“Sabriel…” Her name fell softly off his lips and warmed his heart in the same breath. It felt sacred to hold her name somehow, even when she had already shared so much with him. He let the silence wrap around them like comfort, just their breaths and the distant tumble of the falls broke it. “I suspect there will be many times I need your company,” he said, and gave her a small, softened smile. “You understand my soul like no one else does.” The confession came easily, because she did. She was the first he exposed his fears to, the guilt that plagued him, and she took it all and said forgive yourself. It had a larger impact on him than he even realized now, but he had some idea.
He could only imagine how many nights he would be sleepless, calmed by her memory when the guilt began to twist his gut, then hoping he could magically transport himself back to this very moment they lay skin-to-skin, sharing their heartaches.
“But, I will make sure to only come if it’s absolutely necessary. Just know you’ll be on my mind.” He promised, which was saying something for Zevulun. In the past, hot-headed and cocky as he was, he would have demanded she let him take her away from there immediately. Older now, with pains of his own, he understood there were some things he couldn’t forcibly push to be involved in. Sabriel deserved his respect at offering her space to figure out her life without him interjecting and demanding it go a certain way.
Of course, he had to imagine he’d have plenty of dreams of stealing under Salem’s star-speckled night and running with her across the endless sands in an attempted escape. If she saw him, illuminated white beneath the desert moonlight, would she come to him?
He told himself he didn’t need to know, though his heart lamented.
“I think,” he started gently, glancing up toward the sky to see where the stars hung and whether or not dawn had graced the horizon in pinks and purples and soft, hazy yellows yet. It was still a bit dark, but he had to imagine the sun would begin rising within just an hour or two. “We’ve spoken of the past and we’ve spoken of the future,” his blues pulled back down to hers, “but for now, we should rest in the present.”
After so much emotion, he knew she had to be as tired as he was. They could fall asleep together, forget the moment they would have to part ways, and even find a tucked away place on Crossing to graze together once the sun was up. If, that is, she wanted it. Zevulun knew he was greedy for any moments she was willing to give him, but he couldn’t force her to. If she told him she wanted to get back to the Badlands immediately and didn’t want to linger, he’d understand. She couldn’t risk upsetting the stallion who held her there.
The stallion who’d made an enemy of Zevulun without ever having met him.
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