“You and that dress challenged me, challenged us all,” Keane continues in his walk, staring ahead with a deep smile, “too demure in thefront,too Knowledge.But the back of you screamed Warrior, and I knew then that you were rising up to our fire.”
Keane’s words speak so close to my heart, mirroring my own emotions and intentions for the night. How is it that he could see and understand that much about me so early? How was he able to recognize the fire and be so sure in his reading of me?
“But my urge to have you didn’t stop there. When I saw the earrings you wore that night, when I noticed their likeness to the Shadow Oak,myShadowOak, an oak in which you were unaware of in its origins… something called to me. Something deep. I forgot myself in that moment when I touched you. I didn’t have the words to properly understand what I felt, but I knew that my full being was consumed by something, as if I was looking back at my claim already resting on you.”
Ancients.
Thatwasan intense moment. I remember it so clearly. Keane was so open when he touched me in front of his court. Hewasconsumed.
As was I, from the moment I met him.
Keane grins to himself again, “the third, obviously, was when I followed you that night under the Shadow Oak. I knew in my gut where you were going to end up that night, saw the way my words held onto you at the barrels and your internal battle. But when I located and saw you with Millie, dressed and packed for the next day’s travel…”
Keane shakes his head as I watch his brown eyes sparkle in astonishment, “to know that you wanted to spend the entire night under my Shadow Oak, a place not many have found or ventured to…”
Keane suddenly looks back at me with his intense brown gaze, catching and holding my eyes as my heart skips a beat. The sun shines down over his tanned skin while his brown hair shimmers under the rays, the strands waving slightly over his head with the breeze. I take a deep breath and marvel at the man in front of me, watching his glowing features in open appreciation.
“When you spoke of the Oak that night, your words cut into me like a missing piece of deliverance I didn’t know I needed. I heard so much of my own thoughts speaking back to me, but they came from your lips, lips that I knew I had to have on mine.”
“I wanted youbad, Alexis,” Keane stops in his walk on the bridge to look at me fully, “I have never wanted anything so much in my life. I wanted you to renounce Knowledge on the spot, to leave my father’s Court and join me in Gaumond. I wanted to hold you there, show you everything my Court and I had to offer, even if you weren’t ready for it…”
“And I knew you weren’t ready for it, Alexis. I saw your battle, saw your heart and mind as they clashed against each other and knew it’d take more time. But I also found myself happy knowing that it would come, that you would win that battle, and I was willing to wait. I have been willing to wait for someone like you for a while now.”
My heart jumps for Keane as I take a small step towards him, wanting to reach out and pull him into me. I desperately want to claim his lips and put his hands on my body, every part of me needing to show him that my heart and mind are no longer clashing. I want to kiss him senseless under this brightened sun and show him that there’s no battle taking place within in me. I have the words. I am ready now. And beyond anything, I need to show him.
Keane gives a brief shake of his head as he reads my face, his eyes looking down at my outstretched hand before he smiles softly. I sigh and take a step away from him, following behind when he gently leads the two of us back down the bridge.
“The fourth moment was when I watched you find the clearing before the mills in Fumagalli,” he continues, “you were proud of your discovery and yet still confused because you didn’t think they’d actually exist. I was in awe of you in that moment, in awe that you would let your curious nature hold so steadfast and unrelenting until you found your answer…”
“And when I felt your body react to mine more fully that day, when I felt you move against me as you told me that you could feel my summoning within you…. you were curious as to the magic but ready to embrace it, embraceme, and I could tell that you wanted to feel it more.”
“I was ready to take you in those woods, Alexis,” he looks back at me with a hard gaze, “to truly show you all the ways I could make you feel me.”
My body flushes as I stare back at his lips, remembering how close I was to letting him have me.
“But I also knew that you deserved more, and Iwanted to give you more. I wanted to give you the best of me because it was what the being of you deserved. So I made that promise to both of us that I would find you again under the Shadow Oak, that I would touch you in a way that justifies the full being of who you are...”
It’s taking everything in me right now not to reach out to Keane again, not to grab his hand and race down the remainder of the bridge so that we can have our way with eachother on the ground unseen. The tug between my legs is too strong, and my breaths leaving my body are quite literally coming out as ragged pants. I have to avert my gaze from him to keep any semblance of control.
The two of us continue down the remainder of the bridge in silence, quietly trying to regain ourselves as the familiar black banners of Warrior sway in the near distance. I spot the black granite homes and buildings as they jut up sharply to the sky ahead, the city a challenge to itself as the heavy fires all around consume our sights and senses.
Dalloway greets us in a warm embrace, holding our gazes as we both smile and walk forward together. It feels good to see the sparkling black fixtures under the sun, to smell the burning of wood and to look upon humans and Discerni passing along in their days together.
It feels like home.
I grin to myself and notice Keane proudly assessing me from his side, watching as my eyes take it all in. I release a heavy, satisfied breath, and turn back to him with a content smile, the two of us moving into the outskirts of the city together as we welcome the Court of Warriors.
“It should come as no surprise,” Keane continues, beginning another slow trek as we move down the roads carefully, “that the next time I wanted you was when you greeted Desmond, Lord Daniel and I under the thick woods of the Hidden City. Your unrelenting curiosity called to me again, sparking my own curiosity to look farther into your being. It was all I could do but wait there and watch your proud stance, watch you come to another small realization that you were Warrior at heart…”
“Daniel did all the talking for me that night, for which I was grateful. You needed to hear it, needed to hear the words from someone else so they could help you better understand exactly what your curious actions meant. You embraced your realization that night, I could see it in your eyes. Even though you wouldn’t give me the satisfaction of your spoken admittance, I knew that you felt it. And then when I saw you up in the trees, standing under the moonslight and looking out to my city beyond…”
Keane looks back at me with narrowed eyes, his voice soft yet strong at the same time.
“I will have you there, Alexis. I will take all of you under the night lights. I will watch your body shine for me in the Hidden City and hear you scream my name to the stars.”
My heart stops as I stumble in my steps behind him, feeling the hard tug between my legs again. Keane’s smirk grows wider as he turns back around to a small alleyway up ahead, pushing his summoning into me and making me gasp out loud. I hold onto Millie’s reins for all I’m worth, feeling his desire flood into my abdomen and holding me,claiming me…
Dear Ancients,my body is on fire right now.
