Darkness carved in bone

Chapter 29

Ten

He wrapped his hand gently, but firmly, around her hand as he pulled her along. The darkness of the hallway made it impossible for him to not take advantage of the moment.

He pushed her up against the wall and pushed his lips down on hers. Heat flared up inside his body, making it feel as if he was on fire. She was everything.

She tasted so sweet and wonderful. Her plump lips were everything to him. Her sweet and beautiful face and eyes had been his undoing. The golden light she had emitted during their lovemaking had felt like a caress. As if her hands on him, his skin on hers, and him being inside her was not enough, that she had needed them to be even closer.

He had found that his golden princess was his everything. His heart beat hard and fast in his chest. The remnants of his climax still shuddered through his body. She was his now. He had had her, and he would never let her part from him.

His tongue pushed inside her mouth as his fists twisted into her hair, destroying her braid again.

A smile on her lips told him that she didn't care. And he certainly did not care either.

When they finally managed to unravel themselves from each other, Helen mechanically redid her braid as she looked at him through her eyelashes with lustful eyes.

Ten felt the need to stand up straight and focus on something else than her, or else he would be too tempted to bring her back up to the bell tower and finish what he felt burning inside him again. What he could almost smell burning inside her too.

He pushed the tip of his tongue between his lips to wet them as they had gone dry from his heaving breath that ravished his lungs just now, as he had looked at her. She made him nearly loose his mind. She made him feel elevated and light like a feather. She had been so beautiful, so perfect. Her little sounds of pleasure had nearly driven him insane. The memory of how his fingers had traced her slender waist and voluptuous curves made him shudder. Her porcelain skin had felt like the most precious silk between his fingers. Their bodies had fit perfectly together. And her golden hair had been like a corona of gold around her head.

He had to stop himself from thinking about that moment, as he again was tempted to bring her back up there.

She straightened her shirt and was about to leave but he pushed her against the wall once more.

He placed both of his large hands atop her shoulders and caressed the lower portion of her throat with his thumbs, feeling her pulse fluttering beneath his fingers.

"You are beautiful," he breathed. "You are perfect."

He could feel her heart skip a bit, making a halt in her pulse, as lust flared in her pupils. As a glowing light shimmered into her eyes. That light that told him that she was happy, truly happy.

She leaned up at him and planted a sweet and warm kiss on his lips before she looked into his eyes again. "You are beautiful." She looked down for a moment, as if she braced herself for something, readying herself to take a leap of faith. "And you are mine," she said with a breathy voice. She looked at him through heavy eyelids, her eyes conveying a vulnerability, but also a glow of something more. That something warm and glowing had formed between them now and had likely been in the making for a long time. That something had taken its hold on his heart, that it nearly no longer belonged to him. That it no longer beat for him, but for her.

They managed to walk downstairs and rejoin the party, and spent hours dancing, laughing and drinking. This was how it had to feel like when the birds were flying in the sky. Or perhaps this was even better. It felt like there was nothing that could ever bring him down again. They spent moments in conversation with each other, sharing smiles and secret looks that conveyed what would happen, what needed to happen between them again. They also conversed with the different locals from the village. Sharing small and undisclosed stories of their travels.

But when the pyre in the courtyard was lit, setting the sky ablaze they were nowhere to be found. When the crowd cheered to the sky, another sound erupted from Helens mouth in response to Ten's touch and movement against her body that vibrated off the windows of their room at the inn. The undying fire in the courtyard twisted and turned as the firewood was incinerated into nothingness and warmth. Into ash and embers. The fire that bode the darkness goodnight and would burn until the sun greeted them again. But Helen and Ten where occupied elsewhere, making their own fire. A fire that would outlast and outshine the blaze outside. The beauty of the golden embers that twirled in the cold winter air and resembled the flowing snow, lighting the sky like small lanterns in the air, was nothing compared to the beauty that was between Helen and Ten.

And when the sun greeted them the following morning, Ten kissed her bare shoulder, her naked body covered by a thin linen sheet as she lay on her stomach, her face facing the sun that streamed in trough their window, and walked out into the world a new man.