Beyond the Iron Gate (The Faery Meadow Book 1)

Elaine tried to pry the bars open with all the strength she could muster. In her first attempt to bend them she clenched them as hard as she could in her grip, but they still wouldn’t budge. Giving up, she started kicking the old rusty bars of her cage. She heaved one last kick with her right foot at the center bar.

A small smile crept onto her face when she saw the welding of the top of the bar crack. She aimed her foot at the weak point, kicking over and over. She knew she could escape.

Finally, the top of the bar snapped off the hinge of the cage. She gave a little triumphant grunt and turned her body sideways squeezing through the narrow space.

When she reached the dirt floor she jumped up in victory. Now she just had to find Lorcan. There was no way she was going down the right side of the tunnel even though it was the way she came. It was pitch black, and for all she knew, there could be a pixie in there waiting for her to walk by.

Without a second thought, she jogged down the left side of the tunnel and her shadow mirrored along the dirty walls. She followed the sounds of screaming and the muffled cries of pixies. At last, she reached the end of the tunnel and ended up in the area of the pit she last saw Lorcan.

She covered her mouth in disgust seeing what lay before her. Pixies, blood, and death.

The scattered remains of their torn bodies were all over the walls of the huge pit. Their blood painted the pit in a bloody mess. Not a sound came from the mutilated bodies around her. No doubt they are all dead.

Did Lorcan really need to kill them all? What am I thinking? They were trying to kill him in the first place! However, the way their bodies are torn up makes it obvious their deaths weren’t...peaceful to say the least. What happened in here? Did Lorcan really kill them all on his own? Where is he anyway, Elaine’s thoughts swirled.

She gulped taking a step back from the bloody scene. She still needed to find Lorcan.

“P-p-please mercy,” a weak voice wheezed to the left of her.

Her eyes widened at the desperation in the voice as she followed the injured sounding pixie’s plea. It seemed they were in another passageway. She ended up in a shady tunnel.

Uneasily, she stepped into the dark tunnel following the voice blindly.

“S-s-someone h-help...” the voice mumbled again.

Turning a corner, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

Lorcan had the pixie king by the throat.

The pixie king was covered in black and blue bruises. A nasty looking cut was on his sweaty forehead. A pool of blood encircled the pixie king on the wall and the floor. The pixie king coughed up blood. It landed all over Lorcan’s face and hair.

Suddenly, the pixie king’s eyes flicked to hers. She cowered back into the tunnel way wondering if the pixie really noticed her.

“Who’s there?” Lorcan barked.

Elaine peeked into the room again. Lorcan’s wings were quivering in rage. His body trembled like a starved animal. His eyes were ablaze as the blood lust in them shined like a beacon in the shadow of the room.

With a shaky breath, she stepped into the room. When she turned the corner though, she bumped right into Lorcan. Elaine looked up at him slowly. He cocked his head to the side eyeing her curiously. Then, a sinister smile slowly formed on his face. She hear a muffled cough come from behind him on the other side of the room. He must have released the pixie king before he walked over to her she thought.

She didn’t know why Lorcan looked at her like he didn’t recognize her. “Lorcan? It’s me, Elaine. The human...I think we should leave.”

He didn’t respond at all. Instead, he continued staring down at her.

“Lorcan snap out of it! We have to get out of here before this whole place is destroyed!” Elaine shouted in his face.

Sooner or later she was fairly certain the pit was going to collapse. Lorcan, however, just stared at her.

“We need to leave now! Come on.”

Instead of answering her, something flashed in his eyes as a deep purring noise came from him. Elaine scrunched her nose in confusion wondering if he was joking around or something. She hollered in protest when he shoved her against his chest.

Now what is he doing? The longer we stand here, the more likely we are going to be crushed by the walls around us, Elaine panicked.

She grabbed his face in frustration and gave him her best serious face. The blood smothered all over him, including his face, didn’t make her feel any more comfortable.

“Listen to me, wise guy. I don’t know what you’re playing at here, but snap out of it!”

Lorcan appeared to come back to his senses and Elaine hadn’t noticed the knife he clenched in his fist behind her back. He released her and flew back over to the pixie king. Lorcan brought the knife down, slashing at the pixie king violently. The pixie king screamed in agony. Elaine’s heart raced.

“This is for taking what’s mine,” he hissed at the pixie king.

Finally, Lorcan finished with a deadly stab at the king’s head. The pixie king took one last hateful glare at Lorcan then shuts his eyes.

He was dead.

Lorcan dropped the knife and then looked over at his onlooker.

Elaine staggered back. She knew the pixie king was a bad creature, but the violent outburst from Lorcan left her shaking.

She looked at the floor feeling sick to her stomach. “Can we go now?”

“Now, now, don’t be scared,” Lorcan said from the other side of the room.

Suddenly, he appeared right in front of her. His wings were gone and so was the murderous look in his eyes too.

He reached his hand out toward her to take and she hesitantly grabbed on it feeling she really had no choice, but to depend on him to at least leave the pit. Lorcan flew up carrying her with him to the ground above. When they landed safely on the grass of the forest, a strong gust of wind nearly knocked them over back into the pit.

However, Loran yanked her by the hair and they fall backward away from the pit.

“Ow!”

“Would you have preferred to fall back into the pit, human?”

Elaine shook her head while lifting myself up from the ground. She wiped her cloak off the best she could.

Lorcan’s cloak, on the other hand, was still covered in dried blood, dirt and ripped up along the sleeves. His face was still covered in blood too. She still couldn’t believe he took out all those pixies on his own.

As they continued down the forest, leaving behind the pit, she contemplated over asking him some new questions she had. Every so often, Lorcan glanced at her to check to see if she had stopped crying yet.

She hadn’t, but he was still in shock too. The only difference was he was better at hiding it than her.

***

The air had gotten colder and Elaine kept tripping over thorny weeds. Lorcan hadn’t uttered a word since they left the pit behind. Even though she had seen Lorcan fight before something told her he fought differently back there. Elaine thought it might be because he didn’t seem happy with himself after killing so many creatures, but she really had no idea. The only thing she was certain of was that the sooner they got out of the forest -- the better.

“We will camp here,” Lorcan announced suddenly from beside her.

A fallen log sat on top of the lush dark green grass ahead of her. The grass in the area was still high and up to her knees. The canopy of the trees above them entirely cut off her view of the sky. It was very dark with minimal light seeping through the trees above and down onto them.

Elaine plopped down onto the ground letting out a tired sigh. She decided to rest her back against a rather large rock that happened to be covered in moss. She watched the fog of her breath disperse into the air. An icy chill snaked down her spine and she shuddered. It was definitely going to be a cold night.

Lorcan hadn’t started gathering any wood. In fact, he seemed like he was taking a nap against the fallen log now.

“Aren’t you cold, Lorcan? Should I gather wood?”

“We won’t be having a fire. It’s too risky at this point,” he muttered under his breath.

She blushed wrongfully assuming he was asleep.

After a moment, she lowered herself onto the grass. Then Elaine pulled her hood over her head and hugged her legs to her chest. She ended up in a fetal position trying to maintain her body heat. The icy cold ground penetrated right through her cloak. However, she refused to move around more because her body already felt frozen in place. She hoped it wouldn’t get any colder.