Chapter 198

Chapter 281: Epithalamion

"Is it over?" asked Lord Arnav, making a movement as though to look over his shoulder.

"Not yet!" Kushi yelped from behind him, "These laces are so delicate I'm afraid if I dress too hastily, I might disintegrate them into white dust."

Lord Arnav chuckled from where he sat on the bed, his back turned to his wife who was on the other side of the bed, dressing into the night robe that he had gifted her.

"You shouldn't have let Mia go into all this trouble, really," protested Kushi as she fumbled with the ribbons at the waist of her robe, "I am afraid I will never be able to thank her enough for this heavenly creation of hers! She has done a marvellous work, I tell you."

Lord Arnav sighed, "Will you quit your speech of gratitude and get your dressing over with? I am beginning to contemplate Mia's dismissal from the Industry for making a robe that takes an hour to be garbed into!"

"You mustn't!" Kushi was alarmed, "She deserves a promotion and not a dismissal! Besides, I am done and you can turn..."

She didn't have to complete her sentence entirely for, as soon as she had said her dressing was done, Lord Arnav had shot up and spun were he stood to get a good glimpse of her.

Spellbound, he stared at her, gaping in admiration of her beauty and in pride of her apparel. Stepping aside slowly to get a better view, he dared not blink as he drank in the vision of her ethereal loveliness, garbed in angelic white, the spaces in the laces exposing her pearly skin beneath and the satin robe wrapped in perfect embrace of her feminine curves.

Kushi shifted uneasily where she stood, feeling his not-so-innocent eyes burning every inch of her into his memory. She could feel the heat of her blood rising with every step he took towards her, like a cougar circling its hunted prey, studying it, desiring it and initiating its ravishing appetite before diving in for the inevitable kill.

Kushi wet her lips nervously, as he sauntered around her until he was behind her, whereupon reaching, she felt his fingers through her plait, undoing the neat knots. With closed eyes, Kushi waited till he had entirely liberated her painstakingly plaited hair and let it hang down to its alluring length.

Now that he had done to her hair what he fancied of it, she expected him to step aside or before her, but instead, he continued fidgeting with it again, this time, placing something on the crest of her head.

Startled, she looked up to her husband's careful fingers donning a beautiful lace veil over her.

Tears sprung in her eyes. He really did mean to do it the ritualistic way.

Sighing, she remarked, "You do know it's the father of the bride who puts the virginal veil on her."

"Forgive me for the slip in that obligation," said Lord Arnav, devotedly occupied in the veil, "On both accounts, I have had to stand in for your father's absence and do it for you."

"Both accounts?"

"You will remember our wedding..."

Kushi remembered, indeed, and consequently a blush crossed her cheeks.

After her veil was positioned right, Lord Arnav came to stand before her to regard his gorgeous wife in her bridal purity.

Kushi looked around, uneasiness beginning to get to her reasoning, "Are there any more rituals, my lord?"

A devious gleam lit in his intense eyes as he smirked, "None but one."

"And which is that?" The words of query were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. The moment she asked it, she wished she hadn't.

Wild desire swam in the smoky depths of his eyes as he neared her, "That of Love. Our Poieo-Eros."

Kushi gulped, her eyes unblinkingly staring at him.

In one swift move, his strong arms lifted her off the floor.

The trip was presumed short with just a three-step distance from the bed, but Kushi couldn't resist the need to wrap her arms around his neck, perhaps just to feel secure.

Lord Arnav didn't take his eyes off her and she found it hard to look away too.

"Kiss me, my bride," he whispered longingly. Her lips curved in a smile before she inclined her head towards his and complied, her lips pressing gently upon his. The moment her soft lips made contact with his hard ones, he overpowered the kiss and delved deeper in the uncontrollable lure of their desires.

Her hands encouragingly caressed his hair as her senses drowned in the dizzying warmth of his wet mouth, so much so she was not aware that he had begun moving. It was only after he had taken several steps forward that she realized they were not in their room any longer but descending down the stairs.

