Paladins' Parabellum

Chapter Seven: Good Morning

Ulrika tries to wake me up out of my deep slumber using her fingernails. They feel soft, which makes me wonder if she polished them. If that's the case, then that can only mean her mood must be at an all-time high. I also know that when she's like this, she'll be wearing her makeup.

"Wake up, Kaio," Ulrika says. I curl myself into a ball to protect myself from her tantalizing fingers and hope she'll give up on trying to prevent me from returning to my sleep.

"Thirty more minutes," I say in a muffled voice.

"Kaio, you've been sleeping for thirteen hours! Time to get up!"

I cover my face from her using my pillow. She stops touching me, shifts her weight on the right side of my hip, then doesn't say anything for a long moment. Her silence alarms me, so I peek my right eye out from the pillow to see what's going on. She's frowning with her arms crossed, resting in her lap. Her eyelashes look thicker and darker. I rise to get closer to her face. Her frown disappears into a small smile.

"Are you awake now?" She says. I don't answer but continue to look at the beautiful details she's done to her face. "This is the third time you've stared at me in awe when I put this stuff on." On that thought, she has an arsenal of a rainbow, yet chooses black the most. She's a minimalist, but it's enough to enhance her natural beauty into something hard to look away from.

"Sorry," I quickly say, looking off to my left. Ulrika pulls my head back and kisses me.

"Come back to me. Gaze at me some more." Her soft voice gives me pleasant shivers throughout my body. At first, I soak in all the details, then move in to kiss her, but she cups her hand over my mouth. "Kaio, do you remember what you said to me before you pass out?"

"I said something?"

"Wait..." She takes her hand off my mouth, then raises an eyebrow. "You don't remember?" I know what I said, but I'm gonna act like I didn't, just to see what she'll do.

"No. Did I say something stupid?"

"Stupid? No...you didn't." She stops looking at me and looks off to her left with a slowly emerging frown. "You said something that kept me up for a while when you fell asleep."

"Was it, marry me?" Her eyes pop open, then snap to me.

"You asshole! You do remember!" She backhands my right shoulder, but it's a soft smack.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to see what you would do if I acted like I didn't remember."

"Are you satisfied with what you got?"

"I regret it." I hold her head and rest my forehead against hers. She reinforces my gentle grip with her hands. "You looked so sad."

"Because I thought it was the drowsiness saying that. You scared me, Kaio." We laugh for a short moment, but she stops before I do. "Can you ask me again, now that you are wide awake?"

"With your father's grace, will you marry me, Ulrika Pence?"

"You don't need his authority."

"I don't?"

"Not him, my brothers, nor my birth mother."

"Why? Isn't that the correct way?" She giggles, covering her mouth.

"If I was like, sixteen or eighteen. I'm twenty five. I've been independent of my father's reign since I became a knight." Her arms wrap around my upper back, pressing me close to her chest. "You became my head when I confessed my love to you."

"I see."

"Mhmm." She stops hugging me to look me in the eyes. "Haleema was right thinking we were married. We do act like married couples."