Loathe and Lust

Epilogue

She watched them through the kitchen window. The man and two boys. They were playing on the meadow, their voices filling the air and echoing all the way to the house making her heart plummet contentedly.

The man, her husband, was giving them their temporary wooden carved swords and was trying teach them how to wield them. She remembered the day he carved them out. It was on the birth of their second son, her eldest son was just two years old at the time. He had spent the whole day cutting and carving their names on the swords, only promising when they were older they each would receive real steel ones.

Watching him with them brought back memories on that day her world and his official begun. The same day the people became free from King Herald's oppression.

**
****
**

Their reunion that day unforgettable. The minute Ryder saw her he ran to her.

"Anya." He cried as he embraced her, twirling her through the air.

"My Ryder." She breathed him in, all of him. "How I have missed you."

"It feels as if I have gone through hell and back without you for the past three days."

"Oh Ryder, you are here...finally... safe with me." She pressed her face unto his chest the tears uncontrollable as they rolled down her cheeks.

"With you. Forever." He took her face unto his hands, his blue eyes probing hers before kissing her like a blind man who has been starved of light only to finally have found it.

She grinned in her tears and kissed him back, closing every space of separation between them.

"Forever." She whispered on an intake of breath.

"I do mean it, my sweet. I cannot waste another day, tomorrow we shall marry. I intend to keep you with me for as long as I shall live."

"Oh Ryder, I do not care when and how just as long as you are with me...but there is something you must know first."

"Anya what is it?" His tone shifted to worry as his blue orbs seared her.

She had no words on how to tell him the news, instead she simply took his hand and placed it on her abdomen where their child was nesting.

Baffled, Ryder stared down on where his hand rested and looked up again, his eyes bulging. "No."

Anya's lips trembled as she nodded.

"Truly?" Ryder's eyes glistened, for the second time in his life, he was crying.

Anya laughed through her tears, feeling all of the emotions at the same time.

"Anya do not trifle with me...are you? Surely?"

"Oh Ryder...darling I am. I am carrying your child. Our child."

**
****
**

Anya smiled secretly to herself as continued kneading the dough on her hands. She was making her specialty. Blueberry pie.

It was in the middle of summer and since all summer fruit blossomed, she has wasted no time. They have been a blessing from heaven.

Suddenly she felt a tugging below her skirt and as she looked down she burst out in laughter.

"Mama!"

Her youngest, a mischievous daughter whom was a miniature version of Anya, was stained violet all over her face, hands and clothes. How the little rascal got her hands on the secret stash of blueberries, was a wonder? The girl was too smart and wicked for her age.