Aaaand here is the VERY late chapter 4, after an unintentional hiatus. It was difficult to jump back into the swing of things. A thousand pardons! We will be moving along at speed, now. Enjoy, and please do review. :) Thank you very much to everyone for your patience! And thank you for reviewing, following, and favoriting! Seeing those notifications really, really helps!

The wedding feast was simple, but delightful. I had prepared a few of the dishes, myself, against the exasperated advice of Jasper, and I smiled around the table, hoping that they would be as pleasant to eat as they had been to cook. Kalin was sitting proudly upright beside me, overseeing everything with warm efficiency. Hammer's cheeks were burning with wine. She draped a heavy arm over Sabine's tiny shoulders and kissed him on the cheek, making the gruff old man blush furiously. Boulder was rolling around on the floor with Swift Rustbucket, whose attention seemed evenly divided between the giant mute and the feast; though the mechanized canine could not eat, he was always nosing for table scraps. It was one of many cunning attributes that made him seem real. I smiled at Professor Faraday, who raised his glass with a twinkle in his eye and winked. Mottled glass and paper lanterns cast soft colored lights over everything, lending everyone a surreal, dreamlike cast. But as I gazed at the faces of my friends, the warmth of my husband's hand on my thigh never diminished, never faded to the back of my mind. His touch was hypnotic, like the scent of his skin and the low laughter that rumbled from his throat—slightly hoarse from singing—now and then.

Husband. It felt like a foreign word as I tested it in my mind. My…husband… What a dizzying idea that was… I was a bride. I was a wife. I had taken my first steps toward a growing family. I had a husband.

I turned my head and found that he was looking at me with a peculiar expression on his face. This man, who was both Adrian White and Reaver, seemed not to know what to do with the food on his plate. Nor, for that matter, did I. Neither of us had touched our food. As I gazed into his blue eyes—or were they brown? They seemed to change from day to day—I felt the familiar flutter of butterflies taking wing in my belly, and warmth flooded into my face. He was looking at me as though he had never seen anything quite like me in his long, long life. When the others called out remarks to him, he answered immediately with the usual amount of cheek and bawdy sarcasm, but his expression never changed, and his eyes never left my face.

"Do you know, I think I have rather lost my taste for parties. Will you come and dance with me, ma chérie?" he whispered conspiratorially, holding his hand out to me with casual elegance.

"I would be honored," I murmured back with a grin.

I took his hand and stood, nodding to our guests, some of whom waved us off with knowing looks and winks. Reaver tucked my hand into the crook of his arm and covered it with his, leading me away from the party. But instead of taking us to the ballroom, where everyone who had the fortitude to be awake so long into the night was still dancing, he swept past it, through a passage that led to the back garden.

The full moon shone brightly above us as we walked across the grass. The breeze was comfortably cool, and the statues of Logan, Theresa, and Walter warmed my heart as we passed them. It all seemed to fit, somehow. Each time I visited Theresa's memorial statue, I felt that I was reaffirming the weighty decisions I had made. The Haven was nearly fully operational. Her final wish would be realized. I turned to Walter, my father, and smiled. It was he who should have given me away, today, I thought with a small pang of grief. But I felt certain that his spirit was at peace, wherever he was. Though my family was mostly in the ground, now, I still had my brother, which was more than some could say, and I had a husband who loved me. I knew that I must not take that luxury for granted. My walk with Reaver in the garden near the family crypt could either be a celebration of life, or a grim reminder that all things must come to an end in time.

I chose celebration.

Reaver placed the hand that was on his arm on his shoulder, holding my other hand in his and assuming a rigid, practiced posture.

"You really wish to dance?" I asked, giggling a little. When was the last time I had giggled? ...Never. 'Unnaturally somber child,' Jasper used to say with a sigh. The thought made me giggle even more, until tears blurred my vision. I found that I liked it very much.

"Of course," he said with wounded nobility. "I did ask, didn't I?"

"But there is no music. The bards are inside."

"What should we care for music?" he scoffed, flicking a lock of hair behind my ear and stroking my cheek with one finger. "I wish to dance. You wish to dance. What else matters?"

"Why do I feel as though there is more to your words than what you say?" I asked with a small smile as we began to sway together.

"Because you are absurdly intelligent," he answered, slowly bowing over me in an expertly executed dip. His hair fell into his eyes as he gazed down at me. "It is one of your better traits, though it sometimes vexes me, if I may be completely honest. It very nearly got us both killed not long ago. …And it saved my life in more ways that I shall ever be able to comprehend."

I waited for him to speak again, sensing that he had not yet come to the point, but needed no prodding. He pressed his lips to my brow, his eyes flicking over to the railing that looked over Bowerstone Industrial for the barest moment. I did not see him do this, but somehow, I knew he did it all the same. What is this? I thought, shaken. Theresa, why did you pass this gift to me? Is your long vigil still necessary? Will it ever really be over?

