Warmth (Klance Warmth series Book 1 of +4)

19: Sneak Peak of the sequel 'Chill'

A/N: The sequel for this fic is posted and titled "Chill." It deals with the Sendak/Balmera story arc and has MATURE rating because Sendak is a cruel bastard, Lance can't leave well enough alone, and Keith is running out of patience. In short, there will be some hardcore Klance in the sequel.

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When Lance first convinced him to escape the Galra and run away to who-knows-where space, Keithek had doubted they would succeed. But honestly, the chance of living a life of freedom had been lucrative. Compared to a life of endless discrimination and hatred and an inevitably uncomfortable death with the Galra, what Lance offered was a shining star of hope. That faint hope had fueled Keithek's desperation to escape. Now he was living in an ancient Castle with members of a long dead race that wasn't actually dead, mated to one of them, and a member of a team of intrepid paladins piloting giant mechanical Lions that together formed the mythical Voltron. It was amazing.

Amazingly awful.

Keithek lay limply across the couch in the paladins' lounge gasping for breath and sweating profusely. He and the others had spent the past several vargas dodging weapons fire from the Castle in one of Allura's many attempts to get them to form Voltron at will. The crazy princess had raised the Castle's particle barrier, preventing them from returning to their hangars until they had formed Voltron. Thankfully, the Green Lion's paladin was the tech genius and figured out the codes to turn off the Castle's formidable defenses and lower the particle barrier. He'd taken his sweet time about it though, Keithek thought in annoyance.

He glanced over and saw Lance sprawled across the bench further down with one leg thrown carelessly over the back cushion. Lance was just as tired and strained as the rest of them. Allura had shown no favoritism towards him even though they were siblings. She made them all suffer equally.

Keithek closed his eyes and allowed himself to sink into the cushions tiredly. They hadn't quite gotten the hang of forming Voltron at will every single time yet, but they were getting there. It seemed they all needed to feel the desire to survive and fight in order for them to merge and form Voltron successfully. It had worked when that Druid-built atrocity of a Robeast arrived on Arus the cycle previous and attacked. Keithek suspected Haggar was behind that Robeast. It was simply too strong for the average Druid or group of Druids to create. They would have lost to it without question had the black paladin not stepped in.

The halfbreed was still intimidated by the Champion. Shiro. He'd asked to be called Shiro. That was another thing: Shiro was a lot nicer than Keithek had ever imagined him to be. He held himself like an alpha but was gentle with the younger paladins and the refugees in a way that wasn't alpha-like. It was more reminiscent of a beta. Shiro even respected Keithek and made an effort to hear the halfbreed's input before making any decisions. It was a nice change to the horrid conditions onboard the Galra battlecruiser.

The refugees had been another story entirely. They had not been entirely kind to Keithek and while he understood, it had still hurt. Strangely, they had shown the same fear of Shiro. They'd called him Champion too. It turned out, Shiro had wounded one of his own crew members in order to enter the arena as a gladiator in the first place.

That had been a surprise, but it fit the persona of the Champion he was familiar with. It did not, however, fit the persona of the Shiro he was coming to know. In fact, the black paladin had been horrified and taken aback by the suggestion and vehemently rejected it. So had the green paladin, strangely. Apparently the crew that had been captured with Shiro were the green paladin's family; his father and brother.

Keith was still trying to wrap his head around everything and it was only his third quintant as paladin of the Red Lion. This had not been what he'd thought of as 'freedom' when he'd first escaped, but it was still interesting enough to keep him on his toes.