The Soul Mate

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Hungary, 1078 A.C.E

The encampment was in ruins. Wagons had been burned and tents had been shredded. Even the horses had been killed.

And blood. There was so much blood.

The children too. What kind of monster would order innocent babies put to death?

The men had been shredded to pieces. Their heads and limbs lay severed from their torsos. The women and girls who had been subjected to rape had been killed and left naked in the same humiliating position.

And the children… Treime couldn’t even bear to look at them again and see their tiny faces and hands covered in blood.

She watched in horror as the Gaje soldiers kicked the bodies of her people while they filled their sacks with stolen belongings.

Shaking, Treime tried to reach Emilian through the bond they shared when suddenly she was yanked by her hair, causing her to stumble backwards into her captor.

“My lord! I found another one!” A hand reached around her and roughly groped her breast, pulling and twisting until she cried out in pain.

Leaning forward, with rancid breath, he whispered, “Maybe his lordship will let me keep you. Shame you’re so fat though.”

“What do you have there?” A short, pudgy man laden with armor sat astride an impressive black stallion. He leered down at Treime and her captor.

“Murderer!” Treime hissed and both men laughed at her.

Just then she felt the tug of Emilian through their bond. He’d seen through her what had happened, what was happening. But Treime knew he would never make it in time to save her.

“Are we going to kill her, my lord? Can I have at her first?”

The man upon the horse smiled and she felt her stomach roil. “She is very beautiful, isn’t she? I have never seen such magnificent green eyes. Such a shame to waste such beauty. Do what you will and then bring her to me, I’m going to take her home.”

The man behind Treime shifted and swung her around to face him. Pushing her back on the ground with one hand around her neck, he lifted her tunic and began fumbling with his own.

Treime, barely able to breathe and about to be raped, lifted her freed hands and focused all her energy toward the man trying to push his way in between her legs.

Flames erupted from her palms in a burst of white light. She threw them forward at the man astride her. He let loose a high pitch scream as the fire engulfed him, then flung himself backwards in an attempt to run from her.

His hysterical screaming and flailing movements stopped suddenly and the flaming man fell to the ground. The man covered in armor stood behind the fallen man, his sword firmly embedded in his back.

He looked amused. “My dear, you’ve done nothing but further my desire for you. A sorceress is a greater asset then a bedmate.”

He gestured at a few of his men. “Grab her,” He told them. Staring at Treime with fear in their eyes, none of the men moved.

“GET HER!” He screamed. “Now!”

At least ten men suddenly rushed her and she didn’t even try to fight them. She couldn’t, her body was too weary from her advanced state of pregnancy to call upon anymore magic. They bound her wrists and ankles and gagged her. Throwing her in the back of a mule cart, they kept their swords pointed at her belly in case she tried to use her magic again.

Treime couldn’t stop the tears that came as she was taken away. They weren’t for her family or her clan, for they were already gone. They were for the fates of Walther and Emilian and their unborn child. She cried until she had no tears left to cry and then her soul began to weep.