A Legendary Love-Can & Sanem

"When I'm Taken"

Deniz floated lazily on the surface of the water. The noise from the falls drowned out everything including the thoughts in her mind. It had been nearly one week. At least she thought it was a week already that they had found their way to the island. She couldn't recall if they had spent an entire day in the rowboat or if it had been the night and part of the day from when they first got in it to escape the sinking ship. Her eyes fluttered open onto a cloudless sky above her, the color of turquoise. It was easy to appreciate the beauty of nature when you were surrounded by it on every side and when there was nothing to compete for your attention. She lazily moved her arms above her head and the downwards wanting only to move a bit further from the splash of the endlessly falling water and also to hear if anyone approached. That thought made her frown because the only one who could be approaching was Alexander and after the last time he approached unannounced she highly doubted he would ever do that again. She had been lifting her shift off and over her head while only halfway in water when she heard him gasp or moan or both. Her brain reacted a moment too slow and she turned exposing herself completely to his view. Once the instantaneous shock wore off she quickly submerged into the water nearly drowning herself as she did. As she came up for air amid sputters and vile accusation of his person he apologized and asserted he wasn't a pervert. Their voices continued to clang above their peaceful surroundings and the beauty of the waterfall until they finally stopped. He had already turned around, giving her his back. Only after she had let loose her tirad did she accept to listen to him. After his apologies and promises to make himself known before he approached her and her promise to let him know where she would be, she was still wary of not being sure of where he was at all times. She closed her eyes at the memory realizing that she had been both outraged and curious about his perusal of her. What all had he seen in the flash of a moment. How did she compare to the women he had before becoming engaged to her. She was sure he had more than his fair share. She nodded her head, shaking the memory from her mind and focused instead in what she had just done after arriving here today. After taking her time washing out her clothes as best she could and laying them on a rock to dry she climbed up to the top of the falls with just her shift on and looked down below toward the lagoon where the water formed and beyond it where the only trail up to the waterfall was located. She sat there for a while and cried. Part of the tears were the release of tension but the others were of bodily pain she still had from the lump on her head and the soreness in her limbs. She inspected her upper thigh where she had received a long jagged cut that had been tended to by Alexander while she had been completely unconscious of it. It was purple and green from the bruising and still tender to the touch and swollen but it was no longer the angry red it had been when she first saw it. She had to the k him for that and the attention he had paid to her head, which had a cut and knot just above her right temple. Again she had him to thank for seeing to her needs while she couldn't see to them herself. She was truly thankful for him and anxious about being there with him alone. It wasn't necessarily that she feared him as much as she feared the u known of being with him. She had never been alone with a man before. Not in this sense and now she found herself not only alone with one but improperly dressed, with no social mores being upheld and basically at his mercy because she was his betrothed. That thought alone had her vacillating between outrage and a strange sense of wonder. He was handsome in every sense of the word. He was as tall as her brother, with a more olive completed skin tone and raven dark hair that shone wavy and thick. His physic, all that she had seen of it now was hard muscles and gorgeous smooth skin. She noticed that he had a large scar across the flat of his back just above his hip and then several across his torso. He was a military man no doubt about that. He strength and command excused from his very pores. Yet again she felt the familiarity of it all because of Ferit. There was also a calm surety about him that interested her just as much. Where she was loud and confrontational he was sarcastic and stealthy. Not to be moved if he didn't want to be. Once again she realized she was pondering way too much on this man she had scarcely just met and yet he would be her husband unless she could find a way out of this entire mess without loosing her life. Had she met him in a different circumstance perhaps she would have fallen madly in love with him. He had much to offer a woman in the physical sense but she was sure that underneath that very royal attitude lay a man of worth. However they hadn't met in the usual sense had they....and what they had shared up to now seemed a series of logical steps that had one end in mind. Prevent an all out war between Greece and Turkey. Hold down both seats of power now potentially in upheaval because of her brothers and father and most likely if not primary marry off the spare and produce an heir just in case. The insanity of the relationship she now found herself in made her head spin. She was Alexander's betrothed. He had every right to his position over her and his right for her to succumb to his orders and be subservient to him. The problem was that she was not raised to behave that way. Of course she understood how relationships worked but she never wanted an arranged marriage. She wanted to find love on her own terms and time. Now here she was to be married to a prince of Greece no less and they could barely tolerate the others presence. That was just a few days ago. She blew out the air she held trapped in her lungs and closed her eyes and flipped over on her belly shutting out the images of that day and swam to the far side of the lagoon where she had laid out her clothing near a bush and rock. She remained there floating on her belly with her arms outstretched above her, lightly holding onto a rock.