he wouldn’t be able to protect her. Once was already bad enough.
The pain in his arm had decreased which meant the wound had started to heal on its own. He couldn’t risk Amelia finding out the secret of the people from the north so it was best he didn’t let her see it. Cyrus would do like he always did which was hurting himself to make it look like he still had an injury up until it was the normal time it would heal for humans.
He was glad Amelia respected his privacy and didn’t push the matter of wanting to see his wounds any further. Luckily, the castle doctor wouldn’t treat anyone from the north therefore there was no one else to check his wounds.
The ride back to the castle was a long quiet one. Amelia wanted to save her breath until it was time for her to see her father. If she could, she wanted to slap him for involving her in something so stupid and risky.
It took them two and a half hours to get back to the castle on the horse. The passing guards were confused by their princess returning back on a horse without any shoes on. She always left and returned in a carriage surrounded by more than a dozen men to keep her safe. Her bodyguard had blood strains and ripped-up clothes which meant they must’ve been attacked.