She stopped as they stepped into the clearing where they had first glimpsed each other. The moonlight shined through the lining of the trees, the stars in full sight.
She stood where he had claimed her, turning to gaze at him.
He walked toward her, a look of affection and amusement on his face. He reached for her, his fingertips brushing over her lips. "I'm glad I claimed you."
She leaned into his touch, basking in the warmth his touch created. "I dreamed of you." She said quietly. The trees swayed with wind, as if dancing in her words.
"They were simple dreams, just a man's figure with eyes bluer than the sky. They were sad eyes. But they were my sad eyes."
He listened to her talk with furrowed brows.
"And then I saw you in the flesh and in that moment I knew you were mine. I denied it because it scared me...such intense desire had never happened to me before. I knew, my grandmother made sure of it, what I was to do with my gift. I was help people, to help those who hurt." She placed a hand on his chest, feeling the gentle rhythm of his heart beat. "I didn't know how to help you. There was so much emotion, so much passion in you that I didn't see it. That the answer has been there from the start."
He gripped her shoulders in his hands, suddenly afraid of her words. "Ife."
"You claimed me here but I had claimed you far before I knew that you were real." She continued.
He fell to his knees before her, his hands on her hips, his blue eyes meeting hers with no hesitation. The deep brown of her wide eyes sucked him as they always did. "You'll always be mine, Ife. I thought I would have out grown my starvation but it still persists...I still crave you and I know now that I always will."
The moonlight seemed to sparkle on her skin, illuminating it's soft brown glow. "I am king now and I want no queen other than you. You are my happiness, my adventure, the cure to idleness, the desire that burns deep in my chest. I yearn for you when you are away and melt in you when you're near."
"Do you love you love me?" She asked, though she already knew that answer.
His grip on her hips tightened. "Yes. I love you, Ife."
Her breath caught and a smile graced her lips. "I think I've always loved you, Fumnaya. And I always will. I'll give you love always."
She cupped his face in her hands and leaned down to kiss his forehead, a gentle brushing of the lips on his soft brown skin. "I'll bare you many sons and never will you have to despair about forcing kingdom on them."
Her words had his eyes widening. She placed a hand over her stomach. Pride swelled in chest so quickly he could barely contain himself. He pulled her close, kissing her stomach and the child that lie within her.
He stood, engulfing her in his arms before kissing her. It was a kiss filled with love and long overdue happiness. A kiss filled with real need and pure affection. A kissed filled with desire that burned hot and would never truly fade.
She tasted of sweetness, of all things good and filled with love. And while he kissed her a completeness that he was sure he had never felt before filled him, clutched his heart in a grip so tight he gasped. He pulled away, looking down into the very eyes that had long entrapped him in their spell.
She was so full of love that he could not help but wonder if she was Oshun in disguise, wrapped in mortal flesh, presenting herself for his heart's taking.
She kept her promise, baring him one son after the other, four boys made in love. Each of them a prince, all of them kings. Fumnaya basked in her glory, a king that loved his queen openly. As every king should.
With her by his side he found peace and even solace on the throne. He came to love his title, took pride in it. Made it a vow that he lived by to teach it to his sons, that same pride. Queen Adae still mourned her lost love but with each child Ife had her sadness turned to love of another kind. She lavished affection on the princes.
The princesses each found husbands in several of the hunters, baring Adae more grandchildren to love. One of the very matches being Akua and Hiava, a match that had surprised Fumnaya to no end and gave Ife amusement for Akua was goodnatured and mischievous; whereas Hiava was grouchy and had a tendency to frown.
Ife's sister visited her often, growing more beautiful over the years. But even in her age she stayed the same, claiming to enjoy the attentions of many rather than just one man's embrace. Ife's grandmother visited her until she could no more, and then Ife did the visiting. Her grandmother refused to leave her home in her old age, dying peacefully in her sleep years later.
Fumnaya's reign went on to be one of the most prosperous in history, the love he had for his queen never forgotten, always worn on his sleeve, seen in his eyes, heard with every laugh that passed his lips.
Ife was not only a kindhearted, loving, queen but a woman who shared her gift with ease, helping all those who asked her for it, and even some who didn't.
And when she went, her body growing cold in his arms years later. He went with her several days after her passing, unable to let her go in his mourning, until he too died from the pain of his heartbreak.
YOU ARE READING
Dark Eros
Romance"He was a great lion and she was merely a gazelle. He was stalking her in the tall grass, crouching on his mighty hinges, his claws extended, his teeth bared. She sensed him, peered through the tall greenery for him but saw nothing, confusion cloudi...
