by Anthology
"Why were you out there? What happened?" Azoth asked, and his hard eyes began scanning the room around him, as though he would find a threat somewhere in the corners if he looked hard enough.
"I needed to...I tried to get the chipmunks to follow you," Diana admitted. She thought about lying, but at that moment, that was the last thing she wanted to do. Might as well just get it over with and tell her husband what she'd nearly done.
"I wanted to know what you were working on, so I sent them to follow you." Diana turned her head to look out the window. The snow was coming down harder. She hoped the little chipmunks were finding shelter. She hoped that bear was off to sleep for the next several months. She never wanted to see it again.
Azoth said nothing, and Diana started to panic.
"I changed my mind, though," she said quickly. "I didn't want to know. I didn't want to invade your privacy like that. I know it's important that you're alone sometimes, and I didn't want them to look at what you were doing. I ran after them and called them back."
"And when you did, the beast came for you," Azoth said, and then he sighed and kissed her again. "Do not ever frighten me like that again."
"Are you mad?" After coming face to face with a bear of all things, Diana would've thought her husband being a little angry with her would've been the last thing on her mind.
Apparently not. There were still other things out there that scared the hell out of her.
Like the idea of disappointing Azoth, of not being the perfect, ideal woman he'd been holding onto for a thousand years.
"I am angry with that beast," Azoth said, holding Diana a little tighter, and a low, menacing growl leaving his throat. "I will see to it that it never bothers you again."
"Don't kill it," Diana said, quickly. "It was just...being a bear."
Bears did that, right? Diana had been the intruder. So long as it wasn’t a man-killer, she didn’t think she wanted Azoth to go after it in a fit of vengeful rage.
Azoth grumbled again, a sound so deep in his throat it came almost from his chest. Then he nodded. "As you wish, but I will be marking this as our territory. It will not come sniffing around here any longer."
Diana knew how animals in the wild marked their territory. She wasn't sure she wanted the details on how a dragon from the days of old would do the same thing.
Diana didn’t want to think about anything. The only thing she wanted to do was lean against Azoth’s body and sigh with relief. She wanted to hold him and be held by him, and not think about how she’d almost become a meal for something bigger.
“Thanks for saving me.”
Azoth jerked, as though he hadn’t expected her to say something like that. He touched her scarred cheek. “I would always come for you.”
And Diana’s insides warmed as she heard those words. Then she got to thinking. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
She must have been closer to Azoth than she’d thought.
Azoth smiled. “Your little friends came to get me when they smelled the bear nearby. I must admit, it took me a moment to realize what they were tittering on about.”
“My…?”
The chipmunks. They’d raced after Azoth when the bear had come near. They were fast little things, and they’d brought Azoth back to her.
Diana leaned in to kiss him.
8
11:00 P.M.
Azoth proved, once again, how strong he was as he pulled Diana into his arms with a practiced ease.
She curled her arms around his powerful neck and held on tight, even though she didn't need to. She knew he had her. He'd always had her, even before she'd had her memories returned to her, he'd been with her.
"I love it when you carry me like this."
"Do you?" Azoth asked, his voice a low rumble that caressed Diana's skin and ears. She shivered at the sound.
And then she remembered to nod.
Azoth didn't take his smoldering eyes off her as he walked through their home and to their bedroom. The multicolored lights from the Christmas tree were reflected in the hallway mirror, lighting the way for them.
Azoth pushed the door to their room open with his foot, not bothering to shut it. He let the soft glow from those flickering lights enter their room. Even through the window with the lace curtains closed, Diana could make out the white glow of the icicle lights hanging from the roof. It gave their room a romantic sort of atmosphere that was almost like the glow of candles.
"Don't ever frighten me like that again, sakkra," he said once more, and then kissed her hard.
Diana shook her head, their mouths parting but their noses still touching. "I won't, I promise." She kissed him again.
She had no intention of ever coming so close to a bear ever again. That was one promise she was going to do everything in her power to make sure she kept.
Azoth's hands were as desperate as they were strong and comforting. The man seemed to be torn between wanting to give Diana what she needed, while taking some reassurance himself that she was still alive and well.
Considering their history, he was taking this new scare very well.
And Diana pulled him even closer. The attention of his mouth on hers, his warm tongue sliding forward and inside when she opened for him, made her want so much more.
This wasn't just going to be a kissing fest. Diana wanted Azoth to be inside her. She wanted...she needed him.
"Azoth, please," she begged, her voice small and, well, begging.
Azoth released a low groan, and as Diana spread her legs for him, she could see the heat of his erection.
He was naked from his transformation into the dragon. She hadn't even noticed that before now. She'd been so focused on her own fear, and then later her relief, that Diana had barely realized that Azoth was already ready for her.
And because she was wearing her pajamas after her shower, it was easy to pull her clothes off her as well.
The coat was tossed to the ground, and so were her tank top and her cotton pajama pants.
