Sokeefe Forever - *Discontinued*

Chapter 8: The punishment

2141 Words

Keefe's POV

The moment I felt Sophie's mood spike with fear, I grabbed her hand and started to send her calming breezes. I could see the worry lines etched across her face, and I knew that she had to be freaking out inside. I knew that she was having a downward mental spiral. She always overthinks.

"Deep breaths, Foster. Remember, you're their moonlark. They can't get rid of you. You're too important." I reminded her.

"But that's the thing. I'm the moonlark. So if they kick me out because I broke me and Fitz's cognate bond, and something really bad happens, I'm not allowed to help because I'm not part of the order anymore." She said.

"Okay, but do you think that's a possible outcome? Do you think that Mr. Forkle would deliberately get rid of you because of a mistake?"

"Well... I hope not." She takes a shaky breath, and I send her more blue breezes. When that doesn't seem to help, I slowly wrap my arms around her and pull her close to me. She cuddles up against me, and it makes me smile sadly.

All of a sudden, the door burst open, and there stands Granite and Mr. Forkle, both out of breath and panting slightly.

"This is a conversation best kept between these three." Mr. Forkle says firmly to Dex.

"Aw, man! I'm left out again." He whines. "It's always, 'Dex, do this one thing, and then we don't need you again.'" He mocks, as he digs in his pockets for his home crystal. After Dex leaves, it's all eyes on us.

Granite and Forkle slowly make their way to stand in front of us, and the glare they give us sends shivers down my spine. There is no way that this is going to end well. Granite glances at my arms around Sophie and then turns to Forkle, and they stare at each other for a while before they turn back to us, with relatively pleased expressions on their faces. Telepaths.

"We've come to a decision." Forkle starts.

"What decision?" Fitz interrupts. Forkle glares at him, and Fitz shrinks back down onto the mattress.

"We've concluded your punishment. Now you may think of this as extreme, but trust me, breaking a cognate bond is far more extreme than this. And there will be zero negotiation, understood?" He waited for us all to nod before he continued. "Fitz. Because we didn't hear about any act worthy of being punished, you will not be chastised." Fitz noticeably relaxed and sighed.

"However. We do have to punish Sophie because she was the one who broke the bond." He then looked towards me and Sophie, while we were still visibly wrapped in each other. He smirked slightly to himself. Only slightly. "We can see here, that some of your relationships have changed. Have been upgraded." He paced slowly back and forth in front of us as he talked. "And we are going to use this new information as an opportunity." He stopped pacing to look at us. "Remember: no negotiating. The punishment that we have decided for Sophie is..." He quickly glanced at Granite, and then continued. "Is to prevent you two from dating." He pointed to Sophie and me. We looked at each other worriedly, with wide eyes and shocked faces. How could he do this? I thought angrily. I gave him my best protective-boyfriend-death glare as I squeezed her closer to my side.

"You can't decide that for us. It's part of our personal life." I said. "Not part of The Black Swan."

"I'm aware, Mr. Sencen. But Ms. Foster isn't completely allowed to have a personal life, because we know everything already. And anything we don't know, we can access easily." He tapped his temple, implying that he could just use his telepathy.

"No," Sophie said. It was her first time speaking since Granite and Forkle got here.

"No?" Granite asked.