FOREVER KNIGHTS: #16 To Keep Her

“Someone follow her. Keep her safe.” Bast sent out the telepathic call to anyone in the area of the Paladines. Hoping someone could get to her while he fought his way out of the ball.

Everyone would know where his call generated from.

Someone get to her.

I can’t lose her yet. He willed.

“I’ve got her.” A voice Bast didn’t recognize answered.

Bast’s teeth were gritted against the fingernails biting into his skin as the women descended around him in such layers they nearly drug him to the floor.

This is why I don’t come to balls.

Outside, Elsabet scurried a few steps one way then the other. “Where is my carriage she called.”

“I’ll bring it around!” The footman called in response to her urgency.

But a horse jogged from around the shade of the house. Where the torches burn couldn’t quite brighten.

As he stepped into the light she noticed his unique color. White, coated in occasional swirls of silver in low light like now. His blue eyes flecked with strange snowflakes. As he reached her a silken white rope formed around his neck and curved over his back and down to where it curled in final loops ending at a height with her shoulder.

Elsabet looked at him. Without a word she caught the cord and scurried up onto his back. Hugging close to his neck and letting him lead the way.

Sivikon took her over the winding roads. Hoofbeats barely touching the ground. Nearly running on the moonlight. Every touch of them sending up a wash of sparkling flakes like he ran on water. The horn on his head appearing as he moved in out of the beams of moonlight.

Elsabet leaned so close over his shoulder that she could feel the weight of his heartbeats thrumming in his shoulders. Hear the huff of his running breaths. His stride nearly too long to be possible. Finding sure footing in the blackness. Taking her far from Lady Farthington’s and into the chill of the Paladine Mountains.

Pace so rapid her silver blonde hair billowed, intermingling with his snowy white mane.

Bast emerged from Lady Farthington with clothes torn. His hat had been lost somewhere in the throng. Deep scratches still stung his skin. She did this. She knew what they’d do to me.

He was angry.

But even more than that, he was eager to see her. Landing his eyes on her had been like giving a starving man a banquet.

I needed that. Needed to see her. And knowing she was okay was just as heady. Radix hasn’t gotten his filthy hands on her.

He smiled slightly. She’s even more fierce then I remembered.

“Is she okay?” He whispered into the night. Knowing he sent it into the minds of all the knights close enough.

“I have her.” The strange voice said again.

Bast’s head whipped up toward the Paladine Mountains. She’s there. He spotted partway up on one of them he could see a white beam of light shooting through a spattered grove of trees and straight upward.

Her light.

Who has her? Bast would know soon enough. He followed where it came from.

And in only a few short hours he walked around a mound of boulders and found where trees formed a ring of warm moss. In the center lay Sivikon curled around the sleeping form of the petite woman.

She lay with her belly against his and her legs curled between that and his back ones. Her back cradled by his front ones. Her chest and cheek resting along his side. Dark lashes draping her cheeks.

Bast looked around as he stepped into the clearing. “Who’s here?”

But no one was answering. He scanned high and low.

Sivikon stared at him blankly. “I’ve kept her safe.”

Bast’s eyes landed on him, startled. Realizing that the voice was emerging from the stallion. “In all the years we’ve been companions, you’ve never spoken to me! Why?”

“Because there was no need. We’ve always communicated fine.” Bast considered it. Realizing the truth in the words.

“So, why now?”

“Because we love her.” Sivikon looked from Bast to her. His snout brushing her shoulder. As he huffed warmly.

“Your thoughts, your words are so very…human.” Bast blurted.

The stallion huffed in short pants. Sending steaming breath into the air.

A laugh?

“You forget, Brother.” Sivikon thought. “I’ve been around as long as you.”

True.

“You’ve confided in me all these years.” Sivikon elaborated. “And you expected I’d not learned to understand your words?”

I’ve taught him man’s language.

“I chose to learn it.” Sivikon corrected. Huffing in laughter again.

“Thank you for watching over her, Brother.” Bast murmured to him. Stroking his main on the opposite side to keep from disrupting her.

“Do we take her back?”

“No.” Bast said sadly. “Will you go with her? Stay with her?” Bast strolled around him to take a seat behind her. In the crook of Sivikon’s legs a distance from her so he could twist to peer at her sleeping face.

A face I dearly missed.

“Of course.” Sivikon reassured.

Bast watched her sleep. Tensing when she tossed restlessly. Longing to offer her comfort but knowing his touch would force her to full wakefulness and defensive fury. Better to let her rest.

Just before the sun rose he heard the enhancement of her heart rate, felt her energy change.

She’s waking. Drawing a steadying breath and closing his eyes against the pain it caused him he stood and crept quietly from the mountain.

Elsabet woke with the sun. Sighing and stretching before stroking Sivikon’s snout. “Thank you for the peace of slumber, My Friend. I’ve not felt so safe in a long time. Not since-”

The stallion rested the tip of his nose on her shoulder, comfortingly.

Elsabet turned onto her knees to rise and glimpsed a track in the mud and leaves. Her head whipping back to the horse. “He was here. Wasn’t he?”

It only blinked large, flecked, blue eyes at her.

“It’s fine.” She stood. You needn’t give him away.” She sighed. “I know he was.”