FOUR

 

When the call came, it was not the sour, scratchy voice that Tor expected. Nor had he expected the call to come from a woman.

"Someone help me. Please."

It was the barest, breathless whisper, but Tor heard it, for he was waiting. He shot through earth and stone, surfacing on a street that he neither knew nor recognised, but he cared nothing for the street. No, all his attention was on her, for the clarion call came from her lips, as she flew toward him, as if her feet bore wings.

Tor grinned. Her pursuer, the reason for her panic, approached. How dare he even consider harming her. Tor rose to his fullest height, his widest stance, the better to protect her. He swelled until he filled all the available space between the fence and the shopfront, so the pursuer could not pass.

What did she want him to do?

Tor listened hard, for her voice was still the softest whisper.

"Please let me get inside," she repeated. Her eyes darted from him to the door and back again.

Tor bowed his head in acquiescence, as she ran straight into his embrace. His arms closed around her, followed by his wings. Never had he held anything more precious than her trembling form, and he would protect her with every part of him.

Her pursuer skidded to a stop, the whites of his eyes wide with satisfying fear.

"Begone!" Tor growled.

The pursuer nearly dropped his guitar in his haste to turn and run away, back the way he'd come.

A strange choice of weapon, to be sure. What manner of man wielded a guitar when attacking a woman? If he was some sort of musician, surely he would not risk the tool of his trade so. Then again, he was a fool for daring to chase her in the first place, when she had such a powerful protector.

Ah, but perhaps he had not known?

The musician, if that's what he was, was no longer in sight.

Only then did Tor remember her second command – she wanted to be inside the building.

He held tight to her as he threw his body at the wall, passing through it as easily as he'd travelled through stone to the street. He felt her slump in his arms – she must be a gentle lady indeed, to swoon. He'd best find her a bed or at least a couch to lie on until she awoke – ah, though there were shops below, on the upper floors were bedchambers.

Only one had books upon the table beside the bed, and clothes laid on the chair in the corner. This must be her bedchamber, where she slept.

Tor unfurled his wings, so that he might carry her to bed. Her scent seemed to fill the very air between them, winding its sweet, floral fragrance about him as securely as any spell. He didn't want to let her go.

She gave a little sigh, as if she shared the sentiment.

But sentiment was all it could ever be.

"I am your protector. It is my duty to keep you safe," he said as he laid her on the bed. He tugged off her shoes, then covered her with the eiderdown. The cloth had a strange design upon it, pyramid structures on sand, with a starry sky behind them, as lifelike as though they were real. Like a landscape painting some lord might hang on his library wall. Hardly something to decorate a lady's bedchamber.

Then again, few ladies warranted an immortal protector, so she must be an unusual lady.

Triumph welled in Tor's breast – he'd successfully protected her. Maybe not perfectly, but he'd gotten her home safe.

He hoped she would see it so. If she rejected his service, she might command him to go back to sleep, never to wake again. He would have failed.

But he had not failed. He would tell her so, and pray he did not offend her in doing so.

"It's all right, miss. You're safe," he said softly into the darkness.

Rustling from the bed told her she was awake. She stared at him for a long moment, before squeezing her eyes shut.

Her whispered words carried to him: "Please be gone, please be gone, please be gone..."

If that was her command, then he would be obedient to her wishes. Tor faded into the wall, becoming one with the stone.

He watched and waited for further commands, but she was strangely silent.

She stared searchingly around her bedchamber, as if she did not trust Tor to have done as she asked.

"You're safe," he said from the wall. "It's all right, miss, you're safe."

She gave a little nod, as if she heard him and approved, before she settled down on her pillows and drifted off to sleep.