Imprisoned By Love

Chapter 8

Katniss

I wake up pressed against a warm body, his arm laying over my body. I pull the covers tighter around us and snuggle closer to his body, feeling the loss of the thick black fur I fell asleep in. You think I would find this uncomfortable, with Peeta and my naked forms pressed against each other like this, but it isn't. I feel that strong attachment that he had now, the need to be close to him, to smell his scent and feel his breath against me. Everything changed for me last night. The moment he infected me with his bite, I became what I was always meant to be, who I know now I was always meant to become just as he has told me from the moment he showed me what he was.

"How are you feeling?" Peeta asks softly. I groan as he moves his arm from beneath my shoulder.

"I feel as though I've pulled every muscle in my body," I rasp. He chuckles and I feel him move before his shadow falls over me. I look up to see him smiling at me as he brushes my black hair away from my face.

"Yeah, it'll take some time before that's gone," he says softly. "Until you gain strength in your limbs and your core." My stomach growls and I groan at the emptiness I feel in my gut.

"I'm so hungry," I whisper.

"I know Darling," he says. "The hunger, need to kill, its all so new and confusing. But you will get used to it. We all do." I look at him and he leans over and kisses my cheek. "I'll go make us something to eat, let you get dressed and used to walking on two legs again." He moves away to get up abut then I feel him move back and he holds a worn, blood red, velvet box to me.

I take it and open it to see something that puts the Heart of the Ocean to shame: a beautiful set of earnings and necklace with what appears to be real diamonds and sapphires stones cut carefully into a diamond shaped pendant and four stoned earrings. Each piece has a large, tear-shaped, iridescent pearl hanging from them, the one on the pendant being much larger than the others. The delicate silver chain of the necklace glistens softly in the light let in by the curtains.

"What is this?" I ask.

"It's your engagement ring," he says softly.

"These aren't rings Peeta," I say.

"Wolves don't give finger rings for their mating," he says. "They are lost to easily should you be forced to shift. Instead, we wear our love over our hearts in pendants." He gingerly touches the necklace and his eyes grow sad. "This was my mother's. My father gave her the earrings as a gift during their first winter solstice together. He carried them in his pocket everywhere from her death to his. He told me one day they would be for you, somnium meum (my dream)."

I sit, up, pulling the covers close to me, still afraid for him to see my nakedness so casually, and take the box gently in my hand. I regard the priceless jewelry and smile.

"It means a lot to you, for me to have this," I say softly. He nods.

"I meant to give them to you last night, to propose to you properly, but everything else happened and I never got the chance," he says and I give him back the box, holding my hair up and out of the way.

"Can you put it on me?" I ask. He nods and I turn away from him as he slides the chain around my neck and clasps it. I shiver as his hand grazes his tender bite mark. I turn back to him and kiss his cheek. "Now I'm still hungry, so get your ass in the kitchen and make my breakfast." He nods, laughing, and slides to the edge of the bed, pulling on a pair of shorts before getting up and leaving.

I lay back down  in the silky sheets and play with the pendant around my neck for a moment, letting my heart slowly beat normally again and groan as my sore muscles take me to the edge of the bed and stand up. I walk across the room and open the drawer that holds my undergarments, pulling out a matching set colored a dark green. I slip them on and head towards the closet to grab the rest of my clothing, but I find myself stopping in front of the mirror.

I run my hands across the body I always wanted but loved food too much to possess. The pudge that puberty hand put on top of my waist and over my stomach has gone, creating smooth curves along my waist and hips. That fat had found I new home though, in a place that caused me to feel a little squished under the fabric of my bra. My legs no longer look as plump and instead are now round with the firm beginning of muscle, the same going for my arms. Evidently, the ability to run in the paw steps of Peeta's ancestors isn't the only thing that changed when he sank his teeth into my neck.

I quickly go to the closet and finish dressing, slipping a long black sundress over my head and putting the earrings on. I carefully go down stairs, following the scent of Peeta and fresh bacon to the kitchen. I walk in and wrap my arms around his waist.

"What you making me?" I ask.

"Bacon and eggs," he says simply.

"Sounds good," I say. "Is it almost done?"

"Almost," he says. I few minutes later two heaping plates are filled in front of us. I finish the largest meal I've ever eaten in meer minutes. I watch him and decide to throw caution to the wind and ask him something that has been bothering me since Johanna showed me the cluttered room at the end of the hall. Something I've been a little afraid of asking because I don't know how he'll react.

"Peeta, can I ask you something?" I say softly.

"What?" He asks.

"Do you remember your mother?" I say. He looks down at his plate and swallows hard.

"Not really," he says. "I was barely two when she passed."

"What happened?" I ask softly, "if you don't mind me asking?"

"I don't mind," he says. "I want to be able to talk to you about the hard stuff. And she's about as bad as it gets." He looks up at me and I see his eyes a little cloudy, the sad eyes of a child who grew up without a mother to hold him, to tell him everything would be alright when his father got a little harsh with him.

"She was very beautiful," he says softly. "That's what my father always told me. The princess of a neighboring pack. But sometimes, that just isn't enough. She had a hard time birthing me, two days of agony before I finally took my first breath. She was advised to not have anymore children, that it was too dangerous. But she wanted another one." He looks and laughs and I see a tear run down his cheek. "She said, 'Kids need someone to grow up with, someone to help them get through the hard times,' so she talked my father into another, even though he was terrified of losing her, he did it because he knew he was keeping her from happiness by denying her a baby. When I was about a year and a half, she became pregnant again and she was happy but everyone was terrified for her. And they were right to be because she didn't survive that time. My brother was born weak and without his mother's milk, he died from lack of immunity less than a week later." I get up and go to stand next to him. I lay my arms around him and he clutches to my middle crying into the skirt of my dress. I hold him gently, softly running my fingers through his blonde curls and rubbing between his shoulders.

"It's alright, Peeta," I say. "I'm right here." He pulls away from me, still holding my waist, his eyes red and cheeks blotchy.

"Promise me I won't lose you like I lost her," he says.

"You won't lose me," I say softly. "I won't leave you like that. I'll stay safely next to you until we die in each other's arms of old age." He smiles sadly at me and I pull him close to me, kissing him above his ear.

"I want to name our first born after my brother if it's a boy," he says. "After the baby my mother lost her life to bear so his spirit, and hers, can live on in our son." I nod, feeling a little warmth and fear in my gut as he mentions a child of our own after the horror story he just told me about his mother's misfortune in carrying the sons of an Alpha.

"What was his name?" I ask. "So I can know what to call him when we hold him for the first time."

"Fernando," he says and I smile, loving the sound of such a sweet, melodic name.

"Fernando," I repeat softy, "That is the perfect name for our baby, Peeta."