Sengoku Visions II

Chapter 27 - Heart Surgery

A distant memory of the way those eyes had looked at me before.

I could almost recognise it, almost....

I had to close my eyes.

It was too much.

I could feel my chest breathing hard under the weight of his body and my head began to swim with blurred pictures of the past, fragments, and flashes. I didn't want to see these either.

"Tamara, stop fighting."

Saizo's words caught me and I opened my eyes, his features filled my vision. The way he was holding my head, the soft bedding, that look in his eyes and then my heart shuddered in my chest.

It was that moment...

That last moment in Iga all over again.

As before, tears began to blur my vision, his lips were so close to mine we shared the same breath, I had to shut my eyes again to try and clear my vision.

Another ragged gasp escaped me as my chest began to burn, my heart convulsing.

Still he held me.

Still his eyes called me back into their depths.

His lips brushed my own and took his name from my breath as I said it -

"Saizo."

Our lips met and I fell into the memory of that morning, the caring tenderness he had shown me, like no other kiss before.

I was drowning in the then and now as a knife then twisted through my heart.

He broke the kiss and moved his teeth lightly to my neck, the pain in my heart was unbearable, and I screamed as he kept me to the bedding, his elbows on the sleeves of my robe so I couldn't free my arms.

I thought the pain would never stop, I was vaguely aware his hand was now across my heart, the chill he sent was soothing, but at this point I felt totally dislocated from any reality except the feel of his teeth in my neck, the weight of his body and the sensation of his kiss still on my lips.

As the pain became an echo, Saizo brought his head back to my face. There was a quick flicker of concern, and a voice to my right said:

"She's alright Saizo."

It was Shai.

I felt a warm cloth wipe the corner of my mouth and another sweep the channels of tears away. As I blinked my vision clear she had already gone.

I struggled against him in startled confusion, my lungs trying to send enough oxygen to my brain to process what just happened.

He let me go.

I sat up, holding my chest and he shifted position to be behind me.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and then stared at it. A thin trail of blood was smeared there. As I fell backwards still staring at my hand he caught me in his arms and laced them around my body, taking my arms with him as he went. I fell into his chest; his heartbeat in my ear was slow, so sure against the fluttering of my own.

His steady, even breathing moved a random wisp of my hair as he exhaled across my ear.

Another memory surfaced...

Being wrapped like this...

Held like this...

and feeling ... feeling ...

something.

The emotion was so strange in my mind I couldn't find it, couldn't quite remember it.