Chapter 6

-Katherine-

It was so unreal. Darius was kissing me… and I was enjoying it! I couldn’t help it. It felt fantastic, and I was absorbed by the powerful sensations he was bringing out in me, making me feel so good. I moaned a little as his tongue slipped into my mouth. It felt almost natural for him to claim me like this, but I couldn’t forget the questions.

“Darius…” I pulled back and whispered, but he caught my lips again, and I hastily turned my head. “We are talking.”

I heard him sigh in my ear, and it sent pleasant shivers through me, while his body shook with pent-up need, but then he let me take a step back. I watched as he shook before me, clearly trying his hardest to calm down.

“Sorry, I don’t… know what happened,” he said. “You just… make me go a little out of control.”

I still held the sheets tightly around me, but his words warmed me a lot. I had never thought I could make anyone go crazy like that, but Darius was shaking in front of me, and it made me feel very good.

“I make you go crazy?” I asked, just to hear it again.

He smiled a little. “Very.”

We watched each other for a long moment, but then I snapped myself out of the trance before I lost my mind again. It was clear Darius was good at that.

“What happened?” I asked him. “Exactly.”

“You died.”

“So, I did die?”

“You did. I got to you too late. You stopped breathing, and so I changed it all. I went back into your past, but I gave it a new outcome. So this became your future instead.”

“We married instead?”

“We did,” he said.

“But then… everything else is still the same? Except our marriage,” I clarified.

“It should be. I have not had a chance to explore yet. I was a little caught up in the memories… fake memories… real memories.”

Even Darius seemed confused by everything, and it became very clear he had not done this before. Time travelling or making alterations. It calmed me, and it scared me at the same time, because only he seemed to be able to solve this.

“Could we go back?” I asked.

“What? To our former lives?”

“Yes, to our former lives. Could we go back?”

“Why?”

“Because this is… I mean, Acan he…” I felt my heart break a little as I thought about how the man I had loved and been devoted to for so long had betrayed me. He killed me.

“He hurt you Katherine, why would you ever want to go back?” he asked me.

“I need to fix it!”

“Fix it?”

“Whatever went wrong between us!”

“You want him back?” Darius asked.

“Yes!”

“What?” He looked so betrayed.

“I mean no!”

“Huh?”

“I mean… I don’t know what’s going on, but I need to… I mean I… this is…” I was losing it and it was clear Darius saw it as he stepped forward and wrapped an arm around my waist before letting his shirt go and placing his hand on my cheek, stroking it.

“You’re alive,” he said. “That’s what matters.”

“He killed me…”

“Yes, so do you really want to go back?”

“No, but I…”

“You’re dead, Katherine. In that future you’re dead,” he whispered, and the tears were pressing forward, falling down my cheeks.

He looked so hurt, as if he was the one who had been killed, and he stroked the tears away, shaking his head a bit.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered before he softly kissed my lips. “I hate to see you cry.”

“I… can’t believe it. I loved him…”

“But he didn’t love you.”

“How does that make me feel better?” I asked and turned my head, feeling how my heart was breaking all over again, causing me so much pain.

Darius grabbed my chin, making me focus on him, and his dark eyes bored into my own green eyes, making me almost gasp from the intensity.

“I love you,” he confessed.

“What?”

“I love you. Goddess, woman, I have from the moment I saw you.”

“Darius, this is just… another future. It isn’t… real,” I said.

“It is real, but I can tell you even in our other life, I loved you.”

“What?” I asked, feeling shocked by his confession, but then I thought it over. Was that not what I had realized as I died? Darius had always been there. He had been my hero even when I didn’t know someone tried to kill me. He had come for me in my last dying moments. Darius had held me and told me it was going to be okay. I knew now who the voice belonged to, and it made me feel so warm, as I remembered it all, but also overwhelmed. How had I not known the depths of his feelings for me?

“I have always loved you,” he repeated, making sure I heard him.

“But you never…”

“What? Should I have shouted my love for you? Written you letters? Tried to take advantage of my brother’s wife?”

“Of course not,” I said, shaking my head. “But you could at least have…”

“Told you?”

“Why not?” I asked, feeling how my heart was beating faster at his closeness. He was making me go quite crazy too.

“You couldn’t be around me if I did. How wouldn’t it look? How wouldn’t it have made you feel? Besides, you loved Acan,” he reminded me.

“Right…” I whispered, remembering the powerful love I had had for my King, but I didn’t feel it in that moment. As I thought about how I had been so devoted to him, loving him and supporting him, all those wonderful feelings I had always felt suddenly turned dark, like something withering fast away, and I realized I had no love for Acan anymore. Only dark hatred. Though, while the hatred spread through me, I focused on Darius again, and it shimmered down as I looked at him. Did I… love him too? No, it was the other past me. This past-me who had fallen for him, but somehow that was me too. These were my feelings too, were they not? I was so confused, and Darius saw how my head was almost spinning. He led me over to our bed again… Oh Goddess, that was our bed, right? He made me sit down and then sat down beside me, turning my head and getting me to focus on him.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I am so confused.”

“It’s a lot.”

“I just… I am not sure what’s me now and what’s this alternative… me,” I whispered.

“Yeah, I am trying to figure out our memories as well.”

“It’s like I have two sets of them.”

“Me too.”

We sat a little in silence, but he continued to stroke my cheek while we looked into each other’s eyes. It felt very intense, and I had to say I enjoyed it quite a lot. No one had ever made me feel like he did, and it both scared me, but also thrilled me. I felt that love that belonged to past me, and I was about to lean closer, letting it lead me so I could kiss him. Darius saw where I was going, and smirked, wanting the kiss too, but then as our lips were about to meet, I felt something. Something in my stomach. I recognized it too late, but I managed to turn before I puked on the floor, my stomach going crazy, and emptying everything.

“Katherine!”

Darius reached out, and I felt his warm hands on me, as I spat out the last bit of vomit, but then as I turned my head to meet his eyes, it was like the same memory in our heads sprung forward. I was pregnant!