Instantly, the spell broke and she withdrew her lips to look around in shock, "Where are we going? Why are we-?"

Petrified that someone might see them, she tried to wrap her robe tighter around her revealing lace attire.

"Everyone is bed and won't stir until dawn," Lord Arnav assured her in a low voice, but the mortified look didn't fade on her face.

"Where are we going?" she asked in an urgent whisper.

"It's a surprise," murmured Lord Arnav, as he took long strides across the living room, making the passage swift and soundless so as not to rouse the household of their venturing.

As they emerged out of the central doors, a blast of cold wind met them, and she shivered from the chill that penetrated easily through her flimsy night robe.

Lord Arnav embraced her closer to his chest, wanting to keep her warm against his skin, and he proceeded his hasty steps down the garden and across the lawn until, to Kushi's bewilderment, they were before the towering rosebush.

In excited horror, Kushi noticed how the obscure dark leaves shadowed the touch of moonlight upon it. The rosebush had a haunted melancholic feel about it, like it was watching them and beckoning them into its dark seclusion.

Kushi looked at her husband, "Why are we here?"

Lord Arnav looked at her, "This is where I want to make you mine."

"But why here?" Kushi was unconvinced.

He didn't answer, a grim light appearing in his eyes, but she refused to comply without a reason and so asked, "Is it because we first met here?

Lord Arnav looked at her, a relieved expression on his face, "Indeed, is this not where it all began."

Hesitant, Kushi looked up at the foreboding green structure and then turned to him, "If it is what you wish, my lord, I shall not object."

His eyes glazed as he looked at her in deep adoration, "Kushi, if you hadn't...how empty my life would-" His voice broke with emotion, unable to string coherent words together, but after a pause he managed to confess with conviction, "Kushi...You are the best thing that ever happened to me."

A gratified teardrop slid down Kushi's cheek and then he was pulling her into another passionate kiss, dispelling her spatial and temporal senses for a moment. When she was aware of the night air again, she realized that they were in a place she had never been in before.

As Lord Arnav let her alight slowly, her toes touching the grassy ground first, she walked away from him, looking around in astonishment at the emerald bastion they were enveloped in.

Tall walls of the mighty rosebush loomed all around them, encircling them in the grassy heart of its green citadel. It almost felt like they were engulfed in the pits of a circular well of darkness, with a wide expanse of clearing in the centre that was permitted only a sparing of dazzling moonlight.

Wonderstruck by the eerie beauty of the place, Kushi felt herself transported into the setting of a forgotten fairytale. The stars overhead, bright in their violet bed, shone down on her and danced in her excited eyes.

Moving closer to where his raptured wife stood, Lord Arnav let his fingers leisurely brush upon her arm. She looked up at him and, though his face that bend over hers was in a shadow, she could see hunger roaring in his dark eyes.

"Kushi," he uttered her name in a coarse tone dipped in heavy desire, and then he was pulling her to him. His heated hands eagerly grazed up her arms and shoulders until he was cupping her face. Titling his head to hers, he possessed her trembling lips, burning them in a passionate kiss that branded her as his, rousing the woman in her to awaken with blind cravings.

His tongue was unusually heated that night and his demanding grip of her insane with desire. Her mind swooned and the night slipped into a wordless languor. Everything happened so fast she could barely make sense of herself. And yet there was a terse slowness to the sequence of the night's ritual.

She vaguely recollected his rough hands pulling and tearing at her clothes, her fingers fumbling at his buttons, his strong chest pressing down on her as her naked back crushed the cold grass underneath her, his firm fingers kneading and fondling her in places that made her gasp and moan, her fingers grasping at his hair and digging into his back as he ravished her being with searing, wet kisses.

In the midst of the inexorable wildness and the ravenous demands, a strange darkness emerged and Kushi found herself helplessly pulled into the dizzying depths of the void that left her both empty and complete.