Chapter Twenty Four: Conqueror

         The stench started to die down and the butterflies in my stomach started to fade. I was still worried about Gathinbelle and what would happen to them but I started to trust that we were safe and I started formulating a plan in my head about sending parts of our army to help protect them as soon as I could. I wasn’t for killing Kaithron but I also wasn’t going to allow them to hurt my new friends.

        The coach came to a stop, and the horse outside let out a neigh. We were in the middle of the road so I wondered why Abigail had stopped us.

        “Abigail?” I called. 

        “Don’t hurt her,” I heard a muffled cry. The door to the coach opened and I jumped back, but a strong hand wheeled me out, roughly with a  tight squeeze on my army showing no pity. I soon found that Kier was alone, and a single horse was standing nearby. Abigail’s hands were tied to some wood on the carriage and I let out a pitiful wail as Kier dragged me away from the coach. He practically threw me on the horse then got up onto it too and soon I found us secluded from absolutely everything with nothing in sight but yards of fields. He yanked me down off the horse, anger flaring in both his eyes and touch as he wheeled me further and I wondered where he was going, why he couldn’t have just killed me right there.

        “Kier, stop, you’re hurting me,” I gathered courage to yell at him. He stopped and turned to face me, his eyes still filled with hatred I was afraid to see in his eyes.

        “You lied to me. You lied to me for five months. Azalea is not the same woman as Princess Callea of Aynah. You lied,” he hissed at me.

        “You can’t stand there and tell me that Kier the poison tester and Prince Kier are the same people, and claim that you are completely guiltless and were honest all along.”

        He huffs then starts dragging me again. I tried to move my feet fast enough to keep up with his long strides. “I tried to tell you the truth but it wouldn’t come out. At least both of mine started with a p, and I planned on telling you when I could,” he argued, still dragging me towards… who knows? He shook his head. “How could I have been so dense, you weren’t anyone from my dreams you were the blasted princess. You knew all along where I recognized you from and never said a word,” he mumbles. I wasn’t sure if it was necessarily for me to hear or him thinking aloud.

        “You don’t think that I wanted to tell you? But oh wait, I was in Kaithron and there seemed to be a slight problem with that. You would have killed me in an instant had you known and don’t deny it.”

        “I was in love with you!” he yells, turning to face me again. “Killing you was the last thing on my mind, you know very well that I wouldn‘t have just sliced your head off after I confessed how I felt about you. I really probably couldn‘t have cared less who you were.”

        “How was I supposed to know that? You weren’t exactly telling me that until the last moment so how was I supposed to know?” I stare straight into those green eyes as I say so.

        “Why would you even question that I did? I so obviously was,” he rolls his eyes. “What were you doing in Kaithron in the first place? Trying to get yourself killed?” he asks, turning the focus to me.

        “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Kier, I never wanted to lie to you.”

        “Aza- or, Callea, whichever person you are, save your breath. You knew how affectionate I felt about you and then you go ahead and tell me you could never marry a man who’s killed another man. You tore my heart out once and I’m most certainly not going to allow you to do it again.”

        He started dragging me again. “Where are we going?” I asked. As quickly as we had started he paused in place once more. He quickly spun around then pulled out a dagger and held it to my throat. My heart started pounding as he did so.

        “How long have you been engaged to Prince Keefe?” Kier snarled the question.

        “Three days,” I swallowed, not even hesitating or stopping to wonder why he asked. The cold metal next to my neck provoked fear out of me, making me feel like a coward again.

        “Then what happened-”

        “He fled. He knew I’d be miserable if he made me marry him so he left. And I’m not engaged to Prince Keefe anymore.”

        As if trying to decide what to do with the dagger or what to say, he continued to hold the blade next to my throat “If you’re going to kill me just do so. There is no other man in this world that I would rather have kill me.”

        “What do you mean?” he asks coldly.

        “Of all the men I have betrayed in this world, you‘re the one that I‘ve betrayed the most. I never should have left you the way I did, not because of who you are but because we were in love with each other and I was a fool to just throw it away. But you know I had to. Still, it was the stupidest thing I had ever done because I have been miserable every single day since then. I’ve felt so empty and hurt within myself. I left because I understood how imprudent I was to love you and I knew no matter what I was going to hurt myself in the end. Then when you told me you had killed many of my people, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe you had killed my brother, the only person who knew everything about me, and I wondered if it was one of fate’s sick signs.”

        “Your brother killed my brother,” he states in a hushed voice. “But I did not kill yours.”

        “I know he did,” I said. “And that’s why there has never been use to fighting. We killed your heir, Kaithron killed ours. It’s pride, it’s revenge. Murder after murder, slaughter after slaughter, where did it begin? Where will it end?”

        “Upon extinction, princess,” Kier snarled, this time his voice seeming to realize that power of revenge I had just brought up. I closed my eyes as he pressed the dagger harder against my flesh.

        “Then just kill me,” I squeezed my eyes shut and prepared myself to be slaughtered.

        The knife stayed still. I jumped a little when his hand touched my face and tore the mask I had forgotten I still had on off of me.

