Chapter 11

“What are you doing?” Ash was caught off guard by her reaction and scanned her for possible injuries. “Why did you scream?” He was panting heavily, and she was starting feel scared.

“S-Scream?” She was dumfounded, unsure of what he was talking about at first when she realized that he was referring to her reaction to the presence of the butterfly. “I saw a butterfly,” she muttered under her breath, feeling a little embarrassed by the situation.

Ash let go of her, allowing her to drop to the floor, almost losing her balance.

“You saw a butterfly?” He wanted to let her know how dumb she sounded.

“I’m sorry, I was startled, I told you I could not stay here by myself,” she spoke in her defense. “Why are your eyes red?” She found that she was unable to suppress the urge to ask.

Ash snapped at her, his eyes restoring their original brown color. “I told you to stay put!”

“And I did…” She bowed her head a little. “I’m sorry.”

“Come on.” He nudged, turning around to head back into the bushes. “Clearly you can’t stay here all alone. You made me lose one hunt already, thank you for extending our hunt time.” He pushed aside obstructing grasses while she trailed silently behind him, hiding behind his shoulder.

“You are letting me go with you, aren’t you afraid I might cause you to mess up again?” She wondered, even though she felt so relieved by the action.

“Maybe I’ll make you my hunt if you decide to make things hard for me, for all I know, I ran so fast, and your scream might have chased the animals away.” He kept heading north, looking over his shoulder as he spoke to her.

“I’m sorry,” She wished the hunt would come to an end already. She really wanted to be in that room more than ever.

Together they proceeded in silence until they were closer to his hunting area.

Ash extended one arm in front of her and slowed his pace. “Hey, I will need you to stay extremely quiet here. This is where most animals come to find their prey, like them, I’m a predator,” he said.

She found everything that was going on interesting, but her heart raced fast. This was a dangerous place for someone like her to be and she had no idea how he was not panicking about the entire thing.

Ash crouched low and pulled her down as well. The bushes shielded them from view, and he placed one finger on his lip, making her go silent.

She aimed her eyes in the direction of what he seemed to be lost with looking at and swallowed in fear. Myan had only seen foxes in paintings hung around in the palace but a few meters away from them, there was a real-life fox moving its tail around, crouching low, its nose in the bushes, ready to pounce on anything that came its way.

Ash glanced at her with warning eyes. She understood his unspoken message and knew she was not expected to interfere in anything. Like sorcery, Ash’s footsteps seemed to diminish because as he advanced towards the fox, he was as silent as a graveyard.

The sharp fox turned around when Ash was only a few steps away from it. Myan pressed her palm against her mouth to hold her gasp back.

The red beast growled, setting itself to attack Ash. Ash was about to aim for the fox’s neck when it charged at him, running with all its might.

“Ash!” Myan cried, standing upright. She was afraid he would be ripped apart but that was the worst decision she had ever made. Ash and the red fox turned to look at her and the furry beast changed its target from Ash to Myan.

She shrieked on the top of her lungs, tripping when she turned around to run. Her gown had been caught in a small sharp twig nailed to the floor. She stood up immediately, letting the gown rip.

Ash remained still for a while trying to take in all that had happened. “Shit!” He growled, taking to his heels and following after the fox that was chasing Myan. He had made a terrible mistake by permitting this woman on this trip and he only realized that now.

Myan ran at a speed she was unaware that she acquired, and the fox was not willing to stop at any point. Ash had never encountered a fox so wild and determined and that caused his anger levels to rise.

He frowned and shifted into his giant form, granting him the grace to take longer strides. He was aggravated to the point of using his fire, but he feared he would burn the powerless servant to death.

Ash caught up with them and swept the fox up in his hand, holding it by the tail aggressively. Myan was startled by the turn of events, looked up to see the fox trying to wiggle free from Ash’s hold.

She panted heavily, slowly retreating from them. She stepped on a sharp piece of glass absent mindedly. “Ah!” She held her feet in pain but that was soon wiped off from her head when the fox took a huge bite from Ash’s red forearm. He craned his head backward, letting out a deafening roar.

“Ash!” Myan wailed, throwing her hands on her mouth.

Ash was vexed. He dug his sharp claws into the fox’s back and blood was gushing from the creature that fell to its instant death.

Myan ran to Ash’s side and held his hand, panting heavily and scanning his face for answers.

He shifted back to his normal size, holding his bleeding forearm to her face.

“I’m so sorry.’ She cried, unable to believe how much trouble she had brought on them in such a short time.

Ash didn’t say anything, he just glared at her while trying to catch his breath. “You could have been killed,” he said after a while of keeping his harsh, burning gaze on her.

“I was scared,” she admitted shamefully.

“Well, you can’t live through life being a fearful piece of nothing!” He growled at her. “Pull the hunt, we are heading back to the mountains.” His forearm was bleeding, and it wouldn’t stop.

