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Her legs pressed tight around the hot flesh of the racing stallion, her will silently urging the horse on. She leaned forward in the saddle until her face was pressed into the mane of her Achelon, the sticky wet hair plastered to her face. She felt the muscles of the powerful horse tense and release as he overtook graceful, but frantic distance in each stretch of his long legs. She was blind to the woods around her, and the storm that displayed awesome beauty in the sky above her. She felt only the horse under her, the deep, biting cold and the fever it delivered that pulsed its poison through her boiling hot blood. Her only focus was remaining in the saddle despite Achelon's expert maneuvering through the thick Canadian forest. Her hands no longer held the horse's reigns, but rather she clung to the horse's neck, whispering encouragements in her head that her frozen lips could not utter. If she were cognizant enough to think, she would have heard the sharp cracks of the trees around her, and a fear would have clung to her heart. Instead, she had the bravery of a woman blind of her surroundings.
She had stolen away on an impulse, grabbing only necessities to stuff in the saddlebags, and taking her prize stallion to run away with her to meet a man beyond the woods who promised to help her. She would not be foolish enough to steal one of her father's cars, for fear of him finding her. But she had not known the cold that would set in this night, in combination with the rain. She would be lucky to make it through the woods…unless she turned around now. These thoughts would have plagued the young Tristen Morgan's mind if she had the capacity, but, as it were, the only decision-making taking place was on the part of the stallion beneath her, which rode with all his heart to deliver his mistress to safety. His flesh burned with his own fever, his mouth hung open gasping in the cold air that froze his throat and lungs with sharp pain. He did not slow his pace, although he felt his wild eyes slowly closing against the water that whipped like needles into his face. The darkness loomed around him with hungry fervor, and trees cackled in the wind, causing the stallion's heart to beat faster and faster as an icy tremor caused his panic to mount. He was blind to the world around him; his eyes now sealed shut from the force of the rain. It was his blindness that shielded the emergence of the creek before him. The ground suddenly vanished beneath him as the earth dipped into the overflowing waters, and the brave mount fell head long into the waters with his young mistress's silent scream upon her chapped lips.