You can purchase “A Matter Of Choice” in the “Shifting Back” Anthology at Torquere Press!!

Beneath leaden skies, the moorland stretched out in undulating hills and copses seemed to sway like an ocean swell. Wild heather danced and parted like waves, disorientating and distracting. Rain lashed the stone walls of the manor house in relentless, vicious darts, but the steadfast walls of Kirksgrave Hall had seen worse.

On such an afternoon, Richard Aysgarth would have enjoyed nothing more than to take refuge behind those walls, with his books and a roaring fire.

At his feet, a large black dog whined, nudging his master's boots with his nose, as if to voice his agreement with the suggestion of warmth and shelter.

"Caleb." He glanced down, admonishingly. "We must wait for Keir."

The dog whined once, before settling in a pitiful huddle at his master's feet. Richard glanced down, and sighed. He was of half a mind to join in.

It had been just as wretched when Keir left that morning, although Richard suspected Keir appreciated the manner in which the weather matched his mood. It made his departure that much more dramatic.

While he had no real concern for Keir's welfare, it would be regrettable if anything untoward happened. The horse he'd saddled that morning never gave Richard much cause for reassurance. It was a foul creature at the best of times. In Keir or Richard's presence, the animal became positively demonic. It would be entirely appropriate, he thought miserably, if the blasted creature threw its rider in a stream or a ditch, and Richard's day would end with a long trek out onto the moor to rescue Keir before the villagers found him first.

Again.

Lightning flashed to the north, just as movement caught his eye on the edge of the drizzly mist.

Caleb whimpered, and Richard glanced at him, brow arched.

"I am not relieved, not in the slightest."

Well. Perhaps a little.