        Uncertainly, I opened my eyes to see into his, also with a removed mask now. He was so perfect. He had always been so perfect.  I noticed that they were no longer filled with the same hate that had been in them all night but rather they looked like the eyes I had seen when I left him. Sorrowful and sad.

        “No,” he gulped and he lowered the dagger from my neck, letting it drop to the ground. He loosened his grip on my wrist and we stood a small distance away from each other, just staring. “I can’t lose you again, Callea. I couldn’t ever let you go again.”

        The truth was that I couldn’t see him go either. Not ever again. Slowly I reached one hand forward and put it against his chest, staring at my small fragile hand on his warm, strong chest. He didn’t move. I met his eyes again and moved my hand up to his face, resting it on his burning cheek.

        Kier closed the distance between us by tugging me into a soft but firm embrace and introducing our lips for the second time. My heart went everywhere at once, and our lips blazed hot against one another, both of us refusing to release. This love had conquered hate, even more and more so with each second that we kissed, each moment that we held each other stealing the breath from our anxious lips. It was the perfect kiss after the long wait we endured to realize we needed each other. I regretted ever leaving him for a second. A couple of times we paused our kisses to breathe, only he kept reiterating, “I love you, I love you,” in those moments, keeping the zealous tension lingering in the air between us. 

        “Abigail,” I finally managed to whisper, breaking from him. He pecked my lips again and nodded.

        “We’ll marry tonight,” he said as we started walking towards the horse, with me clinging girlishly on his arm. “By a bishop in Gathinbelle. And we wont tell anyone save for your chaperone. I trust that she will keep it secret?” Kier asks.

        I nodded, disorientated but keen in the same instant. I wanted to marry him very much, and didn’t hesitate ever for an instant as he promised this.

        “And then we’ll speak to both Aynah and Kaithron all at once. We’ll tell each side that they’ll fight to the death, and then we can speak to all of them when the arrive at the scene, before a battle begins just so the crowd is there. If we die,” he huffs, “we die.”

        “Marriage isn’t permanent. Who’s to say they wont split us up?” I asked.

        Kier put me on the horse, then climbed up behind me. “Children are permanent. If you’re with one, they will think twice before doing so.”

        *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

        Abigail was in shock when we found her again. Kier untied her and as he did I tried my best to explain things to her, as quickly as I could. She had told us that the rest of Kaithron had already passed by there on the road back home, and when they saw that the carriage had only Abigail, she told them that Kier had taken me and they left, saying he would catch up on his own time. She was relieved to see me.

        We went back to the castle at Gathinbelle. They were also relieved to see me and when they saw Kier they were suspicious for a while, thinking he was going to ransom me for something until I caught them by surprise.

        “We need your bishop to marry us.”

        Emma was sure to shriek at that, and everyone else gave her a questioning look. I explained it again to the rest of them in a brief manner, but once they heard they came to the conclusion that they had to help us. They knew that with Kier being the heir to the throne, Kaithron would not attack them now and they had much less to worry about. It was evident that prayers had finally been answered; after all, what are the chances that the heirs of two fighting thrones meet one another and fall in love?

        Abigail stayed at the castle while Kier kidnapped me and brought me back to that stranded spot that I questioned continually. By the time we arrived there, the sun was starting to rise. I smiled at the dusk soon to come.

        “It’s sunrise. I’m thinking I have to go,” I tease.

        “I don’t think so,” Kier snickered.

        It had been a long night yet I felt as if it was too short. This time in the stranded spot, Kier brought the horse right next to two wooden doors on the ground. He lifted me off the horse and carried me like a baby down underground. He earlier explained to me that he apparently had many escape places and was planning on locking me in it alone before, until he later decided what to do with me. Now it had a different purpose.

        Closing the two large doors behind him, he walked over and lit a candle. There wasn’t much in the room, only a table, a bed, a rug, and a bookcase, so it was relatively small and the candle did fine enough on lighting up the whole cove. Kier set me down on the bed and then sat at my feet, taking off his boots and jacket. Then he moved over me, a large smile playing across his lips.

        “Wife,” he grinned. “You don’t know how long I’ve been dreaming of calling you that.” I smiled at him, throwing my arms around his neck. 

        “No longer than how long I’ve wanted to hear you say it,” I replied. He leaned down and kissed me, for the millionth time that night but it still had the same effect on me as the first kiss. Somewhere in the mess of it he had unlaced my dress and I’d pulled his silk shirt off his head, revealing that very beautiful abdomen of his. Though I wasn’t quite finished, Kier pulled away and smiled teasingly at me. He rolled over, moving off the bed as I stared at the beautiful flawless skin that was beneath his shirt.

        “Before I forget,” Kier rolled off the bed and walked over to the table, and slid out the drawer. “This is where I came after you left me,” he told me in a hushed voice, then out of the drawer he pulled out a ring. The only ring I had ever actually wanted to wear ever since I saw it. The old ring on my finger had been returned to Prince Keefe before the ceremony, and Kier walked back over, crawling on the bed and replacing the ring on my finger for the last time. The ring that would remain there forever.

        “I’ll have to hide this from my parents,” I mumbled as I took a moment to study it.

        Distracting me from it by kissing my neck I figured that he really couldn’t have cared less right then.