FOREVER KNIGHTS: #12 Primal Intent

He was horribly still. She put her head to his chest but heard nothing. Pressing a palm against him near her face she drew the fluids in his body up to surround his heart. Forcing them to surge within it. Making his heart pulse to life. He gasped and blinked up at her.

“Who-who are you?” He asked before his head lolled limply to the side.

Calisto was relieved he was alive and didn’t have time to ponder his strange question. Grabbing his arm, she drug him to the border of the woods. Concealing him behind bushes and stacking branches and grass over him.

She heard the roar of Cimmerii. Jumping through the bushes she ran toward them. Throwing out her hands to toss a thin wave of water crashing down on them. Protecting him. She wielded her sword expertly. Fighting to keep the swarm of Cimmerii away from her fallen lover.

Raese woke groggy and sat up. Sweeping the debris from his chest and lap. He pressed a palm to his aching head. He fumbled to his feet and heard shouting and agonized screams.

I need to get away from the fighting. I’m vulnerable. He bumped into a tree and reared back to get from its path. Shaking his dazed head, he blinked hard, nearly blinded by the pain thrumming in his head.

Without knowing how he ended up wandering into DeepCountry City in the Paladines. The alley was shadowed and the graveled drive winding along the town was unsmoothed. Making Raese lose a shoe and fall several times as he struggled toward the city.

A coach rolling behind him made him shake his head in an attempt to focus. The coach jounced to a stop next to him and a man stuck his head out the window.

“Raese? Whiting? Hell, Man! What have you been through?”

It was Lord Rodger Barnes.

Raese turned. Rubbing his palms on his eyes as he tried to press away the confusion. He remembered nothing else as he collapsed.

Rodger had taken him to WhiteHall, Raese’s House. A place Rodger had not known was part of Raese’s guise so he could spy on Radix in the Paladines.

Raese awoke gasping but found Calisto gone. She had expended all of her newfound energy to help him tap into the deeply buried memories.

There was no doubt for Raese now. He was certain of many of the facts now. Some of the key details were still out of his reach but he had much to try and tie together now. He was sure that he was indeed Raese Merlinus and Raese Whiting had only been the name he was going by to infiltrate into the Paladine ton.

Calisto was his wife. This woman he was obsessed with was the woman that he had chosen to spend his life with.

Of all women to be obsessed with…My wife is an appropriate choice. He found himself laughing at the idiocy of the idea. Despite his confusion and frustration at the pieces still just out of reach of his fractured memory, he was suddenly excited.

It all makes sense now.

The green scales…He recalled that day that his arm had been covered in scales. The same scales he’d worn as the great flying dragon watching over the battlefield below.

I’m immortal. He was slow to process some of the details.

Snowman…