Ulrika tries to wake me up out of my deep slumber using her fingernails. They feel soft, which makes me wonder if she polished them. If that’s the case, then that can only mean her mood must be at an all-time high. I also know that when she’s like this, she’ll be wearing her makeup.

“Wake up, Kaio,” Ulrika says. I curl myself into a ball to protect myself from her tantalizing fingers and hope she’ll give up on trying to prevent me from returning to my sleep.

“Thirty more minutes,” I say in a muffled voice.

“Kaio, you’ve been sleeping for thirteen hours! Time to get up!”

I cover my face from her using my pillow. She stops touching me, shifts her weight on the right side of my hip, then doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Her silence alarms me, so I peek my right eye out from the pillow to see what’s going on. She’s frowning with her arms crossed, resting in her lap. Her eyelashes look thicker and darker. I rise to get closer to her face. Her frown disappears into a small smile.

“Are you awake now?” She says. I don’t answer but continue to look at the beautiful details she’s done to her face. “This is the third time you’ve stared at me in awe when I put this stuff on.” On that thought, she has an arsenal of a rainbow, yet chooses black the most. She’s a minimalist, but it’s enough to enhance her natural beauty into something hard to look away from.

“Sorry,” I quickly say, looking off to my left. Ulrika pulls my head back and kisses me.

“Come back to me. Gaze at me some more.” Her soft voice gives me pleasant shivers throughout my body. At first, I soak in all the details, then move in to kiss her, but she cups her hand over my mouth. “Kaio, do you remember what you said to me before you pass out?”

“I said something?”

“Wait...” She takes her hand off my mouth, then raises an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?” I know what I said, but I’m gonna act like I didn’t, just to see what she’ll do.

“No. Did I say something stupid?”

“Stupid? No...you didn’t.” She stops looking at me and looks off to her left with a slowly emerging frown. “You said something that kept me up for a while when you fell asleep.”

“Was it, marry me?” Her eyes pop open, then snap to me.

“You asshole! You do remember!” She backhands my right shoulder, but it’s a soft smack.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to see what you would do if I acted like I didn’t remember.”

“Are you satisfied with what you got?”

“I regret it.” I hold her head and rest my forehead against hers. She reinforces my gentle grip with her hands. “You looked so sad.”

“Because I thought it was the drowsiness saying that. You scared me, Kaio.” We laugh for a short moment, but she stops before I do. “Can you ask me again, now that you are wide awake?”

“With your father’s grace, will you marry me, Ulrika Pence?”

“You don’t need his authority.”

“I don’t?”

“Not him, my brothers, nor my birth mother.”

“Why? Isn’t that the correct way?” She giggles, covering her mouth.

“If I was like, sixteen or eighteen. I’m twenty five. I’ve been independent of my father’s reign since I became a knight.” Her arms wrap around my upper back, pressing me close to her chest. “You became my head when I confessed my love to you.”

“I see.”

“Mhmm.” She stops hugging me to look me in the eyes. “Haleema was right thinking we were married. We do act like married couples.”

“We’re not a couple just yet.”

“What do you mean?” I gently graze my fingers down her waist, causing her to shiver and giggle. Once I reach her hips, I slid my fingers under her underwear and rest my hands on her round ass.

“Let’s make it official. Right now.” Her cheeks start blushing as she puckers her lips from smiling. She rests her face on my chest with her arms crossed over her chest. “Um... Is everything alright, Ulrika?”

“I’m gonna cry.”

“Why?”

“Really, Kaio?” She looks up at me, taking deep breaths through her mouth. Her eyes are filled with tears. “Is this really happening right now? Am I dreaming?” Her tears fall from her eyes like a flowing river. She covers her mouth to muffle her crying. I can feel my eyes begin to get watery, but I don’t resist the temptation to cry. “Oh, Kaio!”

“Yes. This is happening,” I say, holding her in my arms. My tears fall down my face and into her hair. I wipe them away, but more keep coming. She gains control of herself when she pulls away from me. Her face is drenched, yet in all those tears, she smiles.

“I have some great news to tell you.”

“Yes?” I say, clearing my eyes.

“I finally see the new woman you saw in me. The woman washed clean from the sins of her past. Kaio, I finally believe!” I’m so happy to hear her announce that I tear up some more.

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After we dry our eyes and take a breather, she suddenly places her hands on my chest as I ease my back on the bed. Her ass sits directly on my crotch. I can see the excitement on her face that causes me to get aroused. She’s breathing through her mouth and stares down at me with low eyes. I bestow my excitement by gripping her small breasts through her shirt. She grins with an open mouth with a bit of chuckling, then yanks off her shirt from her head. I continue to arouse her lust by clawing her breasts. Her nipples start hardening in the palm of my hands. Once I stop teasing her, she unbuckles my pants and takes them off with my underwear. She doesn’t waste any time inserting me inside her, nor strips herself completely naked. I pull her underwear to the side so it won’t rub against me while I move. It rips and hangs from her hips. Instead of getting off me to remove it, she tears it off her and tosses it behind her.

“Kaio,” she moans, rocking her hips back and forth. “Before we let loose, I request you don’t do this one thing.”

“What is it?” I ask with a shaky voice.

“The Nite cultist is still out there. I want to be able to fight by your side and not have to worry about pregnancy. Do you get what I’m trying to say?”

“I understand, but if that’s the case, we need to stop right now.”

“No, no, no,” she whispers, laying down on me. Her warm body and the position we’re in spike my lust towards her. “I don’t want us to stop making love because we’re at war. We just have to be careful on where to cut it off.”

“What if you conceive?”

“Then, I conceive. I’ll fight with you as long as I can before I’m forced to settle down.”

