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Each of Kai, Ere and Sorin sat behind their rescuer on a winged horse, flying higher and higher, out of reach.
Within moments, they hovered above the other side of the dark divide between two worlds. Their horses and the donkey awaited them below, apparently unharmed by the ordeal, having made it across the bog.
Kai’s ride touched ground first, followed by Ere and Sorin. The two males slid off the horses’ backs while their rescuers stayed mounted.
Kai merely wrapped his arms tighter around his female. He wasn’t letting her go yet.
She didn’t object.
“Well, that was more excitement than I can handle for a good long while,” Ere said breathlessly to the gathered audience at large.
“Thank you for the dashing rescue,” he addressed the golden warrioress. “Can’t wait to tell my Benjamin about this. He’s going to be so envious.”
The female inclined her head gracefully, lips quirked with amusement.
“Whatever can I do in gratitude, oh fair one?” Ere asked, “Short of getting tagged for the afterlife, that is.”
“You know who we are,” the redhead stated rather than inquired.
Ere turned to regard her, blinking innocently.
“I’d have to be a dunce not to recognize Valkyries when I see them,” he said. “The most beautiful, fearsome warrioresses in all the worlds.”
The redhead laughed throatily while her steed pawed the ground.
“Such a golden-tongued dragon,” she remarked.
Then looked at Kai’s female and said, “I want one, sister. May we keep him?”
“No,” came the bemused but parentally stern refusal, as if Kai’s female was used to denying such requests.
“The golden one, then?” the redhead asked with a nod of her head toward Sorin.
“No.”
The redhead huffed as her steed pranced in place, circling impatiently.
“All work; little reward,” she groused. “I’m away then.”
With that, she lifted off with a few powerful flaps of her horse’s wings. Before long, she was merely a speck in the sky.
“Do you have further need of me, sister?” the golden warrioress asked next.
“I shall call for you if I do,” came the response.
The angelic female leaned down to pat the head of the donkey, who snorted with affection and licked her hand.
“Be kind to him, friend,” she said to Ere. “That is how you can show your gratitude.”
Ere slanted a quizzical eye at the hairy beast.
“Consider it done,” he promised, though his tone was skeptical.
The golden warrioress took off as well after that, leaving only Kai’s female with their group.
Since he still had his arms locked around her, his body molded to hers, she couldn’t leave unless he released her.
He didn’t want to.
She turned a little until her face was in profile to him.
“Do you intend to keep me, warrior?” she murmured low, so that only he could hear.
He didn’t answer in words, but his arms tightened further.
She chuckled huskily.
Still speaking softly, she said, “Just as well. Unlike my sisters, Iwillcollect my reward for saving you.”
An involuntary shiver trembled through Kai’s frame at the whispered promise. He could only hope that her notion of “reward” matched his.
