It’s here the seed was planted
By love that’s unsurpassed.
A passion few will ever know
Through time it will outlast.
Not only do you share the blood
Of your mother and of me,
You share the spirit of this land
And the forest by the sea.
I will write it down for her and leave it somewhere for her to find, the settee by the window or her dressing table, perhaps upon the bookshelves she’s always perusing to appease her curious mind. I imagine her smiling as she reads it and decide to make that a tradition in our home, leaving her poems here and there to brighten her days. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that she knows how much my heart loves her; my body craves her. How she inspires my mind, and that my soul needs her.
I feel her arm pull tighter around my waist, and her body press harder against me.
“Ye must be reading my mind.”
“Oh? If your mind is filled with thoughts of gratitude, and love, you’d be right.” She brings her body up and over mine to lie between my legs, placing her chin on her hands that are resting on my stomach. “Thank you for coming home, Alasdair. I was so scared. What happened? Why was your name on that list?”
I explain everything that happened in the battle, detailing the fights, my injury, and the week lost to laudanum before I could make my way back to her.
“Alasdair, I cannot believe you were shot in the head! How do you feel now?” she asks, now sitting upright before me.
“Perfectly fine. Especially sitting here looking at my naked wife wi’ her body filling out from the bairn that’s growing inside her. I swear on my life, Ella, I love ye more with each day that passes. I’ll likely burst with it by the time I’m an ould man.”
She leans forward to put her hands on the bed by my waist and crawls toward me with a smirk on her face. I feel my cock surge with anticipation.
“You like the idea of my body being abundant with child?” she asks right before she licks my lips then pulls them into her mouth for a kiss that speaks of what she’s craving.
“Ye can’na fathom how much I like that idea.” I stop to caress her lovely face. “Yer soul is mine, faerie maiden, and mine is yours. No man has ever loved a woman as much as I love you. And to see that lovely glow about yer skin, that sparkle in yer eyes, and the full round belly that signifies the fertility of our union—aye, it nourishes my strength and will to survive, my need to protect and provide, to guide and teach, to love.”
Our eyes stay fixed on one another, each of us seeing the truth that lies within. My hand comes up to push her long hair over her shoulder.
“The eyes are the window to the soul. In yers, I see eternity.”
“That is very poetic,” she says as she bends her head down to kiss my chest.
“’Tis true. We have loved before in another life. And we will love again after this one. Our souls are fated to be together forever,” I state matter-of-factly, then pull her to me.
When I finally release her lips, she asks, “How can you possibly know this, Alasdair?”
“I suppose ye could call it speculation. After all, I do’na have definitive proof. But there is something between us that is different, unusual. I know ye don’t have much to compare it to, but I do. Ye clearly know I was’na a virgin when we met.”
“Alasdair,” she reprimands.
Through a laugh, I continue, “Well, ’tis the truth, and it’s a factor in the equation.”
Ella sits back on her knees and places her hands on her hips. “Oh? How so?”
God, she is perfect. “Look at you.” I sit up and reach forward to pinch her nipple. “Are ye jealous?”
She swats my hand away. “It is certainly something I do not wish to think about.”
“Well, I can’t blame ye fer that. But I do have experience where you do not. And I can assure ye, what we have between us is’na something that is common between lovers, married or no.” Her eyes turn tender with the conviction in my words. “But there is something else, and ye may find this to be a little harder to believe. You see, my grandmother—Nanna, we called her—had a powerful sixth sense, she was a seer. In Scotland, they call such a gift the Fey, but that’s another story entirely we can save for another day. Nanna and I were very close, and she loved to talk to me about my old soul and how that made me special, though she may have been a bit biased.” That jest earns me a smile. “When I was old enough, she explained to me that there was another soul that sought to find me. She said this woman and I had loved in a previous life, that our souls were meant to be together, that fate would not allow them to be apart, and after this life, they will find each other and love again and again.”