Tyrant of the Ruined Sun-Chapter 183: Cementing bonds

The glee I experienced when I felt her arms wrap around me was wonderfully intoxicating, like a potent drug so compelling I would’ve preferred to never awake from it’s high in my life, if only other matters not needed handling before I could do so that is.

Yet I couldn’t deny myself the momentary pleasure of it for this brief present, as we remained in silence for a few seconds, before she again asked, her voice as cold and proud as ever, though I could still detect the barely apparent and unusual warmth within "Aren’t you going to answer me?"

Hearing her question I lightly chuckled, as I teasingly asked "Are you worried about me?"

Yet instead of immediately replying, she merely lifted her head from my chest, turning to look up at me, as though she had suddenly regained her sense of sight, wanting to see through me and into the answer of the query she left unsaid, her mouth barely budging, in an almost imperceptibly manner, as though she were continuously swallowing back her uncertain words every few seconds, before finally muttering in whisper like voice "I dislike..."

"You dislike?" I repeated, gently prodding her to continue her words, as I ever so slightly lowered my head near hers, to better hear what she was saying.

She did not immediately respond, her mouth again trapped within that loop of voiceless motion, but far more obvious this time around, as she utterly failed to fully conceal the battle waging within herself; before finally her mind and slight apprehension relented against her desire to continue her words, and so indeed she did, saying "...For some reason I dislike the thought of you being unwell."

The resulting fallout of her words was an absolute silence, one that even I could not brush off, due to how stupefied even I was by her statement, that admittedly was akin to a beautiful symphony to my ears; but then before another single thought could pass through my consciousness, my body had already superseded it, moving under the compulsion of habit and memory, as I swiftly sipped a kiss from her rose lips, momentarily freezing both of us in shock, me in a flood of resurfacing memories and euphoria, and her in complete surprise.

She remained frigid in my arms for a second, before her defences then unknowingly melted away as well, only realizing this when her arms unconsciously travelled from around my waist to encircling my neck, responding to me with hesitant movements.

Our kiss was a chaste one, born of her inexperience and my own worry, yet the instant our lips broke apart, she took a breath as though she had been left breathless for hours on end, instead of a few brief seconds, before uttering in grievance "You are shameless."

"Am I?" I asked with an amused smile spreading across my mouth, that still tingled with the feel of her soft lips, and longingly ached for the return her warmth, as I then rested my forehead against hers.

"Yes." She replied instantly, her tone confident yet low, and I felt a great sense of satisfaction from her gradually, but rapidly reddening face, as it flushed in an enchanting crimson blush.

"And what exactly is shameful in me showing affection to my own intended?" I asked in reply,

She didn’t immediately answer, but instead asked a different question a second later, as she reburied her head in my chest "...Isn’t it weird?"

"What is?" I questioned, though I had an inkling of what she meant.

"This." She replied. "I only met you yesterday yet I now feel so comforted by your presence that all the inhibitions I had spent my entire life building and believing in their necessity to be held against anyone approaching me is now all but gone with you; so much so that we’ve already kissed and I somehow even agreed to marry you all in less than a full day."

A hearty chuckle escaped me then, as I asked "And is that a problem?"

"Shouldn’t it?" She asked, her tone so terribly confused and sweetly endearing that I had to fight hard to resist the urge to once capture her lips.

"I don’t think so." I answered. "After all, we could even be considered lucky amongst others who share a similar position to us in life, as most of them meet their spouse on the day of their marriage, without any prior knowledge or guarantee of being able to nurture a true loving bond with one another, or at the very least build a harmonious life together."

"But we can?" She asked with the same coldly proud tone she always carried, yet all the while, and without her notice, she had begun to unconsciously, lightly fist her fingers in my hair.

"Yes." I unhesitatingly answered her, ever so slightly tightening my hold around her slim waist.

"Because we were lovers in the past you remember." It wasn’t a question, but a statement she uttered then.

"Indeed." And I affirmed her words.

"But I am not the same person you met then." Again not a question, but a statement.

"Yes." And again I affirmed her words.

"And yet you love me." She again did not ask but said, as she slowly retracted her head from my chest, and looked me in the eye.

"Yes." And I answered, my tone without falsehood, something she again realized with the aid of her special gifts.

She didn’t respond after, her head remaining in place, allowing an odd stillness to blanket us beneath it’s comfortable canopy, before she suddenly broke it a second later with a brutal blow of ruthless candour and tense expectation "But I don’t love you."

