Chapter 55// Prophesy

                                    

                                          
If we're torn apart then I won't let go
'Cause wherever we are, it feels like home
And I'll love you 'till the end
I'll love you 'till the end
                          
...

                          
I woke up with a throbbing headache and sore muscles. My head spun in circles reminding me of the amount of ale I drank yesterday night. I wasn't really used to it anymore as in days of sickness I sticked with Triskas herbal tea. Maybe that was part of why I felt so bad as well, maybe my body was slowly getting rid of the poison. But as I pushed the pain and tiredness away joy overcame me again. Ivar and I were finally married.
                          
It all felt so... full. The emptiness I carried in my heart seemed more manageable and there was a joy in waking up and seeing the face of this cuddly demon beside mine.
                          
Merely by the thought of him I turned around in his grasp to look at my equally destroyed husband. His dark eyebrows were knitted together as with each of his steady breaths his perfect nose was twitching a little. 
                          
He'd probably shove my face back into the pillow if he caught me in the act of blankly watching him like that but I couldn't keep it in. I felt it in my soul, the urge to study every detail in his face so I would never ever forget it. So I could draw it in my nightmares and transform them into daydreams. 
                          
I had often enough caught him staring at me, no matter if it was in such intimate moments like this or if it was out in public, even across a whole battlefield. But of course the rules of staring didn't apply to him as he had explained. "Its my nature you know that." "Well than I should at least have the right to look at you as well!" I had answered but to him that was nonsense. And so I had to use times like these to watch this handsome mess I now call mine.
                          
My eyes wandered further down his face to the lips which made something in the bottom of my stomach twitch just in the thought of having them on mine again. The way they pulled into a smirk as they formed the word Wife. I had the thought running around my mind since he first said it. It made me crazy for him.
                          
I scan the little hair beginning to grow back on his chiselled chin and wondered how he would look with a beard. Would he have one once we were older? Could I watch as small specks of sliver began to show that painfully reminded him that our time was fading? Or would he embrace his ageing, perhaps even age like wine did? I was sure he could never stop looking gorgeous even in older age.
                          
I look down to his muscular neck admiring the love bites I gave him. It might be silly but I liked that it showed everyone that my love for him is as passionately as his is for me. Though I think the people might be rather concerned by the look of me as I was way worse off in marks of his affection. I looked abused with purply yellow marks all around my neck, the soft flesh of my chest and the inner side of my thighs.
                          
He sometimes apologised for them but like always I had to take Ivars words with a grain of salt. I could see his shit eating grin on the marks every time he saw them. But as I was healing faster than others he had taken it to a personal challenge to put them on me the second he saw them fading. Apparently a ring on my finger wasn't enough to show off who I belonged to.
                          
My eyes travel over the crimson sheets seeing the lining of our bodies beneath them. And as I dare to look even further I see one of Ivars legs unexposed. My mind hadn't changed about them, I still liked them like everything else about Ivar though I was certain he was still full of venom in the thought of them  Would he allow my eyes on them now that they weren't a secret between us? Or would he pull the blanket over them as soon as he woke up?