Frost Bitten (BxB)

Chapter Forty

It was about an hour and a half before I could finally meet up with Asurah, since, during most of that time, I was contacting so many different individuals to help reconstruct the multitude of buildings that had been damaged during Vextian's attack. Not to mention I also contacted Ma to make sure she was ok, and bless that woman, because despite her near death experience, she was far more concerned with how Asurah was doing, and how he was handling things. I explained the whole situation, including the little argument Jox and I had earlier, and she seemed to be in the same mindset as Temour had been.

She told me that no matter how hard things got, the one thing Asurah and I could rely on was the trust we had in one another, and that I shouldn't betray that by lying to him, even if it was for his own good.

Hell, I wouldn't want him to ever distrust me, even if I lied to protect him. It was better to just tell him the truth and just be there for him through the consequences.

Definitely later, though, since when I finally saw my beloved husband, he was merely standing in our room silently, arms wrapped around himself as he stared at where I had nearly died, the blood now caked and dried amongst the pearlescent floors.

Feeling my heart clench tightly in my chest, I made my way over to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, leaning my head on his shoulder. At first, he tensed, but after realizing it was me, he relaxed, leaning into my warmth. "We'll need to get that cleaned up," he muttered with a frown, eyes not straying from where they had been transfixed.

I nodded in agreement, pressing a gentle kiss against the space where his neck met his shoulders. "Yeah we do. Though, now that I'm alive and well, I can't believe I actually lived. I mean I swear I had died for like...a few minutes at least, or was close to it. I mean, I even hallucinated that I met your dad, which is so freaking weird and hard to wrap my head around. I mean, you'd think I'd hallucinate about you, not about the man who helped create you. Right?"

Asurah frowned and looked back towards me, brows pinched together with a mix of bewilderment and wonder. "You met my pitera? In the afterworld? You...maybe you did die, and the gods brought you back for me, o-or something, but Joseph this is...amazing. W-what did he say to you? Did he say anything about me?"

I scrunched up my nose as my brows pinched together, shrugging as my gaze clashed with his. "I don't think I actually met him, I mean, there's no such thing as the afterworld, or whatever. At least...that's what I believed my entire life. I had to be hallucinating, there's no way any of that was actually real."

Asurah cupped my cheeks and turned his body to where he was facing me, his lips pulling in a faint frown. "How do you know for sure if the gods are not real? Or that there is no life after death? The only way anyone will ever truly know, is if they died and came back to life. And you did that Joseph. You saw my pitera, a man you have never met in your entire life, and hell, I doubt you've even seen a picture of him...so surely your soul was in that threshold between life and true death. You can't really think all of that was your imagination, right? I mean, no offense honey, but you're not that creative."

I glanced away from him with a frown, not wanting to believe any of this. I mean, imaginary dudes with the power to dictate your life from the great beyond? That stuff didn't really make any sense to me, and hell, despite Ma being religious, I could never believe in that. Not after all the crap I was forced to go through growing up. Crap Ma and I went through. Surely if there was a higher power, they wouldn't allow such pain and misery, right?

But you went somewhere after you died, my subconscious spoke, you met a man you never seen before, hell, had a full conversation with him. And the place I had been...it didn't make any sense. Complete and utter darkness...no floor, yet I hadn't been falling...there was no sound at all, either, save for my own panicked breaths. Could that have really been...i-it didn't make any sense...