Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📕

“What’s your name?” he managed to squeak out as the older boy let him go.

“Roland,” the boy said, his face losing some of the anger. “What’s your name?”

“Milo,” he replied, then he felt something hard and unforgiving in his throat. “And I’m lost, and I don’t know where Momma is.”

He hated himself for the tears that were running down his face, hated how disappointed Momma would be, even hated how the older boy didn’t get mad at him for being a baby, only looked sadder and more scared.

“Hey.” The older boy sniffed, looking away as a palm drug across those burning eyes. “We need to move. They might look for us.”

He peered at the beautiful boy who was trying to pretend he wasn’t crying too and decided that the boy wasn’t that much older after all. Bigger, yes, braver, certainly, but not that much older. Somehow that made him feel closer to the boy, warmer. He decided then and there to trust him.

He took one of the strong hands that had saved him in the hand that had held his blanket, and there was no effort to shake him off. They were friends now.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Roland answered. “But we stick together, okay?”

“Okay.”

So, this was how it started?

Within the alley, the presence of the storm seemed diminished, and he realized the voice couldn’t be the storm. It was too cold, too small, and too close, seeming to come from just over his shoulder.

The storm was an angry god. This voice belonged to the things creeping under beds or inside closets.

Still holding Roland’s hand, he turned and looked at where the voice had to be.

He saw nothing but a brick wall, but as he stared, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and his eyes opened to the space between spaces, past the remembered bricks.

Gleaming eyes winked over a mouth full of fangs.

Milo woke with a start and promptly struck his head on something hard, knocking the recollection of the dream from his mind.

Emitting the most incendiary profanity in his repertoire, he slumped back to the bed of the Rollsy. He glared up at the underside of the metal lip framing the armored bed while rubbing the knot forming on the top of his head gently. He’d attempted to bed down in the cab, but the armor-encased cockpit had proven singularly uncomfortable. In the end, he’d clambered back into the bed and fallen fast asleep. As he slept away the miles and the restorative regenerated his depleted blood, somehow during his slumber, he’d managed to slide up against the front.

For some time, he stared up at the offending lip until he realized there was a distinct lack in the ambiance. The chugging rumble of the Rollsy’s engine was gone, as was the slight but distinct vibration that coursed through the frame of the vehicle. They hadn’t just stopped; the engine was off.

Still muttering curses, he pressed against the truck and slid back to blink up at the brilliant blue sky of a clear spring morning. Propping himself up on his elbows, he saw the rising peaks of the mountains, white-frosted crests emerging from the rippling waves of green that swept across the horizon.

Again, Milo felt something stir in his chest, something which cried out, “Yes!” He wished for nothing more than to climb a peak and never come back down.

Then his head throbbed, and he coughed as his painfully dry throat reminded him of the restorative’s desiccating effect. The dull, painful grip of reality returned him to the immediate situation. With a snarl and an arm thrown over the side of the truck bed, he clambered onto his feet and looked around.

For an instant, his heart seized at the sight of the empty cab, but a frantic sweep revealed Ambrose’s location and reason for stopping. The instant he spotted him, Milo was torn between crying out in shocked disgust or deprecating laughter, but since his throat was dry, only a soft croaking cough came out.

The bodyguard stood a dozen strides or so from the Rollsy on the other side of a small mountain stream which burbled so softly Milo only heard it once he knew what to listen for. The big man’s clothes were stretched out next to the stream on some large stones, while their owner stood a stride away, relieving himself against a mossy boulder. Ambrose was nude and had clearly just finished washing in the stream, his great lumpy body glistening as he dried in the cool air. Auburn hair plastered to his head, he leaned back, savoring the fluid expulsion, one hand aiming while the other raked and scratched his markedly paler backside.

In the stillness of the scene, Milo could hear Ambrose talking softly in French. Milo realized he didn’t understand because it had been too long since he took the elixir allowing him to understand all languages.

All the same, Milo held very still for a moment in a desperate attempt not to be noticed.

It wasn’t his nakedness or that Ambrose was talking to himself that sparked Milo’s desire to remain unnoticed, but that watching Ambrose like this was perhaps the only time Milo could see Ambrose with his guard down, or at least as close as the old soldier got. Even without a stitch of clothing on, the Gewehr and belted sword hung from one rocklike shoulder.

Quietly as he could, Milo fetched the elixir of tongues from his coat and administered the necessary salve to his ears. Ambrose’s words attached to their relevant meanings as he began to slide the small tin disk back into his coat.

“Not sure, either way,” the big man muttered as he rolled his shoulders in a vigorous stretch before shaking out the last of his effluent. “But I do know the boy’s only going to get more dangerous as things go on. I’m going to need your help knowing what’s