I saw a prompt and decided to go for it! Thanks lickitysplit for looking over this and loving it so much!


-I Think He'll Love It-

The summons to go to Edinburgh for the evening and guard Gelda was a relief. Training had been particularly grueling that day. He'd had his first true assignment given to him by Meliodas to see just how far the younger had come. Zeldris was to go solo after a criminal in the demon realm and take his life in the name of the Demon King. The tracking, the patience, the thrumming bloodlust charging beneath his skin, all leading up to the final encounter where his blade sprayed blood in the air wound the demon up rather far.

Seeing Gelda will most definitely unwind him… and most likely draw out his softer undertones with hardly any effort.

The castle of Edinburgh stands unmatched in its kingdom, highlighted in the spilling moonlight through the clouds drifting over the night. Anticipation burns beneath his skin, though he hardly shows it except in the way his cheeks flush just a bit and his fingers curl, twitchy, at his sides. He and Gelda have been unbelievably close since his namesake day, stealing kisses from one another when possible, and curling against each other beneath trees to stare at the stars or beneath the sheets whenever he's daring enough to sneak into her room just because he misses her.

His stomach does that funny thing whenever he thinks about her, filling with fluttery feelings and all sorts of gooey warmth that makes him uncomfortable, yet happy all the same. He knows so much about her now, her likes, her fears, her wishes, her dreams, her talents, even her nitpicks. And he knows he's only just scratching the surface. He can see it whenever he's looking into her eyes blue like crystals that she wants to tell him everything about herself, even if that means they have to be together for the rest of their lives.

The demon now dons a full facial flush, turning away from the guard at the front gate in an attempt to hide it. The very prospect is astounding, that one such as she would want to possibly spend her existence with him. He certainly wants to spend his life with her. He loves her undeniably. His hearts thudding erratically in his chest makes his hands tremble. He loves Princess Gelda… not that he's ever told her directly. While he knows so much about her, she's seen glimpses of him through his devotion, his stuttered displays, and the quiet confessions he's made to her when he's felt most vulnerable and yet completely secure with her. Would that even be enough of her to truly return the sentiment? She knows of his heritage, has seen him punch someone in her defense… but she hasn't seen what he can really do.

What he did this afternoon.

"Lord Zeldris," the gruff sound of the guard behind him brings his focus more outward and the demon rounds to face him. "King Izraf asked specifically that you not take an eye off his daughter tonight, is that understood?"

The request is… odd, to say the least. When has he not been careful with Gelda, guarding her with his life? He barks out an affirmative just as another guard brings the Princess into view, and… oh. It all makes sense to his temporarily stunned mind now.

Gelda, as lovely as ever in a pastel sundress that suits the muggy evening, hair perfectly braided across her shoulder, literally hangs off the arm of the man escorting her face a deep red as she giggles quite drunkenly. Her blue eyes are hazed. Zeldris watches with an abruptly dry throat, as she nearly stumbles if not for the guard guiding her. "I can… hehehe… walk just fine!"

The guard looks uncertain with how to handle the Princess and quickly hands her over to a stiff Zeldris. "She's all yours."

Zeldris looks down at the girl buckled into his arms, clutching his sleeves as she giggles at something funny to her, and something swoops in his stomach content at the thought. "Assure the King I'll protect her tonight as always." He doesn't wait to hear a response as he wraps an arm around the unstable girl's waist and begins to lead her carefully from the kingdom.

A drunk Gelda? He has to hear the story of how this happened.

~.~.~

Just shy of the village he took Gelda to hunt in last, Zeldris looks to the blond seeing her stare in seeming awe at the rolling clouds and sparkling stars. The cute little circle of her mouth makes him want to lean over and plant a quick kiss on her cerise lips. Instead he focuses on the warmth of her curves pressed against him and the scent of her when he asks, "What made you drink so much, Gelda?"

