Snippet of "When Forever Changes"

Happy New Year everyone!
I hope that everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday with family and the people that they love. I had the opportunity to be shown a fantastic picture that really speaks to a scene for one of my projects “When Forever Changes”.
I thought it might be fun to share it with you. ^_^

(I do not own this picture. It remains the property of it's owner and is included here as visual only.)

I’d thought her lost. Forever on the horizon out of reach. Where once she’d been my guiding star, I’d been left to navigate the world without her warmth. Then a ray of hope. A chance. No, only a possibility that perhaps I might get her back. I’d latched onto it, knuckles white. We met again as strangers and slowly, very slowly she’d come to trust me. I wanted to say so very much to her, tell her everything, but such folly would be madness. Still I longed like a moth drawn to the flame.

I hadn’t counted on the English king’s lust playing into our mission, or my time with her. I thought we’d escaped his reach on the shores of Anjou, but his mercenaries were relentless. When they attacked us in the clearing, I had failed to defend her, and they rode off with her slumped over their steed. I’d wanted to wail, to beat my chest and cry out to that cruel God who had taken her from me a second time. Though that only lasted as long as it took to bind my wounds. Then I was on the hunt.

The road was torture and I was always a step or two behind. I kept up my courage, vowing one way or another to bring her back. They led me all the way to a manor on the edge of the French border of Anjou. A few servants and slaves said they’d seen a lady covered in blood being carried in there. I can’t say how I wanted to recoil from the odious young man. A breath of courage and I snuck into the manor’s lower levels with the help of the young lad. There I found her in a small barred enclosure. Her light blue gown covered in dark stains as she lie there on the floor. Straw in her hair as well as strewn around her.

I forgot, for a moment, how to breath until she stirred. I was at the bars a breath later. I loosed the hinge pins and moved the door out of my way. I was so grateful she herself was not bleeding though her shoulder didn’t look quite right. I lifted her as gingerly as I could and carried her from that awful place. I knew that the one friend I had made wouldn’t be able to keep the mercenaries from finding her gone, but I could get some distance between us before they found her missing.

She curled into me as she slept, leaning into my warmth with a sigh. My heart fluttered within my chest, an aching and warmth cradled my heart. Forgetting myself, I kissed her head as we neared the fire, a tear of gratitude falling from my lashes. I’d not been strong enough to protect her once, and nearly lost her. I’d not lose her again.