Wildfire

Fifty One

The next five days that pass are not terrible ones, but they are horribly horribly tense, and I cannot help but feel the anger growing stronger in Emrys's belly every moment Shen Hirai remains at large. 

We had agreed the other night to try and move past this upset so that we might focus on us and fostering the bond that we share like we ought to be doing hallway through our courtship for the sake of our human half and our beastly counterparts so that when I bare my back for my loving fiance I can do it with complete trust and confidence in his character that he may know exactly what rune or image will best serve to represent our love and bind me to him in the most final of ways... Though it almost seems silly to suggest that spending the remaining six days wrapped up in each other ignoring the outside world will have any bearing on whether or not I am ready to feel the measured heat of the careful flame he will use to mar the well cared for canvas that is the flesh of my back... 

I would gladly roll over now and bare my skin for this man who currently is kissing me as if his lips can brush away all the worries of this world... I would have let him brand me days ago if he had pressed the subject, whether or not we wait for the opulent ceremony still being planned despite Shen Hirai still being loose amongst us or do it in secret with just my family and a few advisors more loyal to us than King Xiang for witnesses... It matters not to me... Just that it is Emrys who claims me... The only part of it that holds any importance to me at all is that marrying no matter when it happens will solidify the claim we have on each other, and no one will ever be able to even begin to drive us apart, no matter what rumor they decide to spread about me. 

More and more word of scandalous stories had floated to our ears, Cho not bringing them up until he thinks I am sleeping or otherwise distracted due to the tears I had shed upon hearing the first of them, claiming that I had given myself so freely to men who hadn't ever existed, their names slowly morphing to that of people who have frequented the palace, the claims completely unfounded and refuted by both Emrys and the men accused... 

Shen gave no thought to the men he entangled in his lies, the citizens of the village going so far in their outrage over thinking a friend of my father had forced himself upon me actually attacked the poor man when he had found himself fancying a trip down to one of the local pubs... My father had had to make a trip to go and fetch him where they had laid him out and to assure the people that have come to hold me so highly in their minds that I remain untouched other than by the hands of Shen Hirai himself, and even then that he had been no threat to my virtue... Though the news of just how badly he had hurt me had shocked most of the villagers, many of them joining our efforts to find the wayward ex-noble... Many of them pledging to rob him of his own sight so that he might feel the same pain he has caused me directly, my head still so very prone to throbbing and aching... My eyes still not completely healed, my vision still not completely restored. 

It seems as though my tormentor currently seems content to try as he might to stir up violence against the staff of the King and the staff of the palace, and he cares not if his words actually cause damage to the people he involves... But for every fire he starts it never takes us long to extinguish its flames, more and more people trying to come to me to pledge fealty the more he extends his efforts to try and shame me away from my rightful place at my sweet Prince's side... Not with the staff surrounding us spreading the truth of my nature and of our deep-seated devotion to each other that shines so very brightly between us no matter when or where we are spotted...

...

Emrys

...

Watching my sweet Moon Beam as his mind wanders is both a blessing and a curse... On one hand, his seeking of comfort in my flesh becomes so much more unintentionally intimate with the way he lets himself truly settle against me not bothered by thoughts of our state of undress any longer now that we've both grown used to pressing as much of our asking together as possible so that I might use the heat from my internal fire to soothe him... But on the other hand, I know his thoughts are not cheerful ones... They are not of the happiness we both feel having been brought together by fate... Or of the wedding that will happen in just six days' time now like any other radiant bride to be would be focusing on... 

But of Shen Hirai and his lack of capture... His thoughts are most likely of the danger he is still in, and of how much he hates the man who brutalized him, his thoughts on the matter shared to me so very tearfully in a way that had broken my heart... 

That vile man had inspired Rayne's first-ever true vein of hatred, and the feeling of it had bothered him so much that I had awoken to his face covered in tears, his mind having convinced himself that evening that he was a bad person for wanting Shen to hurt the way he is hurting... That he wanted harm to come to the man who had devastated him so completely... And it had taken me until the first rays of early morning light to calm him and convince him that he is not evil for wanting Shen to meet a most unfortunate but well-deserved fate... 

And even though he has not mentioned the mental wounds that I am sure he is still feeling the stong of, I am convinced he still feels burdened in his sweet soul with guilt for wishing harm upon another living breathing creature, even if it is the likes of that damned Hirai.