Her pulse fluttered as if it was a caged bird, while her hands reached for the gold chain around her neck, with the symbol of me dangling on the end. Apart from me, this symbol of my heart, my love, was the item she considered safe ground. The gold lion stained with my heart’s blood. The lion that represented who I was,who I am,who I will always be.
My Amora directed me back to life, shared her breath with me, when I had been a breath from the unforgiving grave. The lion inside of my heart was starved for her. Could not last another second without her. At that second, she came into my life, the answer to my one prayer—one I said on a cold night in the witch’s tower in Maranello, when the chasm inside of me opened and swept me into a sea of loneliness.
It all goes back to breath.
Her breath.
It is mine. Without hers, I cannot breathe. I refuse to.
“This is it, then,” she whispered, keeping her eyes on the stars. “This is where I was conceived. This was where you firstencountered…a symbol of who I would someday be to you.” She released the pendant, and her hand trembled as she gently touched the scarf in her hair again.
My first instinct was to rush to her. To take her in my arms. The doors to the home we built together. Instead, I gave her this moment to truly understand the gravity of what this place symbolizes.
Us.
Nodding, I kept my back to the wall, though my eyes could not roam far from her. My heart would not allow it. The lion in my chest controlled my sight. He kept my focus on her, ready to defend her with my life in an instant. Just the thought of anyone getting close to her, anyone who meant her harm, also meant me harm through her, made me salivate for the violence the lion inside of me instinctively knows. The violence was not something I could control. If she was in danger, so was I, and I would guard her heart at all costs.
This.
This is my answered prayer.
Her.
A satisfied grin came to my face, even though I shivered when I thought back to that night and how I had thought these words:
It all comes down to a woman, ah?
It did for me.
Onewoman.
Thewoman my body longed to protect and serve.
Thewoman my heart longed to be protected by.
Every prayer I had offered that night came into fruition and was even more than I had asked for.
I tried to picture myself as a younger man. A man who had not seen the type of love that would make him forsake his familyfor it. The first moment my eyes found her, I knew this without a doubt: I would forsake my own heart, breath, body for her.
She looked up at me with stars reflecting in her eyes.
My breath became shallow. My heart levitated outside of my body—around hers. Always around hers.
“You’re being very quiet, Rocco Fausti,” she whispered. She took a step closer to me. Another. Our breaths, our heart beats, our blood tangled even deeper.
Close enough, I reached out and barely touched her face. Her hair, long, thick, a light brown as hypnotizing as autumn, rustled as gossamer wings would in the slight breeze, along with the delicate fabric of the scarf. Her scent swirled in the air around me, and my lungs, as greedy for it as air, took it deep inside.
My thoughts from the night I had offered up the prayer came back to me, as swift as a cold wind, though the thought did nothing but warm me, only adding to the natural heat my body produced.
My romantic heart ruled my body, and I went back for the scarf. I brought it close to my nose, scenting a woman. A woman who had a floral essence, but also a bit spicy and citrusy. Her long hair, which seemed light brown, stuck to its fibers.
“You’re thinking back, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Sì,” I whispered, my voice full of gravel. “I am thinking back to one of the loneliest nights of my life. When I offered up a prayer for you.”
“Was this before or after I was conceived here?”
“After.” I barely got the word out, knowing that, before I even asked for it, I was given it.