No, I decided with a sorrowful smile. Nothing really ends. Not truly. That was life's great tragedy, and also its great beauty. We lived in an ever-shifting paradox. Theresa knew it. I knew it, too, now.

"Rose…" Reaver spun me away, then back into his arms, and the word was a soft breath over my ear and neck. "We were alive three centuries ago. And yet, Albion carries on as usual, under the impression that we were only gone for a week. There is no one left to remember what we did. Though you restored my name and my humanity, I cannot help but feel further from my countrymen than ever before, and between you and I, that is saying something. You are the only creature I can abide, now. I need nothing else. Is that quite healthy, do you think?"

I pondered his words, rolling them over in my mind as we danced. "It is not healthy," I decided at last. "Or, it would not be, if the circumstances were different. We share a bond greater than most people can attain. We share a life force."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Does that raise us above ordinary people, then, do you suppose?"

"No!" I said immediately, more harshly than I meant to. It was a sore subject. I softened my tone and stroked his cheek. "No, Adrian. That is a trap into which we must never fall. It would mean the end of everything we have worked and suffered for."

"So serious, as usual," he chuckled into my hair. "Are we still at war, then? I thought we had dispatched all of our enemies and earned a life of peace. A few brats would not be unwelcome, as a matter of fact. The timing seems right, don't you think? I am, after all, working so very hard at being respectable."

"And a very fine job you do, at that, my love," I replied. The thought of children shook me to the core, for some reason. A strange feeling washed over me, and I glanced down at my hard, flat stomach pensively.

Garth.

The thought was in my mind with such abruptness that I nearly jumped. I was seized with the inexplicable conviction that I must speak with Garth as soon as possible. But he was on his way to the Haven, seeing to its final stages. He had gone away by carriage the moment the wedding ceremony ended. I brought a hand to my abdomen, frowning as the strange, worried thought rolled over and over in my head. Tell Garth.

"Tsk. You'll give yourself lines if you go on like that, you know. Do stop your incessant thinking, Rose, and come along with me," Reaver murmured enticingly, turning my thoughts to so much smoke as I lost myself in his half-lidded eyes. "This is our wedding night, and I seem to recall promising you a very enjoyable evening."

He pulled me away from the statues and the view of Bowerstone, turning into a secluded place surrounded by thick, riotous rose bushes and may hedges. The soil around the grass was spilling over with hydrangeas, wild strawberries, daisies, lilies, bluebells, irises, honeysuckle, and night-blooming jasmine. The blended scents were intoxicating. My hand shook slightly in Reaver's, and he squeezed it gently. Then, to my utter astonishment, the vain, impeccably-dressed man sat comfortably on the damp grass, removing his coat and spreading it out beside him.

"Sit," he commanded softly, slowly tapping the jacket with his forefinger.

"What's come over you?" I asked somewhat worriedly as I knelt beside him. "I've never seen you so serious. Even in battle, you laugh and soliloquize like a lunatic skald."

He leaned backward on his hands, looking up at the sky. "I believe this may be what poets and fools call 'peace'," he said at length. "I have never been peaceful in my life. I always wanted more and more and more. Now, I want for almost nothing. I am…content. It is a bit disquieting." He glanced rakishly at me, leaning forward to plant a warm kiss my neck. "I am rather lost, now that I am content," he whispered beguilingly. "Don't you feel sorry for me, ma belle?"

I shivered as his lips moved sensuously against me. "Not at all," I managed to say, breathing just a bit more heavily, now. "I kept my word. You have received the greatest gift it was in my power to give you."

"Mmmm." He nuzzled the hollow of my throat, and I felt the rumble of his voice in my chest. "Your love?"

"No," I laughed, running my fingers through his dark, immaculate hair. It was softer than silk, spilling through my hands like cool water. "Your freedom. Your identity, that quintessential spark of life that belongs to you, and you alone. Loving you was not a calculated choice. It was an inevitability. You and I were made to be enemies in a war spanning centuries. Yet, as the Dark Seer knew, when one fully knows her enemy, she will begin to truly understand him, and when she does, she will see him with the eyes of a child…unbiased, uneducated…and love him. In a way, she gave you my love."

Reaver sighed deeply, drawing away from me and closing his eyes. "Rose, sometimes you are pure agony to be around. After everything we've endured, you now suggest that there was goodness even in the blasted shade witch? I might have known. It is absolutely disgusting…and it is so very like you. I sometimes suspect that I love you precisely for the things I hate about you. I suppose I deserve it, being a monster, myself. But really, Rose, the Dark Seer? You cannot be serious. It is one thing to love the whole world—you are ridiculously young, after all, so you can be forgiven for that kind of naivety—but the line between saintliness and insanity is paper-thin, my dear."

