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“Do you miss your home?” I ask and find that I really want to know. I may not, as a rule, have the deep, limitless sincerity and concern that Anastasia does. But I do, for one subject alone. Her.
I can feel her head shake from where it rests on my arm. The field grass crinkles with the motion. “Not anymore,” she admits. “Not really.”
I study her face, wondering if she means it. But she seems genuine, though that should be no surprise. She’s always genuine, so wholehearted in everything she says and does.
Something inside of me bubbles at the words, realizing that I’m more relieved than I ever thought I would be to hear her say that. It shouldn’t matter to me whether she likes it here or not, not really.
What would I care if she’d rather be on Protheka? If she considers that home? And yet, the knowledge that she doesn’t feels unbearably significant, taking a weight off my shoulders that I didn’t know was even there.
“I used to,” she continues. “But I think I just felt out of place here, and lonely. I don’t feel lonely anymore,” she admits. I bite back the urge to say the same thing right back to her, even if it’s true.
With Anastasia around, I find myself getting so lost in her that I don’t even think about fighting. She’s a welcome distraction from the bloodlust that used to claim my waking thoughts. It’s almost as if simply being seen by her, in my entirety, gives me the piece that I’ve been missing. The piece I thought I had to find through war and violence.
It isn’t that I don’t still enjoy those things – it’s that I don’t need them. I can forget them entirely, no longer blinded by their almost enchanting pull. Because I’ve found something even more intoxicating.
I put my hand across her stomach thoughtlessly, my fingers rubbing across her firm skin. It’s only a matter of time before she’ll be swollen with my child, her muscles tender and skin stretched. The idea sends a thrill through my veins, imagining seeing her fertility confirmed with a large, pregnant belly.
She smiles at me, and I can tell by the look on my face that she’s thinking the same thing I am. She’s imagining herself, heavy with child.
Anastasia isn’t far enough along for us to confirm a pregnancy, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’m positive that there’s life growing there, small enough to evade detection. My fingertips tingle when I caress her stomach, which I consider as good as proof of the life blooming within.
She sighs a little, nuzzling her head against my shoulder and drawing closer. She lifts her hand to her stomach, letting it rest over mine. Silently, we watch the storm clouds roll overhead, our hands intertwined.
Everything feels right when she’s like this, in my arms. Like this is the way that it was always meant to be. Even if I feel like an idiot that it took me this long to realize it, and that I treated her like a prisoner in the time leading up to this moment.
I’ve done my best to make up for it now, at least. I’m learning to be careful with her, understanding her human limitations. She can’t handle the same rough, fierce treatment that demons wouldn’t bat an eye over.
But at the same time, I wouldn’t change that for anything. That’s what makes our time together so special. She’s a human, not a demon, and that’s an amazing, beautiful, wonderful thing.
I’m growing to love all of the things that make her what she is, including all her human traits and behaviors. They fascinate and intrigue me, and some of them make no sense at all, but I love each and every one of them.
I love the way that she yawns, and how cold her hands are when I hold them late at night. I love the way she looks so serious when she cooks, concentrating as if she’s trying to solve the greatest mystery of all time and not simply making dinner.
I love the sound of her laugh, which comes so easily to her, and the way she makes a snorting, huffing noise whenever she gets impatient. I love the way the color springs to her cheeks when I say something that annoys her, two bright red dots of color that pop out on her pale skin.
There’s so much about her that I’m beginning to think I never want to be without again. And yet, I’m afraid to admit that. I’m afraid to let myself open up to her, to show her all of the affection that’s buried deep in my heart for her and her alone.
It’s not that I don’t know how to show her that love – I didn’t think I knew, until she came along. But something about her coaxes it out of me, making the real difficulty the need to conceal it.
Can I give affection to a woman who may only be in my bed for the fleeting present? What happens when she is gone, and I am left with a heart full of tender memories and no one to share them with?
Perhaps it would be best to not open that gateway, in case I can never get it closed. Because it feels like once I let the emotion spill out of me, and tell her everything that she means to me, I won’t know how to think of anything else.
And then, someday, when she is gone, it just might kill me, knowing everything that I have lost. Perhaps if I never admit it to myself, I can live a life of quiet denial. It won’t be quite as fantastic that way, but it also won’t be quite so devastating.
The King only gave her to me to impregnate. Once that’s done, there’s nothing that says she’s mine to keep. As much as it hurts me to think about, I’m certain that she’ll be taken away to deliver my child, and then sent into the arms of another.
The King only sees her as a method of breeding. He does not understand the warm feeling that spreads through me when she says my name. How her smile makes my cheeks feel warm. How much I enjoy just laying here with her, doing nothing, which somehow feels like everything.
With one hand still resting on her stomach, I wonder if I can feel the tiny little flutter of the baby that I imagine is growing within. She squeezes my hand and turns to smile warmly at me.
I look at her hopeful face, feeling that I can read her mind. She’s excited to think of the baby, and so am I.
But it’s tainted, darkened by the knowledge that if life really does grow within her, our days together are surely numbered. We won’t raise the baby together – she’ll almost certainly never see it, save perhaps a glimpse during labor. It will be ripped from her arms after delivery, considered the property of the King.
Just like the way that she’ll be ripped from my own arms. She was never really mine at all, just a loan.
I don’t want to give her back. I stare into her warm hazel eyes, which glow with excitement, and realize that I don’t have the heart to explain to her what lies ahead.