Myan had nothing to say, and her only contribution was tears. This man had let her live in his quarters when he was supposed to have taken her life after puling such a stunt alongside with her princess and the least, she could do was let him be successful in everything he had to do but she was doing the complete opposite. She was even lucky if he didn’t really make her his hunt.

***

The journey back to the mountains felt a lot more tedious and dragged because of the uncomfortable air between them. Ash had plastered a piece of his clothe that he had ripped off on his injury.

He sat on the first available stool as soon as they went in and Myan left the fox in a corner of the room. She went to kneel by his side and kept her head bowed. “Please let me attend to your injury, lord. I promise you I know the best way to heal it faster.”

“Out of my sight,” he mumbled under his breath, but she remained adamant, knowing the worst thing he could do was kill her.

“I know you are so upset with me right now but if you leave your wound untreated, it will graduate and I can’t watch that happen,” she pleaded that he listened to her.

Ash was surprised that she chose what she wanted to do, nobody really did against his orders and so instead of responding, he remained still.

She translated his silence to a go ahead and stood to her feet, bowed her head a little and nodded in understanding, “thank you.”

She extended her hand to him with a nervous heart and Ash frowned at it, not understanding what her request meant. She nudged him to receive it and when there was no movement, she did the daring and took his hand in hers, helping him to his feet. “I’ll need you to lie down for this. Believe me when I say I’m experienced with it.”

She assured him, leading him to the bedroom she had spent the night in. She was her princess’ first aid whenever it came to external injuries like this, and she knew very well that she could assist him.

What caught her off guard was how he was actually listening to her without any sort of argument.”

Myan allowed him to take the bed and noticed the bowl filled with utensils beside the stove he was boiling chicken with this morning. She picked a pot and went out of the room without saying anything so she could get it filled with water.

“Where do you think you are going?” Ash halted her steps.

“To find a stream so I can fill this pot with water to boil, besides, I noticed there were some healing leaves growing at the foot of the cave when I walked in.”

“There is a reserve of water in the cooking area, you can get some there.” He ignored every other thing she had said and told her what he thought was necessary, for some reason, obediently lying on the bed.

Myan took his words to note and hurried to find the cooking area on her own, not wanting to piss him of by asking too many questions.

It happened to be the next room to the bathing rom and the only part of the cave she had seen that was stuffy. There was an animal skin rug on the floor and varieties of silverware, pots and pans hung around the walls. It lacked food stuffs though and needed decorative touch ups but other than that, everything was perfect.

As she filled the pot with water, memories from the day bothered her and caused her to shudder a little.

She returned to the bedroom and found that he had already lit the stove with his fire. Without any questions, she set the pot on the stove and went out to pluck some healing leaves outside while the water boiled.

When it was ready, she set it down and ripped another piece of her gown and soaked it in the warm water.

She ripped the cloth he had used to stop the bleeding off and wiped he dried blood clean with her warm rag.

When it was completely clean and the only thing that could be seen was the huge scar from the chomp, she wrapped some healing leaves in a towel that she had gotten from the living area, placed it on the wounded spot and then wrapped it all in a long scarf that was hanging on the wall of the cooking area. She was all done and stood to her feet to dump the dirty water outside.

“Why are you limping?” Ash suddenly asked out of nowhere when she was leaving the room.

Myan remembered the glass from the forest but was trying to be careful not to bring up any discussions from the incident and so she shook her head in response, hoping he did not decide to push things further than they already were.

She sighed in relief when she was out of the bedroom but her relieve was not long lasting because a few people began to march into the cave. She stood still in fear, wondering what was happening and why there were strangers in the building.

She was about to call for Ash when one of them suddenly noticed her presence. He was a bald man with a bump head. The people coming in seemed to be chattering in excitement as they walked in.

“Look, a new servant.” The man called attention of majority to Myan.

“I thought lord Ash said he did not want any disturbances with his new wife.” A short woman with a pitchy voice commented. These people were in matching lilac uniforms and Myan knew at once they were the lord’s servants.

“She must be the princess’ servant. The servant always comes with them,” a chubby woman threw at them.

The servants mumbled in agreement and Myan held her breath, feeling inferior among these people.

One man with a limping foot nudged his shoulder against her, chuckling loudly as she stumbled forward from the small push, spilling some water from the pot. “How does it feel being among such high-class servants?” He mocked her.

“She has probably never eaten anything more than oats.” The first pitchy voiced woman bellowed, and it was followed by rounds of laughter.

“Stop this at one!” Ash’s commanding tone suddenly came out of nowhere and silence automatically followed. “That woman is my wife, and you will all respect her.”

Myan’s eyes travelled to where he stood, and she noted the angry veins that popped on his neck.