They were pink and cute with little cartoon bunny heads on them, but now she never wanted to see them again. The fact they were dirty as all hell from when she'd been knocked over would give her the right excuse to throw them in the trash tomorrow.
But then she was skin to skin with the man she loved, the man she adored more than anyone else in the world, and she could only think about him. Him and no one else. No one else was as important as Azoth was.
His rough, calloused hands stroked over the smooth skin of her stomach and her thighs. Diana shivered from the pleasant sensations of his touch, releasing embarrassing little squeaking noises when his mouth came down onto her belly button, and then moved lower.
He was talking in his dragon tongue again, and though it was still a lot of words Diana didn't understand yet, she got the gist of it.
He was happy she was here with him.
Diana felt the flutter in her chest that almost knocked her out, and her breath actually caught from the sincerity she heard in every dragon word that he said.
She was going to cry if she let him talk like that for much longer, so Diana reached down and grabbed onto her husband by the shoulders, pulling him up so he was once more face to face with her.
"I love you, too," she said.
Azoth groaned and kissed her. His strong, powerful hand moved to the back of her head to hold her close, to keep her with him.
As though he was afraid she would just vanish into thin air if he let her go.
Diana held him back in the same way, and then moaned when she felt the thick shaft of his erection find her opening, sliding inside.
She gripped Azoth tighter. In that moment, she knew what she wanted to promise to him.
* * *
Diana shifted awake. It was still dark outside, which was a good thing. She hadn't slept through the night. The bad thing was that Azoth wasn't in bed with her.
She pulled herself up into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes.
; The digital clock beside her bed read that it was past one in the morning.
"Oh no!" Diana flung herself out of bed and stared down at the clock, as though it would change its mind and go back to being a lower number.
Or maybe her eyes would show they were playing tricks on her and another one would appear. It was still eleven something. Had to be.
Nope. Not so. Even when she picked up the clock to give her blurred eyes a better look at it, the numbers didn't change, and Diana fully woke up, completely disappointed with herself for having missed it.
She was supposed to turn on the television and show Azoth the big flashing ball that fell on the countdown, all the people cheering, and then she was going to give Azoth his New Year's kiss.
But no, of course not. She'd slept through it.
Diana actually wanted to stamp her foot a little at that one. She just barely held herself back from doing even that much.
Instead, she got out a fresh pair of pajamas, and then wrapped her housecoat around herself as she went off in search of her husband.
A quick look around the silent house told her he was nowhere to be found. Which meant he was probably out there somewhere, marking his territory so the bear wouldn't come near here for more.
Diana went to the sparkling tree and touched one of the red blinking lights. Then she held the ornament she and Azoth had made together.
It was a dragon ornament carved out of wood. Of course, since Diana and Azoth had a nearly unlimited supply of gold and jewels at their disposal, the eyes were made up of two tiny rubies.
On the stand the dragon sat on was the year, which would mark their first holiday together.
And seeing that reminded Diana to not be so put off that she'd missed the countdown with Azoth.
She'd had a good Christmas with him, and they were still living through their happily ever after. There would be other years to do the countdown.
Then the front door opened, and Azoth stepped inside.
9
1:30 A.M.
He was wearing one of the pairs of sweatpants Diana had bought for him for Christmas. It didn't take much to impress Azoth, and he'd loved all the clothes she had given him, so long as they weren't too tight or stuffy.
Not only were the sweatpants his favorite, but he looked damned good in them, especially when he was shirtless and the elastic waist was barely hanging above his hips.
Like right now.
Azoth seemed to be holding a small box in his hands. Well, it wasn't small, it was about the size of his fist, but comparatively small, at any rate.
A long smile stretched across his face, and Diana swore she could see the dragon inside his eyes smiling at her as well, and flicking its tongue.
"You awoke," he said, approaching.
Which was about when Diana could no longer let her frustration with herself stay inside. "I can't believe I slept past midnight."
"Sakkra, all is well," Azoth said, approaching her and putting his enormous arms around her shoulders.
Diana always felt extra dainty whenever she was being held like this by him. Kind of made her feel good. Or a lot good.
"I watched the red clock and kissed you when the numbers changed. You had your kiss, you just did not wake for it."
"You did that?" Diana asked, looking up into Azoth's eyes.
He grinned and nodded, and Diana couldn't help but think of how incredibly sweet that was. Her face heated with a blush, of all things. "That's...that's actually really romantic," she said.
Despite the fact that Azoth was a prince, trained to be a dragon warrior, and had been imprisoned for so many years, he was shockingly sweet. Sometimes Diana thought he should be more tortured and ruined. Not that she wanted him to be, but there was no way in hell a human man could go through what Azoth had gone through and still be perfectly right in the head.
And yet, Azoth was always perfectly sweet in just the right ways. Not creepy sweet, but the kind that made Diana want to sink against his chest and sigh a happy sigh.
