44: His stolen happiness - Leopold’s POV (part 1)

His stolen happiness - Leopold’s POV (part 1)

He judged the shadows of the two palm trees close to her house, the scorching sun would set soon enough leaving the desert's sky to the jealous veil of the cold, long night. That was when she habitually ventured out to see him.  1

Unlike any other, he was able to blend well with the colors of this harsh place, his worn-out body was wrapped in the heavy blue robe of the desert people, and his hazel eyes — the only part uncovered about his face — were the shade of Latora's sands beneath this sunset. But the burning fury inside of them belonged to those who belonged nowhere, for this rootless wanderer had nothing left to lose.

They were about to take the object of his obsession, the only reason he lived through another day away from him.

If unleashed, the inferno fuelling Leopold might as well burn this wicked Kingdom and every breathing being atop its stolen lands to the ground. 

A young man born from the womb of misery to a life where someone with his lowly status was deemed undeserving of a last name. He came from the most horrific place of them all, the hair on the back of his neck stood up in disgust at the mention of its name.

Lanark.

A homeland that considered him nothing but a nuisance, his existence there seemed burlesque, more like that of an insect than a human, breathing so that the nobility could find someone to call inferior. 

Leopold looked up at the sky he loathed, for it too looked down on him like the rest of the world. It was on a day like this dry one when he lost his way going south to the dukedom of Galondy, driven by a butterfly's dream of making his life worth something.

But the sands of Latora had other plans for him, deciding that death was his only good ending. Why was I ever born? Those were what should have been his final thoughts as the parching sand of the storm burned its way through his lungs that day. 

He thought her an apparition at first, a dying man's unspoken death wish, the redheaded angel who came to his side and made all of his sufferings go away. 

He spent months beside her, hunting the predators of Latora's desert for a living, secretly relishing the wounds their claws gave him, for it was the evenings following incidents like these when she would visit.

Even a mindless man such as himself accepted her difference. His first impression of her was inexplicably perceptive. A sacred being, hidden in Latora like a treasure, far from humans' greed and envy.

Alas, he was a human through and through. 

All too soon, the innocent brush of the back of her hand was enough to ignite the terrible flames of his desire. And when she came to him one night after a battle with a desert lion that almost claimed his life, he lost the strength to contain himself around her.

Leopold hid his eyes behind his arm, remembering how she surrendered herself to him that day. 

Neither one of them knew what they were doing, what started with a hungry kiss on her soft pulsing wrist was no less than an explosion in his body. And all the knowledge she had about healing wounds meant nothing when she faced the one that he carried on his naked soul.

The misfortunate boy whom she saved dared steal happiness, he dared claim a faraway star that mistakenly fell into the trap of his agony. She wanted to make him feel better, and he coveted her too much to protect her. 

The body he knew for years became something else when he touched her tender parts, he was a mess of shivers and pants, the moment so surreal that despite the deprivation he felt his entire life for love, he could only be the gentlest of all living men with her.

"Do not forget to breathe, Leopold," were her sweet whispers in his ear.

It was but the dim candlelight in his shabby tent that fell on her, but her porcelain skin was so beautiful, her red hair so soft, the touch of her hand so warm as she pressed it against his trembling face.

He thought he would die for real when she let him undress her without any complaints.

His heart pounded so loud when his chest covered her ample breasts, enough to ever so slightly move them back and forth, driving him deeper into insanity. 

"Say that you love me," he begged.

"I love you," came the three words that made his wretched life worth living.

He dug into the softness of her flesh after that, swallowing her gasps of pain and pleasure with his mouth, tasting them, hungering for more. He moved clumsily and slowly, becoming one with her, his shivers taking a different meaning when he saw his desire reflecting in her olive-green eyes, her fingers were as comforting as they have always been, as if trying to take his discomfort away to the very last moment. 

"You are my wife, Grace... My wife," he repeated that promise as he entered her time and time again. Amid the illusion-like reality, he failed to remember when her tears started falling down.

But even those tasted sweet over his lips as he kissed them away. 

It was but one night of him experiencing love for the first time, living a forbidden fantasy that men like him should not have dreamed of. He woke up to find her gone from his tent, all that was left of her was the blood on the ripped white cloth that he called bed.

The pain of that sight equaled the pleasure of that night.

The hot wind that suddenly pushed him fiercely blew the memory of that unimaginable, unforgettable night away. Leopold's teeth were clenched so hard that his head hurt, he uncovered his face to wipe the blood that leaked out of his nose with the back of his sleeve after that. Then he fixed his eyes on her house again.

"I know that you can feel this pain of mine, so come out and meet me damn it!"

Their union that night marked the beginning of the end, and those spasms of pleasure were the ones to destroy everything he wanted to build for her.

Just like the thief that he had become, his stolen happiness was doomed to be purloined by the biggest robber of them all, the descendant of the very family who stole the entire Kingdom.

Kaiser de Lanark.

More blood gushed out of Leopold's nose, "How could you agree to this matrimony after everything they did to you?"

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