"But do you think he will succeed in sothing nobody has ever done before?" she asked doubtfully.
In Rohan’s case, putting back his heart wasn’t done manually, because it was his heart and it belonged inside him, and Astral who had kept it had secured it in a way that it would return to him the mont he got it back. anwhile, it was different for Rav, whose real heart had rotted and needed a replacent, which had to be installed.
"He will. I have no doubt that he will not fail, you should have seen how determined he looked when he asked to help him," Rohan said, fitting his arm back around her waist and pulling her closer as he noticed she still didn’t look fully convinced about everything.
Belle placed her hand against his chest as he drew her nearer. "I really wish I had succeeded in helping him back then, before all of this happened, but rather than have no hope at all, I think this is better," she muttered, tracing random patterns with her finger against Rohan’s hard chest, feeling more at ease with him now than she had before.
"Evenly is hurting so badly. She nad the twins today," she told Rohan.
He asked, "What did she na them?"
Belle smiled faintly. "Arielle and Aryen, aren’t they lovely, the nas, I an?" she asked.
Rohan’s brows arched as the nas sounded familiar, and he let out a low chuckle. "I’ll be damned."
"What?" Belle asked curiously, to which Rohan said,
"When I was in the asylum along with Rav, the mad people there always had workers who took care of them and read to them when they began to recover and beco obedient. They sit them all down in the heavily guarded yard on the grass like adolescents, all of them in uniform, with tortured scars on their bodies, and they listen to the story being read to them.
"Of course, I was never part of them. My ward was different, and my punishnts were different, but I always peeked at them, as I believed they were all pathetic. Yet I was always curious about what the book being read to them was about, because whenever they didn’t get read to, they raged and scread my ears out.
"So one day, I stole one of the books when I was being brought back from the torture room after being weakened. I sneaked the storybook back to my room and gave it to Rav to read to , so I could see what the mad people liked about it.
"It was then I realized Rav couldn’t read or write. Bored as I was in that hellhole, I took it upon myself to teach him, just like I had taught myself to read and write in the attic room of the castle. He was a fast learner, and when he learned, the book beca his obsession, he slept reading and woke up reading. It was almost as if he reread it because he didn’t want to forget how, and he couldn’t believe he could finally read," Rohan said with a bittersweet expression on his face, as if he were reliving the mory.
Belle asked quietly, "What was the book about?"
"Witch Hunters. Arielle and Aryen were twins whose parents were killed by dark witches, and they grew up wanting to avenge them. I don’t rember most of it because I never actually paid much attention to the story like Rav did. When he thought I wasn’t watching, he would pretend he was Aryen the hunter. What a coincidence that he had twins and nad them after his favorite characters."
Belle felt Rohan move his hand and rub the side of his eye, and she looked up to see him wiping away a small bead of tear. She put her hand against his cheek. "You two have been through a lot together as well..." she whispered.
Rohan smiled faintly. "You can say that. He is a man who stands by his word, and even though he could have left in the asylum and walked away, he still stood by because he believed I had saved his life."
"Then we will try our best to help him. He deserves to know Arielle and Aryen." Belle moved closer and hugged him, being careful not to touch his back, but bringing her arm above his shoulder to hold his head against her chest. "Before he cos back to his family, we will take care of them for him," she added, rubbing and stroking his disheveled hair, believing Rav would be cured and that things would be fine again.
To lighten the somber mood, Belle touched the wild edges of Rohan’s hair and said, "When you get better, I will work on this hair. For so reason, I think it’s not how your hair used to be."
Rohan held her closer, smiling. "I think we are getting sowhere with your mories."
"You think so?" she whispered in his ear, tickling the back of his neck where she knew he was most sensitive. There was no way she should have known that now, unless they were indeed making progress with her lost mories.
Rohan smiled for the length of three glad heartbeats, then laughed when she began to tickle him. He wondered if life would continue to be this good, and decided that surely tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, it could only get better as long as she was beside him.
Rohan was right. He’d never imagined happiness such as he knew in the few days and nights that followed while he was recovering. By the next morning when he woke up, his wounds had closed up and the pain was slowly fading from his back.
By the evening of that day, he could lie on his back again, and sleeping that night was the best feeling. To roll over in his sleep and draw his wife back against him, then drift off again in a cocoon of bliss. Or better yet, to roll the other way and feel her follow, pressing close behind him.
To feel her hand circle his waist, her feet beneath his, her breath on his back. He awakened the next morning and found her lying with an elbow beneath her cheek, studying him. And just as naturally as everything, he’d moved close and kissed her in the buttery light of early morning, and she had smiled rather than moved away.
That morning he left her with a goodbye kiss to go out and buy equipnt that would be used to make furniture for the second room Evenly would move into with her kids before the winter passed and they began to work on their new building. He also needed to find so books to help Angel in his goal of learning about changing hearts.
He was gone all day and returned ho when the light had faded from the sky and the air was freezing at night. That beca a habit in the next few days after his recovery, as there were many things to be done. But the best part of it was leaving in the morning and returning, knowing his family awaited his arrival.
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