The Golden Bell Read Free

she wasn’t wild about letting the council dictate where she
could live. Her father had raised her to take care of herself. She
wasn’t going to be dragged to an alien world, and good intentions
be hanged.
    Sleep sucked her down, and she went without a
fight. When this thing landed, she wanted to be ready to bolt. Once
they got her under formal guard, her chances of escape would sink
out of sight.
     
    It was forty below and dark, with a sharp
wind blowing. Scratching her idea to run the moment her feet hit
pavement, she ducked her head instead and pulled the blanket she’d
been given tighter. How did people survive in this frigid
climate?
    A black Jeep was waiting for them. Fallon
opened the door for her and she slid into the passenger side,
grateful for the warmth. Had she been thinking faster, she might
have thought to hit the auto-lock and attempt to steal the Jeep,
but the cold and her awkward blanket distracted her. Just as well;
she’d never learned to drive a stick.
    Fallon slid into the driver’s seat. One look
at his big body convinced her that she’d been wise not to try and
run. Guys didn’t like women messing with their autos. A guy like
him…she had a feeling he’d go through the window.
    Curiosity made her ask. “What would you have
done if I’d driven off?”
    He glanced at her mildly. “My insurance
premiums would have gone up, but the body shop guy would have been
very happy.” He looked back at the road. “You’re not that
stupid.”
    Annoyed, she sniped, “I thought your type
didn’t hurt women.”
    “We practice discipline, especially of our
women. If you were mine, you wouldn’t tempt me.” This time his
glance was speculative.
    If he was trying to unnerve her, it worked.
She didn’t want any part of his ‘discipline’, and she definitely
didn’t want to date him. A second glance confirmed that he was
cute, no surprise she hadn’t noticed, considering; but good looks
didn’t make the firearm at his side disappear.
    Frozen scenery and ice fog flowed past her
window, along with occasional traffic. It was only four in the
afternoon, and already dark. She had no money, no friends, and her
last change of underwear had been lost when she’d been seized.
Worse, she expected the day to go downhill from there.
    She felt tired. A year was a long time to
run, and she was beginning to feel like the rope in a tug of war.
The bad guys had her, then the…well, she wasn’t ready to call
Fallon a good guy yet, but at least he hadn’t tied her to a chair.
She sighed.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I lost my toothbrush.”
    He choked, probably on a laugh. “We’ll get
you another one.”
    “Are there any banks open? Trent and his
buddies didn’t bother to check my pockets, and I’ve got a little
money I’d like to exchange.” Two shillings was a little money,
after all.
    “I’ll take care of it for you. Wouldn’t you
rather shower first? You’ve had a rough day.”
    Debating the merits of escaping him in a bank
while exhausted, nearly penniless, and hampered by freezing
weather, she reluctantly grumbled, “Where are we going?”
    “My place. I’ve got good security, and it
will make it easy for the council to speak with you.”
    “About that…I’m not real eager to chat with
them.”
    He looked at her. “You have nothing to fear.
You’ve done nothing wrong.”
    Her lips tightened and she stared back out
the window. He was wrong there, but she wasn’t going to argue with
a stonewall. Assuming she could refuel and evade him, she was going
to run the moment she got the chance.
    Not everybody hunting her was human.
     
     

CHAPTER 2
     
    Fallon watched her out of the corner of his
eye. Something was scaring her, something other than the obvious.
In spite of her attempt at careless chitchat, she was still wound
tight. One wrong move on his part and she’d be off at a sprint,
never looking back.
    Did she fear extradition? The Dark Lands,
where many of their people had fled, was a