Abyss - Book Five (Man x Man)

Chapter 34

The thought of a wedding used to frighten me, I'd watched my mother follow two steps behind my father my entire life. She had donated her body to the cause, producing heirs, and becoming his talisman for lack of a better word. I'd never wanted that, never wanted to do that to anyone, much as my brothers pined for women of their own. 

But, watching the joy it brings my false wife dampens the blow. If anything, I now feel a sense of completion. There was a time when I welcomed death more than the thought of being bound to a single human for the rest of my days. 

Over the hardships of the past few years, I can't say that settling down and stepping out of the crosshairs of immediate danger sounded like a bad idea. 

Years of torment, prodding, and stares will come to a graceful end where I had been thoroughly convinced we'd be fighting for our lives at the gallows for our sexual preferences or our political beliefs. If I had ever wondered if there was a god, those questions were beginning to become more clear as it seems the perfect match had been chosen for me not once but twice with Verando and now, Fillipa.

In my happiness, I feel the pang of regret that comes with a lack of acceptance of one's self. Even if it's the perfect ending given our circumstances, it's not the ending I wanted. I had promised myself I'd try to find a way to wed myself to the one person who had asked me repeatedly to be his but I'd fallen short of the promise. 

I can't lie to myself that I hadn't fallen for the seduction of simplicity. Changing everyone's mind on magic beings was easier if I wasn't also trying to gain their approval of my preference. This was working, it was easy, and it was a way out without repercussions that meant more people I love dying. I longed for easy, for simple, after the never-ending tour it was too tempting to race towards the finish line. 

Sighing as I exit the dining hall, I can't help but think, What's one more compromise?

I think about where it is I might find Haryek but the longer I walk, the longer I feel as though there is another I need to hunt down and find. My absent warlord, missing in a vast city so close to his home. Part of me had feared, once we arrived here, that he would make a run for it. 

Since the day I met him, home had been his one true goal. The man I loved was lacking permanent roots, perhaps that should have been reason enough to motivate me to claim him legally as my own.

A place that called to him, a place he'd been forced to leave. Would he renounce me for the familiar population of Spain? Even France was more of a home to him than my own, the place that enslaved him, that caused the near extinction of his people. 

Truthfully, I've been afraid to look for him. 

Terrified that I won't find him, how many of his children belonged to women he claimed he loved? How many women knew of his 'love'? I'd be foolish to think that, even with his cold and calculated nature, I alone held his affections. Even knowing his back story, accepting that the desire to feel needed stemmed from trauma, it was difficult not to second guess. 

Every time I was alone, my demons whispers in my ear that he would be gone.

I try not to make it seem as though I'm searching, the guards are used to my wandering by now, watching me out of the corner of their eyes, they made use of themselves by keeping the perimeter safe rather than hovering over me. 

Verando had been so distant since we arrived in France. Pretending as I might that it's due to my injuries, he seems far away from me, as if he's hiding something. I was seeing him less and less, and now, since our last meeting with Naptalion, I haven't seen him at all. 

I'm alive, so he's alive? That was a good thing.

 "We can not allow it to happen. The treaty must not be signed."