Free Journey in Time (Knights in Time) by Chris Karlsen

didn’t care.
    Eclipse obliged. They’d taken only a couple of steps when she cut off her reflexive scream. What would’ve been a horrified screech turned into a sad, high-pitched whimper. The strangled sound had no effect on the mottled brown and yellow grass snake that slithered over the toe of her boot.
    "Ugh!"
    The snake wriggled away, but Shakira’s thumping heart continued to race. She glanced up as one doe followed closely by another broke from a thicket. They ran past in the same direction as the snake and out of sight.
    "Jeez, is there an ark parked nearby or what?"
    Eclipse answered with a hard yank on the reins, resisting her attempts to force him forward. His front legs stamped in unison and he tossed his head and sought release. He pitched back harder and pulled her off balance. With one hand caught inside his bridle, he dragged her several feet before she managed to dig her heels in and regained control.
    "Whoa, whoa, easy boy, easy, what has you so spooked?"
    He struggled for another minute and then suddenly calmed.
    She stroked his muzzle and tried to figure out what frightened him. She guessed the snake. Alex told her he rode all his horses on the trails as part of their training. Deer were abundant in these woods. Eclipse had to have seen them. That left the snake, although, he should’ve encountered them before too. She reached up to pick a leaf from his forelock and noticed ribbons of pink wove their way into the blue sky above her. A pretty mix.  
    She led Eclipse farther into the trees, and then doubled back, a trick she’d seen in an old western movie. They crossed a short rise and stopped behind a rock formation situated below the road. The boulder gave her a partial view of the start point. Secreted, she watched Alex set off.
    He cantered the direction she’d taken. She lost sight of him when turned toward the brook, as she had. Where did he go afterward? While Eclipse grazed, she crept to the side and poked her head over a jagged cut in the outcropping.
    She shivered in surprised delight when Alex’s warm lips touched her neck. He and Thor managed to sneak up without her hearing either’s footfall on the cushion of leaves.  
    "I carry nothing of value, Sir Highwayman," she whispered as he moved to her nape.
    "I'm not that kind of highwayman. And you do have something I value."
    He caressed her arms in long, sensuous strokes. One hand journeyed over the bend of her hip and slid along the curve of her belly.
    She turned in his arms and closed her eyes loving the hardness of his thighs pressed to hers. His hair tickled her chin as he nuzzled the soft flesh of her jaw line. A whiff of cedar, the hint of bergamot, the dry scent of his aftershave, Paco Rabanne, teased her nose.  
    A hot breeze gusted, whooshed through the trees and stirred a whirlwind of fallen leaves. One of the horses neighed. Her eyes fluttered open. Both animals raised their heads as a flock of birds burst from their shelter. Thor’s ears swiveled in different directions. Eclipse, true to his herd nature, followed the dominant stallion’s behavior and remained alert but quiet.
    Alex ignored the blast of heat and wind. The oddity brushed across Shakira’s consciousness only to evaporate as fast as it came, vanquished by the silken feel of his kisses on her throat. Everywhere his mouth touched electrified her skin. She tilted her head back relishing each new sensation, her gaze lazily drifted upward. Orange streaks lined the now blood red sky.
    "Alex, look," she pointed.
    "I’d rather look at you." He eased her onto a grassy patch. His body covered hers as his hands and lips caressed her.
    Thor whinnied long and loud. Shakira moaned and turned her head to the side. Thor danced a semi-circle around the tree he was tied to while his whinnies came non-stop. Eclipse followed suit.
    "Alex..."  
    Lightning brightened the sky overhead in waves of blue-white flashes. A strange weightlessness filled her, the same disconcertion