“Ulrika,” I say, chuckling a bit. “Would you be mad at me in that day if we were still fighting?”

“Yes,” she answers, then kisses me three times. “But overjoyed nonetheless. I’ll get to bear us a wonderful child. With that said, let’s continue this wonderful moment.”

ONE HOUR LATER

Ulrika and I finally extinguish our appetite for sex. This is my first time lying with a woman. By the gods, what a fun workout it can be. I certainly got my exercise for the entire day. Sweat falls off my nose while I sit on the edge of the bed, leaning over to take more air in. If having sex with her will always be this energetic, I might have to improve my cardio to last longer. In my mind, I feel like I can go on for hours, but my body is spent.

“Kaio,” she mumbles erotically. “Kaio, Kaio, Kaio.” The top of her head bumps into the upper part of my ass. She pulls herself up, using my shoulders but slips a few times.

“Yes, Ulrika?” I look left to find her pointing at the dressers on the left side of the room.

“Go grab us three towels and a water rune from the first drawer over there.”

“Sure, but why a third towel?” I ask, walking over to it.

“To wipe your mess off me, duh,” she giggles.

“Oh,” I laugh in return. I grab what Ulrika required of me but notice there isn’t a tub around. “Hey, where’s your bathtub?”

“We don’t use tubs in my house.” She points at two pink drapes hanging from her right on the wall. “There’s a room in which we can clean ourselves. Ever heard of a stand-in bath?”

“No. What is that?”

“Come with me. You might like this.”

I follow her over to the pink drapes. She pulls one of them back for me to view inside. Inside is a sizeable square room made of small rectangular ivory tiles. In the center of the floor is a metal covering with several small holes in it. Each wall has a place where someone can sit down, and above the middle of the room is three holes. They’re in the shape of a cone that’s been cut in half.

“Step in,” she says, nudging me with her hand. I place my foot in, and the ground sinks. A slot opens up in a wall in front of me.

“What is that?”

“It’s where you place the rune in.” She takes the towels out of my hands, puts them outside, then places the rune in the slot. It lights up blue, and water comes sprinkling out from the cones. “Fuck me, this is cold!” I hold her against my body, using heat magic to make the water on her body warm. “Thanks, but you don’t need to do that. It’ll get pleasant in a few seconds.”

“Interesting water system. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Thanks to my fifth born brother, Oliver, we have these types of baths around the estate.” I face the pouring water to let its warmth soothe my face. She takes the opportunity to cuddle with me under the water. “Nice to see your magic is back.”

“Olly really fucked me up with whatever that poison was.”

“It’s a,” she pauses to flip a switch on the water head above me. It pours out foaming soap that falls between us. “It’s a venom called Nunide. It kills by suffocation, according to Rhyndac. Thank the heavens Kendrik had a cure.” I lather up her body with the soap, then put it in her hair. “That was the scariest day of my life.” She lathers me up and resumes holding me. “If you get crippled like that again, I’ll lose it.”

“You’re gonna have to be strong.” Her arms tighten for a short moment. She grunts as she’s disgusted by what I said. I grip her ass and press her lower body into me. “I know, Ulrika. I worry about you getting hurt too.”

“Kaio, I fucking hate this type of stress,” she wines.

“Me too. But good thing we have a week to have some peace.”

“Yeah,” she says, looking at me with an intoxicating small smile that shows her dimples. “Seven days then, our lives are once again throttled by radical maniacs.” I don’t want the reminder of our duty to sadden the mood, so I try to think of something that’ll keep our minds occupied.

“What do you wanna do today?”

“Umm, I don’t know.”

“How about you show me around your city. I bet there’s endless of fun things we can do around here.”

“Yeah,” she shouts in a high pitch. “I can be your tour guide like you did with me when we visited Aurath in Kromagia!” Her eyebrows shift down then invert upwards. “But it’s still dark outside. The places I want to show you are closed until the morning. Damn.”

We thoroughly clean our bodies without lollygagging like we sometimes do, put on our clothes, and then return to the chamber. I reach my hand out to feel where my sword is and see if I can sense it. It’s somewhere far outside Ulrika’s room. Maybe it’s in that room I was laid in when they carried me.

“Do you want your sword?” Ulrika says.

“No. Just checking if I can feel its presence.”

“Can you feel it?”

“I can.”

“That’s good. What about your other abilities.” I test my blast and tether magic on myself. My powers are back to normal. “How about your sensitivity to magic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Focus on me.” She kneels on her legs, then focuses on her mana by putting her hands in a triangle. I feel her pulsate, focused magical energy into my chest, then put her hands on the ground. “Did you feel those?”

“Mhmm,” I say, touching my chest.

“You’re one hundred percent back to tip-top shape.” Hearing the good news from her and feeling back to my usual self is terrific. “Since it’s dark outside, do you wanna see the ins and outs of my home?”

“Yeah. I wonder how big this mansion is.”

“Follow me, husband,” she says, looking forward as she walks past me.

“Do you wanna start calling each other husband and wife now?” I say, following close behind her. She looks over her right shoulder to see me. Her cheeks blush a hot pinkish-red.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to see what it felt like.”

“Oh, okay then. Lead the way...my wife.” She gasps, smiles, then gets timid from looking at me.

“I’m gonna love hearing you call me that. After a week, I wanna tell my parents of our marriage.”

“Why after a week?”

“I feel like that should be enough time for my family to know you. In that time I hope telling my parents you’re my husband will go smoothly and they accept you. You’re still a mystery to them.”

“Don’t worry, I’m a likable guy. I believe they’ll accept me.”

“Okay, Kaio,” she says, then kisses me. “You’ve made me optimistic now.”