This was where she was supposed to be.
"Wish I'd woken up for it, but thank you," she said, and she couldn't help but smile. The corner of her lips pulled up without her meaning for it to happen. "That was, really sweet. Really romantic."
"You said that already," Azoth said, and his large hand went to the back of Diana's curly hair. "I would have woken you. I thought of it, but you looked too peaceful to disturb. Also, it is a crime to interrupt the rest of the princess, so I could not do that."
As romantic and normal as Azoth could be, it was when he said things like this that reminded her he still thought of her as royalty.
She was in too much of a good mood to correct him, so she just took him by his thick wrists and began pulling him toward their couch.
"Will you come and sit with me by the tree? I just want to...I don't know, look at its lights for a little bit."
"Of course," Azoth said, and he eagerly went.
The couch, though brand new, groaned under their combined weight, but mostly that noise seemed to be coming from Azoth's side. He grinned happily as he settled himself onto the leather, pulling Diana practically on top of him and curling his arms around her.
Diana liked the position. Her head was resting on Azoth's chest while her back lay neatly in the crook of his arm, which was curled around her.
Diana let her foot trace back and forth up and down Azoth's leg. She didn't know why she did that, but it felt good. Kind of intimate.
Especially when Azoth took her hand and laced their fingers together as they watched the softly flickering lights.
His hand was so big that she had to hold two fingers between each of his, but the thought was still the same.
"This always looks better when the lights are out," Diana said, and nearly got up to shut them off.
Azoth held her firm. "No, do not move, sweet," he said, and then nuzzled her hair with his nose. "I prefer you like this."
Diana chuckled.
Yeah, he was the romantic sort, all right.
It was kind of...normal how they were both just resting there on the couch, looking at the lights from the tree.
Azoth hadn't liked the lights the first time he'd seen them, and it had been difficult explaining electricity and decorations of this sort to him since Diana herself barely understood them—and she wasn't about to get into how some electrical fires could start if there were too many things plugged in at the same time—but he'd come around quickly when he'd watched the colors fade in and out, or blink rapidly, or just stay static.
It was like watching fish swimming in their tank. Very soothing.
Diana felt herself dozing off again when she realized something.
"Where did you go?"
"Mmm?" Azoth rumbled. He'd apparently also been about to close his eyes.
Diana felt a little bad, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. "When I woke up, you were gone. Where did you go?"
"Ah. I went to get this," Azoth said, reaching down to the floor where he'd placed the box he'd been holding earlier.
He held it to her.
"I dropped it when your little friends came to get me. I had to go back and get it. And make sure the beast wouldn't return."
"By marking your territory?" Diana asked with a smile.
"Of course," Azoth said, not at all embarrassed. He was definitely not from this time.
But Diana wasn't really thinking about that. Her focus was back on the box Azoth had presented to her. It was made of wood, and when she looked, there was a line running horizontally down the middle with tiny hinges at the back.
So, obviously this was something that was made to be opened.
She smiled, eager anticipation rushing through her, and she turner her head back to see Azoth staring at her with just as much eagerness in his eyes.
He wanted to see her face when she opened it, so she wouldn't disappoint him.
"Okay," she said, and tried not to hold her breath when she o
pened the box.
Anything in romantic novels and movies would have predicted that this would be a ring of some sort.
It wasn't. The box itself, when opened, appeared to turn into some sort of stand that was meant to sit on its side. Kind of like those foldable metal picture frames that held more than one photo inside.
This didn't hold photos, but two small paintings.
One was of Diana's mother and father. The mother and father she remembered from this world, not Maab, her real fae mother. Diana didn't even know if she had a real fae father or if she'd just sprung from Maab's imagination. The legends were all so different.
The other was a painting of Diana and Azoth, as they would have looked on their wedding day all those years ago. Diana's hair was even a different color to match it.
There were no pointy ears in sight, so anyone who saw these little paintings would only assume they were normal paintings, and that Diana and Azoth were dressed up for some special occasion. This wouldn't need to be hidden if Diana wanted to make friends and happened to bring them over one day.
The painting of her and Azoth was absolutely beautiful. She loved it, but the thing that made her eyes tear up a little was the painting of her parents.
"How did you do this?" she asked.
Azoth nuzzled her cheek and hair. "You spoke of them often enough that I could paint them. You described them well. I used the skills you taught me and tried to recreate them. Do you like it?"
Diana laughed a little through the burning and moisture in her eyes. She nodded and rubbed the side of her hand over her face, trying to push away any tears. "I love it."
Azoth kissed her, even as she teared up, and even as she was struggling to take a proper breath.
“I think your parents existed in this world,” Azoth said. “I don’t know what spell Nyx put on you, but these memories you keep cannot all be false.”
Diana sniffed, and now she was really fighting not to cry. “Are you sure?”
