Keeper's Knowledge (Balancer's Soul cycle) (10 page)

Connor
woke up about an hour
before dawn and actuall
y felt excited about going to his
very
first Mélange meeting
, now that he had time to process
.
He
honestly
didn’t want to
this
, but Sarah
had to be woken
up. She didn’t grumble like he
was expecting
her to do
.
It didn’t mean she didn’t like it
either
.

The first order of business
i
s to eat
everything
in the pan
try and raise their
energy levels
before
the long
trek could begin
.
They
entered the kitchen
together
. She wore he
r nightshirt and socks whereas he
wore only boxers
, despite the chilly air. Connor
at
tend
ed
the stove while Sarah grabbed the last four boxes of cereal and six toaster pastry boxes out of the pantry.
He
opened the refrigerator and grabbed the last package of hotdogs and two full dozen egg cartons.
Then
he
cracked all twenty four eggs and put them in the skillet and scrambled them all. On
an
other burner he
boiled
the
remaining
eight hotdogs. While
he
continued
cooking
,
Sarah opened the cab
inet behind him
and grabbe
d two drinking glasses, two large glass bowls and two
plastic
platter plates. She arranged the plates and bowls on the dining table. In two of the large bowls she poured two cereal boxes in each. She threw the
boxes in the trash
can
. S
he opened the pastry boxes and divided the
pastries
evenly between them
and
placed them on the platters. She then opened the refrigerator and grabbed the full milk carton and the orange juice. She emptied the milk between the two bowls of cereal and poured
the two of them
each a glass of orange juice. Off to
Connor’s
left were the last of the green apples in the fruit bo
wl. She gave him
three and hoarded
the remaining eleven
for herself
.

Sarah finally sat down at the table and grinned at
him
in a way that said
‘I win.’
The hotdogs were finished first and after pouring the
boiling
water into the sink
,
he
gave
equal helpings of
four
for each
platter. When the eggs were finally cooked and fluffy
,
he
divide
d the remaining food between the
plates.

They
didn’t have time to talk as
Connor
sat down.
They ate as quickly as possible
without looking like starved animals. Once
he
finished eating first
,
Sarah told him
to take a quick shower and
he
did. When
Connor
came out of the room
wearing the
new black hiking pants,
she went in
next without a word
.
He
walked into the kitchen
and cleaned all of the dishes
and put them away
.
He
double
checked the pantry and refrigerator and saw that both were completely empty.
First thing was to extinguish the flame in the fireplace. When it finally was,
he
added a
sealing
plate to the
under
side of the
chimney
so
that wouldn’t allow any animals to make a residence of
the cabin
while
they
were away
for the next few months
.

Connor
turned around just as Sarah walk
ed
into
their
bedroom with a pure white towel wrapped a
round her middle and hair. He
followed
happily
.

By the time he
stepped
into the room Sarah already had on her bra and panties on. She smiled
sweetly
as she saw
him
from the corner of her eye. She reached in her drawer and pulled out some
long
black stocking
that came up to her upper thigh
and slid them on one at a time
,
with a fluid grace. Then Connor
almost laughed as she picked up her gifts from the top of her dresser and set them on the bed.
Sarah shivered at the touch of the cold metal.
She sat on the
edge of the bed and started attiring by
applying the
greaves
first
. She slid them on as easily as the stockings. As she tightened the three straps
to the backside of her leg
he
decided to put on
his
armor as well.

O
pen
ing
the first drawer of
the
dresser
,
he
gazed
down at
his personal
armor.
Connor
started
the process by
pulling
the
chainmail out and sliding that over
his
exposed
torso. T
he metal was rather cold, but his
bo
dy
heat warmed the links up quite
quickly.
He
adjusted th
e mail to be tucked down into his
pants. When it felt comfortable
,
each
of
his
arms were threaded
through the armguards and
then each strap
easily
tightened
i
nto its proper place.
The
leather belt
slid through each ring in his p
ants. Grabbing
the
greaves
from the dresser
,
he sat on his
side of the bed and slid each one onto
the proper
leg. After they were s
trapped comfortably Connor
slid on
the
new hiking boots and strapped them up accurately.

