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Chapter Sixteen: A Break in Time

A startled sound made its way from the back of Alena's throat, heat rushing to her cheeks at the feel of Damari's luscious lips on hers.

She couldn't speak. Couldn't think of anything that could possibly explain how and what she was feeling at that exact moment in time.

Her body felt frozen, but as Damari slanted his lips and changed the intensity of the kiss, pulling her closer, she felt her confusion melt away, replaced by the heat that warmed her to the core.

Her hands that had been limp at her sides moments before now smoothed up Damari's arms, over the muscle and sinew until she was grasping his broad shoulders with fervor, not pushing him away, but pulling him closer in response.

She felt pressure on her lips, as if he was directing her to do something and she didn't know what, like he was pushing for something just out of reach, bringing her head closer with the insistent tug of his gentle hands in her hair, sending Alena's senses swirling.

And then she knew, instinct guiding her... to cautiously open her mouth to his ministrations.

A deep groan left his throat at her innocent willingness to be so open with him, giving him everything when she didn't even know what she was giving.

He pulled back quickly while he still had the strength and dropped gentle, drugging kisses on her neck and collarbone before trailing back up to leave one last kiss on her forehead.

Inhaling her jasmine scented hair, Damari believed he would never be able to get enough of her, not in any lifetime. But with the danger ahead of them, he knew there might be a day he'd have to part from her, causing his heart to pound with dread.

He ran his hand through her tangled locks and held her tightly to him before releasing her at arms length, sighing deeply and returning to the side of his horse.

"I do care about you, Alena. More than what is probably good for me, but I do."

"I know," she whispered, touching her lips with wonder while her brow furrowed, "but how can you? Your mother had said she feared you had lost reasoning for care or...for love. Your father did as well."

Damari's fingers twitched as he pulled away to adjust the leather straps on his saddle, eyeing the bag that still remained strapped to Alena.

"I never said I loved you. I may care for you, but never love you. I can't."

Alena's head snapped up at his words, making her nearly fall to the ground in attempts to get atop her hippocampus.

"I don't understand."

Damari raised an eyebrow, his attention still on her bag. "Why is that? Just because someone cares doesn't mean they love."

"That kiss we shared wasn't 'caring', Damari. I felt something and I know you did too, you're trying to hide the way the bond is making you feel. Remember, I know how you think, you can't hide it from me no matter how hard you try."

"Then I suppose I'll have to try harder," he surmised, setting his steed back into its lolling gate. "Love gets you nowhere, it only causes you pain so unbearable that you wish you could cast it away from you as fast and as far as you could."

Alena grew silent, settling into her saddle while listening to the water as it went through the hippocampus nose and back out its mouth with a ruffle.

After what felt like hours of tense silence between the two, Damari pulled his hippocampus over to the side of the path, unloading his day pack along with his blanket and the bag that was strung over his back.

"We should make camp here and prepare everything for night fall. Seeing as how we can't start a fire down here I certainly hope the Queen packed food that doesn't require heat."

His grumbling continued after him as he set his things on the ground, laying out his blanket before rummaging through the bag given to him from Amphitrite.

"It wouldn't kill you to eat something raw now would it?" Alena sighed, smoothing her hand over her face, her muscles starting to burn as exhaustion took over.

"Yes it would, actually, so if you don't mind, I think I'll go look for any edible plants around here that won't kill us the second we digest them."

Refusing to look her in the eye, he drew out an old looking knife from the daypack that he quickly tied to his side with a strong piece of seaweed root, hooking it tightly in a makeshift holder.

"If I'm not back before night fall, don't come looking for me." he said lowly, running a hand through his hair as he moved farther away from their make shift camp. "If one of us gets hurt, at least let it be me."

"I'm going to come after you, Damari."

"No you aren't." he ordered her quickly, giving her a stern look that told her not to argue with him. "Now try to think of a way for us to stay warm and have a shelter tonight. I'd rather enjoy getting some amount of sleep tonight without waking up and being strangled."

"I didn't strangle you! You tripped yourself, you big baby." she grumbled furiously. "Next time you try to smother yourself at least have the sense to admit it was your fault."

His laughter was empty as he moved out. "In your dreams."

The crunching of his sandals against the grains of sand made a faint smile come to Alena's face before it was washed away in a wave of anger, frustration and overwhelming confusion.

How could a man be so infuriating? It bothered her out of her mind, and as she moved to take the bag from Kaiya off of her shoulders, she felt an electric shock jolt through her. Images flashed by her and she inhaled sharply, but couldn't breath.

Her body stiffened, shivering as a heart breaking scream rendered the silence from another space in time, sending a fearful chill down her back.

At first, she didn't understand what she was seeing. Colors rampaged into one another like harrowing winds in an unforgiving tempest, becoming so blurred that it was difficult to identify one color from the lot.

She felt like nearly hurling whatever contents still lay in her stomach as the dizzying sensation began to come to a slow halt.

Looking in front of herself, she rubbed her eyes to clear the blurriness from them before opening them wider when it appeared that a white mist was getting in her way.

Eventually, she was able to make her way through the mist and into a room, one that she felt was oddly familiar, but couldn't place.

It was late evening she gathered as she stepped farther into the room, the flickering of the dimly lit candles casting long, elongated shadows across her face as the burning wax dripped lazily down from the candles' drooping wicks.

A wooden table sat pushed against a stone wall as a group of women sat huddled around a dark haired woman, the top of her head shaking silently as some of them placed their hands on her shoulders consolingly.

Large strips of wool bandages lay on the table along with two jars that had been filled to the brim with a golden, yellow looking liquid; one of the jars now spilled across the table as it's contents soaked into the long bandages.

