The man who emerged out of the darkness, looming over her instantly, crying out her name as he held her close should have scared the hell out of Anandi.
Glittering, rabid eyes, rimmed with red, the expression in them far from lucid, eyes that looked demonic in their intensity.
A face that had once been classically handsome, now shadowed and covered with rough stubble, rendered harsh and rigid through clenched pain, set into lines of ugly despair.
The wild disordered hair, once so beautifully kept, that seemed to swoop low over drawn brows hooded over an expression of unbearable anguish, of madness.
The sleekly muscled body, always encased in tailored formals, always smelling of expensive cologne, always perfection.
Now that same body, sweating, stained with dirt and dust, steaming and musky, in a torn sweater with gaping holes where angry hands had ripped at the tattered seams.
Any normal woman would have screamed in fear, and rightly so, at having been suddenly grabbed and imprisoned by such a man.
Anandi, being Anandi, breathed his name, her voice rapt, her heart at peace, and closed her eyes in joy.
She was home.
And as he held tightly, as if never to let go, hugging her with all his might, he softly whispered into her hair 'Anandi! My own Anandi! Forever!' Tenderness flooded Anandi, as this kind, gentle, loving man breathed his dearest wish softly, tentatively, into her hair, asking if she was his, his to keep, forever.
Softly she lifted him, cupping that incredible, masculine face in her hands.
She looked into his eyes, pools of warm honey, eyes that were melting and calm, now that the storm of desire and need had been slaked. She touched her neck, indicating her mangalsutra. Very firmly, holding the proof of their marriage up to his eyes she said -- "Forever. Not from today, but from the day I put this on. Forever"
Shiv touched the black beads, kissing the creamy neck that held them safe, stroking the small pendant that spelled out her connection to him. The connection that she had honored all this while, ever since the moment he had married her, and now pledged that she would go on honoring their bond, forever. Something tight, a coiled tension from years of loneliness seemed to dissolve instantaneously within him. The throbbing ache melted away, his heart healing instantly, as if her words had entered that battered organ and made it whole. As if his heart had known all along that she was the cure.
Only one question remained, the one that washed away any spectre of Jagya, any shadow suggesting that anyone other than Shiv was in Anandi's heart. He knew her heart, now that it beat as his own. He had realized he had been lied to, that he had allowed his enemy to make a mockery of his marriage. He knew that from the moment last evening when he had realized Anandi was really there. He knew it from what she had symbolically done, from the fact that she came back adorned as his bride.
But still he asked anyways--"Never anyone else's? Always only mine?" this time looking at her intently, his own eyes brimming with hope and intense love and emotion. He would trust her answer,accept whatever she said in response. A burning sense of possession engulfed him and tears spilt out from some underground well buried deep inside him when she sat up, placed her hand on his heart and her head on his shoulder repeating over and over "Never anyone else's. Always, only yours. Always, only yours."
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