But for now I am yours alone.”
“For now?” He was instantly alert.
“Because I love you does not mean I can deny my destiny when it is time,” Lara said quietly. “I have never hidden this from you, Vartan. I know you have hoped, but while my time is not yet, the day will come when I must leave you to fulfill that destiny.” She kissed his mouth tenderly. “We must take what we can, and while we can, my love.”
“How can you be so brave when my heart is breaking at the thought of ever losing you? You are my life,” he said to her.
“You will never lose me, Vartan. I may go away, but I will always love you,” Lara told him. “Do not think of that distant tomorrow, my lord and my love. Think of the here and now. Think of the life we are meant to share, of the child I will bear you from this love that has grown between us.”
He sighed. It was a deep, almost painful sound. “We have time?” he asked her. “You are certain we have time?”
“So my mother says, and I would never dispute the word of a faerie queen,” Lara told him.
A small smile crept over his face. “Then, wife,” Vartan told her, “we had best make the most of that time.” And his arms wrapped about her, and his mouth found hers, and Lara wished that their time together would go on forever even though she knew better. Could happiness slow time? She didn’t know. But she could hope.
Bertrice Small