She jolts in his hold and snaps her head to face him with wide blue eyes that make him more than flustered. "Oh, you're here too!" She laughs light and clear before poking a finger at his cheek. "I drank to celebrate 2000 years of Edinburgh, Sir Guard!" She chortles as he brings them to a stop, blinking slowly at her word choice. She continues as if not noticing his change, her cheeks plump with her smile. "My father shared with me aged wine! I only had one… one glass." She holds up two fingers and he's not sure which number she means.

But still, he looks into her eyes hardly seeing any recognition there and asks as his fingers curl anxiously into her side, "Do you know who I am?"

She squints and hums, then nearly stumbles even though they're not moving, though he makes sure to hold her upright. Then she's shaking her head like a kid, only to make herself dizzier when she leans more heavily against him. "Umm, noo… but you look very cute Sir Guard!" She giggles with a cute hiccup at the end and he realizes it would be quite troubling to kiss her if she doesn't recognize him in this state. "But I'm with someone else handsomer than you named, Zeldris, so you can't have me~!" She stresses the name, clearly finding it hard to pronounce in her drunken state before reaching out a slender finger to poke his cheek once more as if to tease him about his apparent loss.

'Ouch. Should I take that as an insult?' His lips turn up a bit as he gazes at the slightly swaying vampire, adoring. "He's very lucky."

She surprises him by suddenly beaming more brilliant than a star streaking across the sky. "I am too."

The smile that was setting his skin ablaze morphs into a little pout just when his sensitive hearing hears a grumble from her stomach. "I'm hungry…"

'Right. The village.' "I'll get you something to eat, Gelda." As much as he trusts her to make her own decisions… tonight her coordination is more than off, so he'll have to do the hunting for her. It only takes a few moments of companionable silence, or more like Gelda's muffled laughs as she finds humor in the simplest things while Zeldris quietly tries to make out her words, before he finds a good tree to sit her under that overlooks the village. He rests his hands on the smooth skin of her shoulders, soaking in her warmth as she blinks up at him completely trusting even in this state. "Stay here. I'll bring you back something to eat."

Before he can remove his hands, she's slurring out, "You promise?"

He lets her see a gentle smile as he nods. "I do."

Her fingers curl in the grass as she grins and leans back against the bark of the tree, the sundress slipping down one shoulder just a tad as she does so. "Okay!"

A short pause and a swallow at the display of skin, then he recalls she doesn't remember him, and he pulls away with a cough. Just when he's about to be out of earshot from her, Zeldris notices sweet tones drifting on the wind.

~.~.~

His mind has monitored the pulse of her energy from the moment she was out of his sight and so far she's stayed in place as he asked. Finding a man out in the dead of night was easy, breaking his neck and throwing him over his shoulder a simple task compared to the tracking he did from early morning until late afternoon when going after his target earlier that day. This kill was practically child's play, he only has to hope that Gelda will appreciate the flavor of blood. That's a matter he'll never truly understand.

When he approaches her, he hears that sound once more, realizing it's humming. Gelda humming to be precise. His eyes widen in quiet wonder trying to listen to the dulcet sounds filling his blood with a pleasant shock, but she sees him and the sound fades with the excitement of his arrival. "Sir Guard, you came back with food!"

He smirks at the childlike persona she takes, inwardly pleased that she seems so happy in this state. "I told you I would, did I not?" He settles the still warm body beside her and watches as her eyes take on a ravenous look, similar yet different than what he's seen when they've kissed heavily sometimes, their hands gripping and roaming as pleasure built under their skins like geysers waiting to erupt. The dark shade roughly coating the blue of her eyes is different as she prepares to lunge at the man, but similar enough that heat burns up the back of his neck and he has to look away.

The enthusiastic moan she emits as she drinks makes him squirm beside her as a hot warmth settles deeply into his skin. If only his Gelda knew what she did to him with just a smile… or a simple noise from her succulent lips. Actually he's sure she probably knows from that barely there smile she likes to give when he attempts to cover up the effects she has on him.