He
stood and looked back
in his wife’s direction
as she
didn’t realize she gawk
ed
at him
like a juicy steak
to a hungry dog
. She was s
tanding
next to
the e
dge
of bed
wearing everything except her shirt, her black pants fit her perfectly and covered her leggings.
A
ll of her armor
had been secured to her person,
including Fangs which hung from
each hip. She had already slid on her chainmail and had her hair already pulled out
from underneath it
.

“What are you staring at?” Connor
asked
, but
already knew.

It took
nearly
forever for her to come back to reality.

Her jaw snapped shut
and her face flared
as she walked back over to her closet. She grabbed her heavy long sleeve shirt
and slid it on. She turned back
and smirked. “What are
you
staring at?”

He
laughed
softly
and slid
his
shirt on as well.

They
made the bed and took one last look at
the
bedro
om making sure it was all set. He
closed the door after
her.
In the
living room as
he
asked
“Ready for your cloak?”

“Yes.”
He
walked over t
o the living room
where
he
sat the four snow white cloaks on the sofa
,
grabbed one of the smaller ones and walked up to Sarah as she turned her back
. She kept her hair down as Connor
wrapped the string around her porcelain neck; just tight enough to hold the cloak securely around her body
and not risk it leaving her
.

“Pack?” He
asked and she nodded.
He
grabbed her backpack and she opened the front of her cloak as she slipped her arms through the straps. When she had it situated
he
clicked the clasp
of her straps
between her breasts
.
They decided not to wrap the abdominal strap for certain reasons.

She grabbed the ends of her cloak and it encased her entire body
,
except for her head, but she didn’t throw the hood up. “How do I look?” Sarah pirouetted on the tip of her left foot
and the ends of the cloak flared out like a long dress
.

Connor
smiled
because she had the beauty
of a
living
fairy tale princess
. “Like a woman ready for an adventure.”

He grabbed his large
cloak and pack and put them both on
unassisted
.
He
pulled the ends of
the
cloak together in
the
front.
He
asked her the same question she asked, without spinning, and she said “Like a man prepared for a journey.”

“I just have one last thing I have to do before we leave.” She nodded.

Connor
walked into the power room
and pushed the cloak over
his
shoulders
to free
up his
hands
.
Every car battery needed to be
unclasp
ed
and ma
de
sure that they were all secure on their platform
of steel and corrosion resistant concrete
. Satisfied
,
he
came out and shut the door.

Sarah saw him
exiting the room
and started walking to the front door
with the two
remaining
cloaks thrown over her right shoulder
. Before opening
the door
she opened the
desk
and grabbed
Tool and the
other
dagger. She turned and tossed the larger
weapon
in his direction and he
easily caught it by its metal handle and slid it into a loop on
his left hip. Connor
remembered Sarah saying
last night
that she was
returning
her mother
’s
the dagg
er back so he
didn’t bring that subject up again
.

Connor
grabbed the two full trash bags as
he
followed
his
mate out the front door of
the quiet
cottage.

She locked the door
behind him
and started walking toward the tree line. She stopped and when
Connor
looked back she said in a weak voice “This will be the longest we’ve ever been away from our home.”

He
sat the
bags down and walked up to her before
he
sat a single hand on her shoulder.
S
he slowly
turned her face up to meet his
. She had on a somewhat sad expression and her emotional climate matched
. “Princess, this is jus
t a house.” Her jaw dropped as he
spoke evenly. “A place of shelter can never be
a substitute for
a real home. When I’m with you, I am home. I’ve never told you this, but growing up, I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong to anyone or anything. I was always lonely because I didn’t know why people treated me differently; especially at school.
You remember how
and what
they
did to
me,”
S
he nodded cautiously
because she
felt
afraid of how her voice might fail her at this moment
. “Imagine that going on for
well
over thirteen years
without pause
.” Her jaw sna
pped shut and her attention welded onto him
. “
When I met Mark, he eased that suffering, but
he could never really erase
that lingering feeling
that gripped my chest
.”
He
looked back at
the
cottage. “That all changed when I saw you for the first time. That feeling completely disappeared when I found you
out
in the woods
and we first started falling in love
. And when we be
came mates and became bonded,” Connor
looked back into her green eyes as they had finally softened into a hopeful smile. “I knew where
I finally belonged.”