"All I taste now is betrayal, and a backstabbing, lying witch." Truth... but just one percent truth. The lies he told himself were bigger in his words.
But she would never know.
She would never know how sweet she still tasted to him. Painfully sweet.
She would never know how much he was holding himself back from ripping her clothes off and taking her right there and then, not caring about his own bodily wounds, or the people who were outside the closed door.
He wanted to hug her. Though she hurt him, and he had dreamt of a million ways to carry out vengeance, she had bewitched him so strongly that now that she was within his reach again, he didn’t know what to do with her.
As though taking his hand off filth, he withdrew his hand from her body and put a reasonable space between the two of them once again.
"If you try to escape again—" He points at the wall where she had previously escaped from and Neriah was now noticing that it was sealed again. "I will catch you, and I will bind you up with fiery chains." He warns.
"You were out there yourself. This forest is worse than that one in Avelah you ran into back then. Your death is inevitable if you go out, so I don’t think you would be foolish enough to try and escape again. But it is you we are talking about. You do the most foolish things. And that is why I’m warning you, do not dare try to escape."
"Because believe , you do not want to know what it feels like to sll your own flesh burning right before your eyes." He says and walks towards the door.
"Barak wait—" She runs after him only to halt as fiery chains suddenly appear round his arm.
"Not another step woman. Not another step." He warns for the last ti before storming out of the room leaving Neriah alone.
For long, long minutes, she stood there, staring at the door, half trying to believe that he was alive in the flesh and she just spoke to him, and half pained that he didn’t believe her.
"You might hate , but I’m glad you’re alive." She says with a sad smile on her face. "Huh!" She gasps as she feels a sudden kick in her stomach. "Oh!" She gasps again as the baby kicks again and again.
Neriah’s hands wrapped around her stomach as she felt the baby move a few more tis. "Are you that glad to et your father?" She asks with a soft chuckle. "I am happy too." She says.
She wondered if his anger would quell if he knew he was soon to beco a father. "No." She shakes her head. "He believes I have betrayed him. If he finds out I am carrying a child, I fear that he— that," that he would think the child belongs to Lyle.
"I know you’re excited to et your father, but let’s wait a little longer, hm? Let’s wait a little longer." She says.
"The Lepron shield would soon wear out. I should take another, so I can hide you for a little longer, please do not hate for hiding you for now. I just don’t want you to hear harsh words from your father whom you expect to accept you. So let’s wait till I am able to convince him of my innocence, alright?" She hoped the child in her womb would kick or move in response but nothing ca and it made Neriah feel bad because she believed her child was sad.
However, what could she do? She was scared of Barak’s reaction.
"Huh?" Where is it?" Neriah wondered as she used her hands to search every part of her body. "Where did it go?" She whispered to herself while taking off the upper part of her garnt to search better.
Nothing...
It was gone.
The pouch that contained the Lepron shield.
Her head suddenly rewinds back to when she and the person she believed was a stranger were running from Lyle’s n on the horse. She had felt sothing slip out of her...
"Oh Goddess. I lost it."
...
"W_what do you plan to—"
"I implore you to refrain from talking about her at this mont. My head aches and it will only make it worse." Barak shunned Mileka before she could speak further. At that mont, all he wanted to do was sleep and get his mind off the woman whom he had literally kidnapped and was now holding captive in the next room.
"But what if she tries to run again?" Mileka asks.
"She knows better not to." He plainly says as he sinks into a wooden chair whose legs are short and broken, making it just a little bit higher from the ground and uncomfortable. "I will skin her alive if she does and she knows it." He rises from the stupid chair, picks up a piece of cloth and walk towards the wooden table that rested on one side of the wall near the door of the room Neriah was in.
"Still, shouldn’t we keep watch?" Mileka asks, exchanging worried glances with Rug as they watch Barak push aside the junks that occupied the table, putting them all underneath it.
"Leave it. You both should rest." He said and folded the cloth he had previously picked up. "I have bothered you enough. Your husband should be back any ti soon with news from the capital." He places the folded cloth on one end of the table and climbs atop it.
"Until then, I will take my ti to decide on what to do with her. For now, I will be the one to keep watch, so the two of you can rest for the night." He was tired of talking about the matter. He wasn’t joking when he said it made his head ache.
"But still—"
"Do not make repeat myself." His voice hardened. "Please, go in and rest."
"Your High—"
"Mileka," Rug held on to the wrist of the woman. "that is enough." He simply said.
"Then, have a good night, although I doubt that would be possible." The man adds as Barak lays himself down on the table, resting his head in the cloth he had folded.
It was a small table. Maybe his petite wife would have been able to curl every part of her body on the small table but for a big man like himself, it was a small table that did not contain his legs.
It was uncomfortable and annoying and made his wounds ache but he was just too tired. "Ugh." He sighed deeply and placed an arm over his eyes tiredly.
Just as they were walking away, Rug paused and turned around to look at Barak again, "Yah know before you went to get her, yah could barely walk, but the mont you heard about her being here, yah gained so extra strength... I wonder where that strength ca from." The man said and smiled to himself.
"Good night." He said one last ti before going into the other room.
With his arm still over his eyes Barak pondered over Rugs words. Where did his sudden strength co from?
His body still ached the sa and his wound had not completely healed, so how co he was able to move around without breaking down?
"Hate." He murmured.
"My strength cos from the hate I feel for the woman I love."
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