"That was wonderful!" She sighs out drawing his eyes to her face. "I'm so full!" She sways over the man with a contented smile. Then her eyes land on Zeldris and she grins in the way he was just thinking of making him shiver despite the warmth of the night. "You look at me funny."

He looks down and shakily pulls out the handkerchief from his pocket he brings with them for moments like these. "It's because you have a little something on your face." Of course, it's more than a little something this time. He was right in saying her coordination was off. He curls his fingers around her shoulder still exposed when her dress slipped down a bit and begins to wipe away at the blood.

"Thank you." She coos as moonlight glimmers in her eyes, taking his breath away momentarily. Her talking making it more difficult to wipe precisely causing him to chuckle fondly when he can breathe. When he pulls away she shakes her head as if remembering, "No, that's not it! You… you remind me of Zeldris," she gasps loudly here and wraps her hands around his prompting him to listen closely to her new discovery. "Sir Guard, can you… can you listen to something I want him to hear, please?"

"Of course." He gently turns his hands underneath hers so her hands are captured within his. 'What could she possibly want me to hear? She seems so earnest…' he watches as she gains a deep concentration, her thin eyebrows knitting together as she seemingly thinks hard about something. Then she relaxes as her mouth opens and the silvery tones he'd heard before hit him full force in a poem determined to make it so that the only thing keeping him tethered is his unsteady hold on her delicate hands.

"You are, you are, the one for me.
The one I live for, my demon.
Your danger, your smile, your touch,
your everything makes me smile.
I am in love with you, Zeldris,
because together, we're complete."

She appears so blissful as her lips fall shut revealing yet another talent of hers in such a simple way. The vampire he knew from the moment his eyes landed on her would become precious to him, makes it clear everyday why he loves her, why he'd give his life for her, and do everything he can to keep her happy. It's strange how his face now burns darker than hers as he looks down at their clasped hands, his ears playing her words back again and again, memorizing them with an efficiency known to him. She loves him, is in love with a dark creature like him that'd do anything for her.

A soft yawn breaks him out of his entranced state engulfed by the pressure of his elated hearts and up into the almost shy way her hazy eyes seek approval. "Do you think he'll like it?"

He wraps an arm around her waist becoming her cushion when her head finds the crook of his shoulder, not for the first time and definitely not the last, and murmurs tenderly for her to know, "I think he'll love it."

~.~.~

A pitiful moan bubbles up from her lips as her eyes creak open. Returning to the land of the living has never been so painful before, Gelda feels as she raises a hand to clutch at her throbbing skull determined to crack open and spill its contents. 'What happened?' She thinks back to the celebration of Edinburgh and drinking a single glass of extremely aged wine. That's what must have caused the horrendous ache in her skull and sick churning of her guts. But what happened after? She recalls her demeanor changing drastically as the alcohol mingled in her blood like a pleasant bubbling through her veins. She wanted to go out. Though her father, only mildly tipsy from his drink, had been against the idea with Gelda being so… off.

She moans in dismay, turning herself over so that her face is buried into her pillows to muffle the sound as she remembers the way she'd stomped her foot in a way she hadn't even when she'd been a child, petulant in demanding she be let out to hunt. He father had relented, probably not knowing how to handle the drunk vampire and in part from his own buzz. And not long after she'd been taken to…

"Oh please no!" She lifts a pillow and covers her head as heat pricks every inch of her skin the burn of her embarrassment is so great. She'd been taken to Zeldris! And she hadn't even recognized him! "I said he wasn't as handsome as himself!? How does that even make sense!?" The princess whines into her cocoon of shame, hoping to disappear and never recall a single instance of the evening prior. But it all comes back in stark clarity, her childish antics the demon seemed okay with handling.

She's just beginning to calm with deep slow breaths, wincing in time with her heartbeat as pangs twist through her skull when the end of the evening drifts effortlessly to the forefront of her mind. Her hands lose their grip on the pillow covering her head and she pushes up slightly with tension squeezing the air straight from her lungs. She sang her poem. The poem she worked hard on for hours on end, hummed until she knew it backwards and forwards, the love confession she'd planned to express in a time and place far more romantic than a drunken evening over a dead man's body!