The silence that followed her words was one that made graveyards seem alive with cacophonous noise in comparison, as a quiet pregnant with poignant teeth gritting apprehension then enveloped us in it’s nerve wracking embrace, so much so that even she, the proprietor and agitator of it, grew rigid in my arms, though her pride could never let her backdown, as she remained staring at me through it all.

Yet instead of whatever reaction she expected from me, I simply smiled at her and replied with a calm "I know."

She seemed utterly dumbstruck by my unexpected words, with even her mouth parting ever so slightly in an almost comedic manner from her sheer shock, before she quickly then regained her bearings a moment later, and asking "You knew?"

"Of course I did." I calmly replied. I knew what the Eve that was in love was like from my many years of preserved memory of her, and she had showcased none of those symptoms before me, so how could I possibly not.

"Then why?" She incredulously asked a splinter of a second after.

"What do you mean?" I queried in response with a raised eyebrow, not understanding her question.

"Why do you love me still then?" She clarified with her tone unchanged, and her features still carved into that same cold and prideful mask of hers; yet it could not fool me from seeing the tumultuous storm she was suffering from beneath.

Yet so unexpected and taken aback I was with her query, that I instinctually uttered in a low voice "What?"

And before I could say anything else, or even gather my thoughts in order, she said "When you approached me, you did so under the pretence of an offer based upon logic and mutual benefit, but I could always feel an underlying element of attachment with your every words, even if you tried to frame most of it in cold calculations; yet I can not offer you what you most seek, as by your own admission, I am not the same person you claim to have been lovers with, and neither do I love you, so how come you are so confident that with this decision of yours?"

I stayed silent for a moment after she finished her words, before a smile then broke across my features, as I answered her in a teasing tone "You have no feelings for me? Your earlier actions when I kissed you speak differently though."

She frowned at me in response, her eyes, despite being bereft of light and covered behind a black piece of cloth, spoke louder than any words she could ever utter at that moment, as I could easily imagine what they looked like now; an anxious mix of cold annoyance and a blazing need for her to hear my answer.

Knowing this, I decided to no longer make light of the matter at hand by trying to joke around, as I seriously said "I think there has been a few misunderstanding between us."

"Huh?" She muttered in confusion.

"First of all, you seem to think that the woman I loved and you are two different people." She imperceptibly flinched as I accurately struck the nail on the head, but due to us still embracing one another, her every action, no matter how miniscule was felt by me, as I continued "And though I admitted to the existence of certain elements that differentiate the present you from the past, you are fundamentally still the same, with these so called differences being no more than mere shallow details that have no effect of my perception of you." I paused for moment then, bringing my mouth closer to her and saying "And if anything, those sides of yours that I’ve never seen before only make you more charming in my eyes."

Though I decided to address her concerns with earnest seriousness, I couldn’t contain the urge to once again behold that bashful look of hers that drove me mad, while she felt a ticklish warmth and unknown sweetness spread through her.

"Secondly," I continued, lifting my head back to it’s original position "you seem to think that just because we were lovers, we had always loved one another, with not a day of anguish between us; when if anything, our relationship was one of the most tumultuous either of us ever experienced in our entire existences. So much so in fact, that in our past lives, you and I were not on good, or even neutral terms with each other when we first met. In fact, our initial meeting this time around, even with you trying to trick me, and then drawing your weapon to slit my throat, when you deemed me a threat, would’ve still been considered a better first impression than the one you and I shared in our past lives." I finished with a chuckle, remembering a horrid memory turned sweet by the passage of time and circumstance.

Meanwhile Eve remained paralyzed within my arms, her face as calm as ever, having regained control of herself after my earlier words, but she could never hide the rapt attention, only interrupted by her own stampeding heart, that even I could feel through her well endowed figure that was pressed so intimately with me at this moment.

"And at last; thirdly," I stated, my voice pushing away it’s previous light tone, and regaining it’s wanted sternness "you seem to think that my love for you is a fickle thing, that just as it suddenly befell me, could abandon me with no will of my own."

Hearing my words, her eyes beyond the veil grew wide, making it clear to me that she indeed did still think that, a thing she stubbornly shared with the one in my memories, so I revisited an ancient memory of a treasured conversation, and repeated to her the same words I said then.

"Love to me, is not a sentence passed down and then shackled with by forces unseen and beyond my authority; and neither am I released from it by their verdict alone." I solemnly declared. "I chose to love you then, as I choose to love you now. Just as you had chosen then, and would chose again now."