Page 77 of Iron Blade

When she was nestled on her side, I crouched before her, took her right hand in both of mine and kissed her palm.

I knew I wouldn’t tell her enough about my world because I was a coward. And more than honesty, I needed to keep her. I needed her by my side more than my next breath.

Happiness. What was that? Was that the feeling that crept over my chest, as I looked at the woman before me? The woman who wore my mother’s ring? The woman whose belly would swell with my child.

“Blood of my blood,” I breathed into her hand before I kissed the place where a wound should have been, had I done things right. A wound where we would mingle our blood, our hands fasted together as we swore vows that, in my world, meant more than the piece of paper we sent to the government that was far, far away from my existence.

I let her sleep, even though my body hummed with the need to have her. The need to possess her. My cock had been rigid from the moment she stepped through the doors of the church, and it hadn’t let up in all this time. But the desire was delicious too. It had been so long since I had wanted anyone, that the agony of denial soothed the soul I had thought numb until I laid my eyes on her.

I took a paper from one of the easels, and began to sketch with an old, discarded charcoal.

Black was the color of my true love’s hair. It draped around her face, and her beautiful form like she was a fairy queen in an old Renaissance painting, draped not in a dress, but in the stars of the Milky Way, clothing her in light.

I sketched until dawn, when the sky turned pink. The words of that song circled through my mind.

Black is the color of my true love's hair,

Her lips are like some roses fair.

She's got the sweetest face and the gentlest hands

And I love the ground whereon she stands.

But those words didn’t quite fit her, did they? The old words of the folk song weren’t perfect for her, and I could feel that the words would change with time. They would grow like the strange feeling in my chest, until they were suited to fit the woman I now called my wife.

She stirred when the light slanted in from the narrow windows, traveling over her body, until it warmed her cheek.

She moaned and fluttered her eyes open. Bleary and exhausted, her eyes came to me and I was greeted with the most beautiful smile that ever existed.

“Good morning, wife,” I said, moving to the couch, so I could take her hands.

“Husband?” she responded, with a little smile. “I can’t believe we did that. Married? Was that for real?”

“Does it feel real?”

She looked down at her hand, where an emerald glinted back at her. It caught the light and danced across her skin. Christ, she was a goddess.

“It does,” she sighed.

“Then it is real, my love.” I took her chin in my hand and turned her to face me. I placed a kiss on her lips, and she opened without hesitation. She cupped my face in her hands, as I swiped the hair from her shoulders. “I want you.”

“You have me,” she said, smiling against my lips. “What more do you want?”

“Are you teasing me?”

“Maybe.”

I bit her lower lip, before I plunged my tongue between her teeth.

Did she taste different now than she did before? She tasted sweeter than the last time. Sweeter, because she was mine, and I was hers. Sweeter, for being bound before the altar of the church. The realization that she would be mine in all ways - handfasted, and vowed by blood, carrying my children, and fighting by my side - hit me like a bolt of lightning. The electricity spread and the need to hold her close overtook every cell of my body.

I needed her naked, now.

The need I had denied myself from the moment she slapped me in the museum was taking over a hundred fold. My hand went up to the bodice of the dress and I tugged until the sound of ripping fabric filled my ears.

“Kira,” I whispered against her mouth, before stealing more kisses. I was stealing the very air from her lungs because I needed it for myself. I needed her more than air itself. “You’re mine, now.”

“Yes.” She wrapped her arms around me, and leaned into my touch. I could feel the heated, uncovered flesh of her breast in my hand, as I pushed the damned fabric from her shoulders, letting it fall to her waist.

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