Her hands claw over her face, threatening to make her sick as she trembles and struggles to catch her breath. "Oh heavens, what did I…!?" Just before the pressure in her skull can burst in the form of tears the way his arm settled around her reaches her in a soothing stretch of warmth, his soft admittance brushing through her ears a heartfelt answer to her prayers.

"I think he'll love it."

The guy of her dreams returning her sentiments, even after seeing her in such a childish state... What more could she ask for?

Knock! Knock!

The sudden knocks resounding like drills to her skull is not one of the things on her wish list.

"Her Highness, I bring you a remedy from the palace healer." One of her helper maids informs Gelda as she enters the princess' chamber.

Gelda groans as she pushes her body to sit against her headboard, finding herself still clad in the now rumpled sundress from the day before. When the woman hands Gelda the glass of warm liquid, the blond simply drinks it and sighs heavily once she feels a soothing blanket settle over the throb in her skull dampening it greatly. She turns blue eyes to the ravenette waiting patiently at her bedside and asks quietly. "Did Lord Zeldris bring me here?"

The maid nods with arms crossed at her front. "Yes. Carried you right on up himself."

She hides the way her lips fight to curve up wildly by taking a sip of the muddy brown liquid that sears right down her throat. She lets out a puff of breath as the candlelight in her room flickers in her eyes highlight her forming plan. She'll see him that night for sure, because no matter how ridiculous she behaved before him, he said he'd love her poem sung from the heart.

She wants to hear it straight from his lips without anything influencing her actions but her own heart.

~.~.~

Gelda clings to his arm at his side as they distance themselves from Edinburgh, her expression pensive, the vampire having not said hardly a word to him since they left the gates. His brows draw down as he considers this. Could she be upset with him over something? Does she remember last night and thinks he did something wrong then?

Anxiety washes cold and icy down his spine as he looks down at his boots pressing the grass down beneath them harshly. Should he apologize? He doesn't even hesitate in opening his mouth as he slides his hand down her arm, shakily wrapping their hands together hoping to convey his regret.

But she beats him to it.

"Zeldris, I'm sorry for how I behaved yesterday. I was…" He watches in shock as her expression flinches in a wince and answers begin to come to him about her possible silence.

She remembers…

It's an utter relief and a jet of nerves down his spine all at once, but he squashes it for the moment as he guides them to a stop. He brings a hand to her cheek, his fingers brushing stray hair behind her ear as he smirks sharply. "You were cute and mine to handle."

He's pretty sure she can see the confidence of his words wavering in the flush that rises to his cheeks, but it all pays off in the end when she smiles wide and knowing. "You did not think to tell me who you were?"

A laugh escapes him with hardly any effort mingling with her giggle, and the adoration he feels for her burns right to the surface. "From what I've learned you don't make a happy drunk sad, even I'm not that cruel." He internally cringes at the blatant lie, knowing he's done things infinitely worse than the equivalent to making a drunk cry.

He sighs, then swallows against the shudder of anticipation that buds beneath his skin, knowing that this must be what she's been thinking of all day long, waiting to know for certain, the reason for her silence until now. He peers into her blue eyes as his thumb brushes just behind her ear eliciting a soft shiver from her in the warmth of the evening and quietly tells her, "I don't care if you're the unaffected princess, the strong, blissful girl standing with me now, or the childish drunk from last night. Whatever side of you… show me them all. I'll love them with everything I have." The fierce undertone of his quiet confession surprises even him as he stares unflinching into her eyes rapidly dewing with tears.

Zeldris see the reciprocation building in her throat and can't allow himself to hear it without her knowing that she's making a mistake. "Gelda, you can't… don't say you can love me when you haven't seen how dangerous I can be. You've seen me defend you… but I can be so much worse." He looks away from her stricken expression, insides twisting like the blade of a sword he's run through man and he grounds out, "So much worse."

