Highland Bear (Book 4)

Chapter 49

AN - Sorry it has been so long, I tried to get this up last night but it would not save for some reason. So here it is, thanks for being so patient with me. I am afraid that life caught up with me. Hope this makes up for it! Az x

Chapter 49

Thin sunlight tried its hardest to make its way through the gaps in the shutters. Having been silently agreed upon by all around that it would be safer, or at least feel safer, for them to keep the outside world out at this moment. Sitting in the corner of the room, back against both walls at their meeting place, with Rohesia safely in his arms. He leant his head back, closing his eyes as he breathed deeply of her scent.

He could not yet wrap his head around what his body had accepted. His body remembered the feel of her in his arms, the warmth of her and the summer flower scent of her. Whilst his mind rebelled, telling how this was impossible, a figment of his imagination that his whisky soaked brain had conjured to try and cure the pain which had swept through him. Yet his body irrefutably told him his mind was wrong. Tightening his arms around the most important piece of his life, he waited for her. Alfred had tried and failed numerous times to initiate conversation. In the end he had in no uncertain times told Alfred to either shut up, or get out. But perhaps had used harsher language to get the point across. Now the large, redheaded male sat sulking, occasionally throwing him looks that Artair knew meant Alfred wished him serious injury.

Yet, Artair was having none of it. Not this time. He was going to allow himself time to process this. He had always been the louder twin at times, trying to get noticed past the shadow cast by Aonghus. Had become quieter as the years had progress and Toren had cemented that aloneness in solitude with the role he had had him play. Now he was the one that was wanted...needed, in a way he could never remember being wanted or needed before. Rohesia clung to him as if he was her very lifeline to this earth. Not one person throughout his life had ever held him as if that was the case. His mother had held him in comfort, his brother had offered him a shoulder when needed and his sister had even held him when she needed comfort. But that had never made him feel as he did right now. Never felt as important as he did right now. He could finally see a reason for why he was here, a flickering hope in the darkness of his soul that maybe God did have a purpose for him after all that did not just include pain and death.

His hand cramped from the death grip he held upon the back of Rohesia's chemise. It was that that seemed to snap him back to the reality of the moment. He needed to get her dressed in something more suitable. He needed to talk with her, get to know what she knew, did she even know that she had died? For there was no way they could get around the fact that she was not breathing, her body was cold and that she was completely without any heartbeat. He knew the latter purely because his heart had stopped beating the moment hers had he had not felt it again until he had seen her alive once more. Showing that the beat and thump of his heart was still possible even through all it had been through to get this far.

"Artair?" It was a sound he would never again take for granted, it was seeping deep into his bones. Hoarse and slightly stilted words which were beautiful to his ears. Looking down into startlingly bright eyes, he knew for sure she was truly here, body and soul, her mind working just as quickly as it had before her...incident. Unable to stop himself, even with two sets of eyes, one belonging to a priest, when she looked at him in such an imploring way. He took her chin gently between him thumb and forefinger, lowering his head with slow intent, he captured her lips in a feather light kiss which stole his very soul from his body. She had taken him to the depths of despair and back, but he could only worship her very being all the more for showing him the lighter side of life that he had not seen in its full brightness since his sister had passed.

His hand moving from her chin to spear through her hair at the back of her head, she parted her lips on a small gasp which he captured and claimed as his own. The clearing of a throat had him pulling back, whilst Rohesia tried to keep pace with him as he kept pulling back. Smiling at the thought that she wanted him as much as he did her, he stilled her by bringing his free hand up to cup the side of her face once more. Looking over her shoulder, he firstly spotted the scowl from hell that Alfred kept focused solely on him. However, the priest's eyes were alight with mischief. With a wave of his fingers he smiled broadly and Artair felt a knot clench his gut.