Next to the jars was a dark clay bowl that held two sea sponges. The remaining water that sat in it now being soaked up by the absorbent creatures as a cup of herbs trickled out onto a small dish.

A quiet sob escaped the dark haired woman and her wails grew in intensity when a young red head stepped cautiously forward, her body slack as she held a small bundle carefully in her arms.

"Miss--I....your baby. She's.. she's gone."

The red head bent down in front of the woman and gently set the bundle in her arms, her eyes glowing with unshed tears as she stroked a shaking hand across the child's smooth skin. "I am sorry, my lady. I have failed you and your child." She held her face in her hands as tears spilled harshly down her cheeks. "May Artemis forgive me."

The dark haired woman lifted the bundle to brush her lips lightly across the baby's forehead. She ran her finger over the tiny hand that she knew would never know the joy of picking flowers in the springtime, or finding hidden seashells in coves that surrounded the coast. The saltiness of her tears reached her lips and they quivered as the loss of her child struck her heart.

A low mewling sound escaped her throat and she clutched the woolen wrapped child to her chest, whispering prayers to the goddess quietly as she rocked back and forth in despair, holding the child she would never be able to hold in life again.

The red haired woman composed herself and stood, bowing lowly before exiting the room, leaving the other women to stare on with sorrow as the mother grieved for her lost child.

"Mama?" A quiet voice called out from the mist, before materializing in Alena's vision off to the right. A little girl dressed in nothing more than a thin night gown stepped out from the shadows.

"Mama, what's wrong?" The child exclaimed as she saw the tears and distress in her mother's eyes, rushing to her side to comfort her in any way she could.

An older woman that stood near the edge of the others reached out to grab the child. "Rayen, you mustn't bother your mother, now isn't the time. Go back to your room and sleep like your brother."

"But what happened to my little sister." The girl asked innocently, peering over the cloth to look at the pink tinged skin of her newly born sister. "Mama, what happened to my sister? Why are you crying? Is something wrong?"

Her words only made the woman cry harder, ignoring her daughter's questions as she cuddled the baby closer.

"Mama." Rayen said again brokenly, beginning to cry herself, her tears becoming large and dewy as she wiped them away with her gown.

The older woman stepped forward to place her hands on the mother's shoulders comfortingly. "Kaiya, it isn't right to do this in front of your children. We can take them to one of our houses for the night. You need to grieve and they don't understand."

Kaiya raised her head and nodded shakily. "Take them, I don't wish to upset them."

The woman rubbed her shoulder and moved away, taking Rayen by the hand while leaving the room to fetch her son.

The others began to leave her in silence, giving their deepest condolences before taking their leave into the dark and stormy night, the wind howling loudly as the woman returned, tugging a sleep ruffled boy along with her towards the door as Rayen continued to cry, her wails only growing louder as she was led away from her mother.

"Mama, please don't make us go," she sobbed out, trying to yank her wrist away from the woman's tight grasp, "I want to see my little sister. Why can't I hold her? You promised me I could hold her when she was born. Damari, tell Mama I can hold our little sister."

The tired looking boy opened his crystal blue eyes to look across the room at his mother who still held the cloth close to her as she cried, his eyes widening when he opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't as he watched his mother begin to cry harder.

"Damari, tell Mama I can hold our little sister!" Rayen screamed finally, pulling at her brother's arm.

Damari's lip began to quiver, but he turned away from his mother as a single tear coursed down his cheek. He quickly swiped it off his face before turning to Rayen.

"We need to go with Miss Haris, Rayen, Mother isn't well."

This only caused Rayen to cry harder, shaking her arm furiously until finally smacking off the hand of Miss Haris to escape her iron grip, running to her mother to grab ahold of her arm in a blind hurry.

"Mama, please let me hold my little sister," she cried, reaching for the blanket to have another glimpse of her sister, "you promised me I could."

However, Kaiya refused to even look up from the still child as her daughter shook her arm, held down so deep in her grief that she could only shake her head and allow painful sobs to rack her body.

Damari ran over to his sister and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her away and back into the awaiting arms of Miss Haris who stood by the door waiting to leave.

"Mama, you promised!" Rayen shrieked as the two pulled her out into the torrent of rain. "You promised!"

The younger girl's screams mingled with the heart broken sobs of her mother, the scene shifting closer to Kaiya as she held the baby closer and whispered sadly. "Leon, where are you? I'm so lost."

And just as quickly, the scene was gone. Rushing away like a whisper on the wind and disappearing far into Alena's mind as she remembered where she was.

The camp still remained the same. The blankets spread out, the daypacks partially unpacked, and yet she still sat, her heart aching as she thought of what she'd witnessed.

She felt her eyes burn, wishing she could erase what she had seen, to have it disappear and be forgotten with the blink of an eye, but she could not forget.

She could not forget, and it ate away at her. The loss that Kaiya must have felt and suffered; the pain and the agony to lose one's child.

She then thought of Damari, how young he had been as Rayen was, and yet even at such a young age he was acting like the man of the house. He had grown up too young, and it had been taking its toll on him for the last fifteen years.

Sitting down onto her blanket, too many emotions rushed in on her. How was she supposed to help someone and protect him when he wanted nothing to do with her?

Kaiya's broken face flashed through her mind again along with the image of the fragile child in her arms; the heartbreak that wouldn't allow her to escape its grasp not only with the loss of her child, but the loss of her husband as well.

Shivering, Alena curled her tail up to her chest, placing her head gingerly on it in thought.

Damari's cold blue eyes pierced hers, the power he had over her even in memory was enough to make her feel warm and strange inside, but she knew that she would have to confront him soon, and there was absolutely nothing that was going to stand in her way.

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