"Zeldris." The snap of her voice is instant and brings his eyes to hers set on him sharply, unyielding, and flooded with such love he feels foolish for even doubting her feelings for a second. "I can choose for myself how I feel. I do recall telling you I want to marry you one day, didn't I?" She reminds him as she presses forward, wrapping him up in her arms as he sighs against her head, feeling his muscles ease of tension as her every curve settles against him. "I'm in love with you. I know what I'm getting myself into, Zeldris…"

The nervous, floundering, fool he usually turns into around her, is somehow quelled by Zeldris, allowing for him to slide his hands around her waist, and lift her in the air to hear her melodic giggles as he twirls her around in a little spin. Gazing up at her with a content grin built solely on the way she makes him feel—happy, elated, overcome with the need to simply have her in his arms—Zeldris smirks up at his dream back dropped by the starlit sky as something akin to mischief flares up in his eyes. She sees it and her fingers curl into his shoulders a warning of his name already falling off of her lips, but he's too strung high from his emotions to give in.

He falls onto his back, taking all off the force of their combined weight with barely a wince as Gelda squeals in surprise. Then he rolls, pinning her beneath him as his lips seek hers. She melts into him like sweet honey, and he rolls her flavor into his mouth with a groan, massaging her lips with his own as his tongue dips into the heat of her taste. She shivers beneath him, arching every divine curve into his body as her fingers work into his hair, her nails grazing his scalp in a maddeningly good way. His hearts begin to pump the rising need through him swiftly making him hyper aware of the soft sighs she breathes down his throat, and the way her thighs wrap like vices around his waist. His kisses become more aggressive as the pressure builds against his skull, his instincts driving him onward, pressing his fingers into the sides of her soft flesh.

She's wonderful, so perfect beneath him as they shift and shudder, awakened to new feelings they've brushed against in the past few weeks. She makes another sound once more, like liquid molten pooling straight to his groin and his thoughts slip further away, only her taste, her touch, her scent mattering to him now. Her other fingers slide along his cheek, her thumb brushing the mark that's pulsing against his skin, the sensation like caressing the beast that lies just under it. Zeldris lets out a throaty growl against her mouth feeling his hips roll up between her legs, his stiff problem meeting the heat forming there as she moans low and wanton.

"Shit." His mind is jabbed by the frosty realization of his actions as he peels open his eyes to see Gelda staring up at him laid out beneath him, hot and bothered, with eyes trained solely on him to fix it. He struggles to swallow against the dry heat in his throat and turns away from the tempting look in her eyes. "I'm sorry—"

"I've felt it before, Zeldris," She utters in a titillatingly low voice that singes heat across his ears. "It was a surprise the first time, but I've taken lessons… I know what a man and woman do, Zeldris. We're in love. We're going to do this one day."

When he turns back to her, shocked all over again by her, and struggling to rein in his desires, he catches her on her elbows, her lips curved up coyly. "You're the only man who I'll allow to have their way with me."

The images come unbidden in his mind; her bare of any stitch under him, dusted in the sweat of their own creation, flushed in a deep shade of pink, wailing from pleasure from him driving into her again and again—

He sits up entirely, pulling away from her in order to breathe and press the heel of his palm against the mark now scorching against his skull. He has to have better control over himself, damn it!

"Was I too presumptuous in thinking you'd want that?" She asks softer this time, as if his reaction meant he's opposed to the idea.

He looks at her when his hand falls away from the mark spiraled over his left eyebrow and practically gapes at her in astonishment. "More like poking at the beast, asking for him to pounce."

She practically sags in relief before moving over to him in higher spirits. "Oh, you mean like… this!" Her finger pokes his cheek in an all too familiar way that forces laughter out of both of them, easing the tension from them completely. She settles into his arms after their laughter dies down, and he gingerly takes in her scent and the soft way her tresses brush against his cheek. When she sighs her love against the skin of his neck, he curls tighter against her, thinking of her poem and finding it more than true.

Together, we're complete.