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Chapter 24
Vahadr
I’ve been housebound with my son and my Ana for several days now, and I am almost ashamed to admit how much I’ve enjoyed it.
After the hateful conversation with Mother that Asili had been forced to witness, he was not quite himself. More subdued, more obedient…it seemed as if the certain spark that had previously ignited the chaotic whirlwind that is my son had dulled. But with only a little encouragement and patience, he already appears to be coming back to himself, and I think that Ana has played quite a role in this.
And Asili is not the only one affected by her.
Ana has a calming quality about her, a soothing sort of presence, and despite that my problems have not changed—they are, in fact, continuing their slow and unfortunate escalation—working at home with Ana by my side, stealing kisses whenever I please, watching her with Asili and holding her in my arms, I feel somehow that…
I’m not sure. I feel somehow ridiculously sentimental about the whole affair, as if everything will be alright. Which of course makes no sense whatsoever, and yet there the feeling sits, remaining warm in my chest and telling me that things are not quite so bad as they might seem.
She sits with me in my office now, curled with her holo-note on the couch I had her spread across too many days ago, tapping away at her latest assignments with her hair hanging loose and shining warm in the setting afternoon sun. I am finding myself lost more and more in the mere sight of her.
Asili has been locked away in the media room for some time now, engrossed in watching a fantastical human docuseries which has absolutely no grounding in reality, and which Ana has informed me is called a cartoon. I don’t think we will be seeing him again until one of us heads in there and forces him bodily away.
“Ana,” I say, powering down my desk station with a definitive few taps. “I think we’ve both worked enough for the moment. Come here.”
She sighs gustily and all but flings her note across the couch, the holo-screen automatically powering off at the abrupt movement, and flops her head back against the couch. “Yes, I’m so donewith coding, you have no idea.”
“I have something for you.”
She huffs and turns her head towards me, her neck curving gracefully against the leather and her eyes sparking with another lovely glare. “No more gifts, you tyrant.”
“Honestly,” I say, leaning back in my chair as I tug open the first draw of my desk and pull out the black jewelry box I was saving for…well, I’m not quite sure what I was saving it for, but now seems as good a time as any. “You must be the only female in existence to consistently meet gifts with anger and rejection.”
“And you must be the only man in the galaxy who doesn’t understand what the word ‘no’ means. Oh wait, no, that’s every man ever…”
“Will you just come here,female?”
“I shouldn’t, you know,” she says, standing with a huff and crossing her arm as she comes to a stop beside my chair. “I should make you suffer for being such a bully.”
“You already do that,” I say, untwisting her arms and pulling one hand down so I can lay a kiss against her knuckles. When her expression softens, seemingly against her will, I try to hide my smile and I pull her sideways into my lap, securing an arm firmly around her waist as I hand her the jewelry box.
She sighs and takes it, but she just holds it and fiddles with the corner. “Vahadr, seriously, I—”
“If you do not open the box,” I warn her with a squeeze, “I will buy you a house next.”
Her glare intensifies and she begins muttering quietly, but she opens it. And when her breath catches and a small crease forms between her brows, I find myself leaning in towards her.
“What do you think?”
“It’s…” She lifts the simple, delicate chain from its velvet casing, adorned with only one Kervashi diamond suspended like a teardrop. “It’s…so plain.”
I feel amusement rising in me at this reaction. “It isn’t enough, then? That’s quite a change in tune…”
“No, Vahadr, it’s really beautiful.” When she turns to look at me, there’s a smile tugging the edges of her lips. “It’s almost as if you actually paid attention to me and didn’t get anything too extravagant.”
She does not need to know that due to the rarity of the nigh-indestructible and untarnishable metal the chain is cast from, mined from difficult to find Aesope meteors, it actually costs more than the last piece I bought her.
“Who picked this for you? I’ll have to thank them.”
“Excuse me,” I say with an arched brow, “I picked this myself, you can thank me.”
The look on her face seems to imply that she suddenly likes the necklace a lot more now that she knows I selected it personally, and this makes me strangely pleased.
“You did?” she asks. “But…when did you get the time?”
