Page 57 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
But instead he found himself moving toward her, like the boy he’d once been. And he could see how badly he’d hurt her when he saw the way she stiffened, as if bracing herself for attack.
That was the man he had let himself become. He could see that in her eyes, as she braced herself.
And he vowed that no matter what it took, he would not be that man again.
He would not be that man, that father, to his own child.
His own father was dead. And would stay buried.
When he reached his mother, he took her hands gently in his. He bent his head.
“Teach me how,” he said.
And for the first time, he saw a crack in the armor she wore.
“Wh-what?” she stammered out.
“Teach me how you can love like that, Mother. Teach me how you do it.”
He felt her tremble. He saw her eyes brighten more, though she did not allow a single tear to fall.
Cyrus wondered why it had never occurred to him that he might not have gotten all of his strength from his father’s side after all.
Well. He knew why. But now he saw his mother plain, and he could not unsee it.
“My darling boy,” his mother whispered, a joy too intense in her gaze, so sharp it was nearly grief. “I will teach you anything you wish.”
And so she did.
He stayed with her that night and through the next day. They walked together on those lands he had told himself he’d forgotten. But he wanted to know her and the life she had crafted here in the wreckage his father—and he—had left behind.
And he could admit that the boy who had always loved her wanted to tell her what he had done and what he had learned, so she might know that what she’d given him might have been hidden—but it had never been truly lost.
Then, on the third day, he promised her that he would never stay away again, and took the lessons his mother had imparted to him home to his desert fortress.
And he ordered his men to bring his wife before him.
But not, this time, into his bedchamber. Not high on top of the tower, or hidden away in the baths.
Not even in the harem, which had been built for the King’s eyes only.
This time, he gathered all his men and all the staff of the fortress, from the women in the harem who tutted at him to Mignon Cartwright herself, who studied him as if looking for a way that she, personally, might take him down. He believed that she might try.
And then, finally, when everyone was assembled, he allowed his men to bring Hope herself before him. In something slightly more modest than her silks, because while he was not his father, he was still a man. And he liked to keep what was his to himself.
Even out here with the sun beating down, making it impossible to hide.
“Oh, dear,” said Hope as she walked into the center of the courtyard and stood there before him, looking undiminished and unafraid.
And more beautiful than any woman had the right to be.
She made him feel weak, but he understood that now. She made him feel mortal. As if he was nothing at all but a man.
And that, his mother had assured him, was the point.
Vulnerability is joy, if you let it hold you, she had said.You’ll see.
And he had wanted that to be true, back in England in all of that damp and gray.
