6. One For Peter, Two For Paul, Three For Him Who Made Us All #2
“This has changed because I am in love with you,” he growled.
“Because I cannot return to my life the way it was before you. Because you have marked me like pirate’s ink on every inch of my heart, and centuries will never scrub you out.
Because even should you marry… whatever that is.
” Sahar’s eyes flicked to the man curled behind the pulpit with his hands over his head.
“I would need, for my own health and wellness, to remain in your life—as your friend, as your Jack, as whatever I may be that you will have. Even if I must see you return to another man’s bed every night. ”
Bea was trying to focus on his burning eyes, but her own were blurring with tears. She wanted to cry nonsense and claim it was another of his games, but his eyes told another story.
He held her chin with his fingertips, and there at last, bare skin sparked against bare skin like the smokeless fire from which Sahar was first created.
“So, it seems my motivations are still entirely selfish. I must have you in my life however you’ll allow me. Or perish alone.”
His fingers traced her jawline, making her feel dizzy, tingling.
Bea spoke slowly. “And… this pot I hold—saying those words?”
“It will bind me to you,” said Sahar. “For eternity. As your husband, if you will have me. Will you have me?”
The screaming and chaos around them finally calmed. The few remaining guests were listening, leaning in to catch every word.
Bea took in a deep breath before reaching for his hand and placing the honey pot back inside it.
“I can’t,” she said.
Sahar sagged as if a heavy wind had blown him down.
“Not if binding you is what it would take to keep you,” she continued. “If you need some sort of chain to stay by my side, how can I be sure this is love?”
Mr. Claybourn spoke up. “Were you not about to chain yourself to me?”
Bea snapped, “I did not ask you!” At the same time Sahar said, “Yes, thank you! See?”
“Peace, you hounds!” Bea said, putting her palms in the air as if she could stop everything. “I will not decide your future for you.”
“But you do,” Sahar replied, taking a step forward for each that she retreated.
“My life is tied to yours now, no matter what words you use next. If you’ll have me, I will be forever changed.
If you’ll not, I will be forever changed.
But I want you. I adore you. I can protect you.
And with such a wish, you could protect me. ”
Bea stared down at the honey pot. She began to piece it together, bit by bit, though her Jack had never possessed a talent for telling the whole truth about himself.
Perhaps he meant that another person might use his magic for themselves.
Perhaps, like her, he was tired of being forced into someone else’s plans.
“I give this power to you because…” He laughed sadly and shrugged. “Because I don’t want it anymore. And I want none in the world to have it but you.”
Bea looked from the pot in her hand to the faces of the few remaining guests—her fiancé, the vicar, her mother—and then to the face she most feared to see straight on.
“Come on, girl. I know that you love me,” said Sahar, fighting to keep the terror from his voice.
Bea huffed, turning away, her pride having taken too many blows in too short a period. “What nonsense! No I don’t and I never did and how dare you—”
“I do not accept that answer.” Sahar took her hands again, lowering his head to try and catch her eyes. “Tell me and be honest. Are you not my own Little Bea?”
From the advent of her birth that so disappointed her family to the teasing and rejection she suffered at the hands of her peers, the walls a hurt little girl had built around her heart had grown taller and stronger by the year.
One person alone had been crafty enough to scale them, and with these last words he finally brought them down with a thunder that rang in her ears.
“Yes, of course I love you!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly. How she had longed to do this all those years when he was only words on paper.
“Say it again,” Sahar murmured into her hair, splaying his large hand against her back.
“I wish,” she said, feeling the long-ago cracked pieces of her heart beginning to press together into the right shape. “That we could marry.”
Wind whipped around them, pulling in autumn leaves from the open church doors and swirling them around the open hall.
Sahar’s smile started out small, like Hello I am happy to see you, and it grew until his face shone, like Here you are, my joy, my bride, I’ll never part from you again. The indigo hue of his skin radiated with a bright berry glow, concentrating at the palms of his hands.
Someone whispered, “What is happening?” as Sahar raised his hands and clapped them together with a boom like a rainstorm that shook the church all around them.
“Granted,” he said, his voice bigger than thunder, and it was the first time he was happy to say it.
The vicar looked stunned, but—never a man to shirk his duties—adjusted his hat and cleared his throat.
“Being that the uh… vows seem to have been made,” he said. “I use the power entrusted in me to declare you married. You may kiss.”
“We certainly may,” said Bea, pulling Sahar down by his shoulders until she froze, darting her head back as he groaned in pain. “Half a moment—what is your proper name?”
“You don’t know his name?!” Mrs. Ashwood cried from behind them.
With a chuckle, he said, “Sahar.” His tongue rolled the end ever so slightly.
Bea frowned. “Sa-what?”
“Sahar.”
“Sa-haarrrr.”
“Now you make me sound like a pirate.”
“It would not surprise me to learn that you are a pirate.”
“You would like that, I think.”
Mrs. Ashwood, sounding scandalized, asked, “Is he foreign?”
Mr. Claybourn, sounding rather impressed, replied, “Is he a man at all?”
With a grin that sparkled white and promised mischief, Sahar kept his eyes on his bride and subtly inclined his head toward the open church doors.
She nodded, gripping his hand and the little clay pot, and without more of a farewell than that, the couple vanished with no more in their wake than swirling autumn leaves.