"She was part of a force for goodness; her inherent evil does not diminish this fact. Our love was made possible by her machinations, regardless of her intentions," I said gently, placing my hand over his. "But she did not take into account the possibility that I might love Theresa rather than resenting her, or that Theresa might love you rather than simply destroying you. And so, you destroyed the Dark Seer, turning her own weapon against her. You see, sometimes, as we stumble around in the dark, we accidentally crash headlong into an act of goodness. We may not mean to do it, but it is done, all the same. The Dark Seer was undone by her accidental act of goodness in fostering love between us, hoping to use my compassion against me." I drew my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them. "Our happiness came at a heavy price. So heavy that sometimes I worry that we do not deserve it. But since we have it, to waste it would be an even greater sin against those who paid for it." I gazed deeply into his eyes, willing him to understand. "So, you see, I cannot allow myself any regrets or grudges. They are as useless to the dead as they are to the living."

He stared at me. "Sometimes," he said slowly and deliberately, "I do not believe you are quite human."

"All too human, Adrian," I laughed merrily, brushing blades of grass from his waistcoat and trying to put him at ease. "I thought you'd seen enough of my frailties to notice by now."

He caught my wrist, swallowing it up in his large, strong hand, and I stopped laughing at once, glancing up at his face. His eyes had changed; he was looking at me in a predatory sort of way, intense, alert…hungry. I felt suddenly trapped, though escape was the furthest thing from my mind.

"I've noticed a great many things," he murmured, looming over me. I had no choice but to lean backward as he raised my arm over my head and guided me toward the ground. When my back touched the silk lining of his jacket, I drew a sharp breath and felt my heart skip in my chest. His eyes narrowed until I could only make out a small crescent of color beneath his long lashes. "The way your breathing changes when I touch you…" He traced my collar bone with the tip of his tongue, then brought his lips to it and drifted toward the center of my chest. "The way your heart beats harder when I do this…" His free hand massaged my hip, then slipped deftly beneath my skirt and brushed my calf before sliding higher to caress my thigh. He made slow circles over my skin with his thumb, and a small sound of helpless yearning escaped my lips.

"The feast," I protested weakly. "Our guests…"

He smirked. "Oh, no, we won't be going back to the feast, my dear. Kalin said that the men have their turn at mischief during an Auroran feast, as you will recall. Every time the groom leaves the table, any man in the room may kiss and fondle the bride! I cannot tolerate that."

"How selfish you are, Husband. And here I was so eagerly looking forward to snogging Jasper, or my brother," I sighed ironically. "You really ought to be thanking your lucky stars that Ben Finn is off adventuring in Samarkand. I had an agonizing crush on him, you know, when I was recruiting for the revolution. But alas! He had eyes only for Page…rather like someone else I know." I jabbed a playful elbow into his side. "Didn't you suggest that she might be lightning under the bed sheets? And I was gracious enough to let her throw things at you while you danced naked through the Treasury. I think I've earned a few kisses from nice men. Have you seen any about?"

Scanning the garden exaggeratedly, I began to rise, but Reaver caught my necklace—a wedding gift from Logan—with his thumb and pulled me steadily back to the ground. The chain dug uncomfortably into my skin, and I shot him a mutinous look, contemplating magical violence. My skin flared blue for several seconds.

Clearly, he could not have cared less for his safety or my discomfort. "I held back, you know," he purred. "Before we were married. I saw you as a little white flower, ephemeral and fragile…and also as a fully-grown tigress, not to be trifled with lightly. I was therefore very careful in my wooing, though it may not have seemed that way to you. But now…now, Rose, there will be no more caution, for by your own words, you are mine."

"As you are mine, sweet Prince," I retorted with a broad smile, cheerfully rising to his challenge. "I've held my own against a pirate king, you know; if you think you can intimidate me, you're sorely mistaken…and I will leave you very sore, indeed." I winked at him and raised one finger in warning. Sparks fluttered from its tip and settled into the grass.

He groaned and gave me a pained look. "I'd rather not be reminded of that. It was torture, having to hide in that wretched closet."

Sensing victory, I drove him mercilessly over the edge with a wistful smile, gazing vacantly into the distance. "Oh, but it was bliss. He was so…vigorous."

Reaver blinked disbelievingly and tilted his head as though he had been slapped. Then he smirked so deeply that his lip curled. In one fluid movement, he straddled me and gripped all of my hair in one loose fist—causing no pain at all, so utterly complete was his control…but with a message that rang out as clear as a bell: Do not forget who I am. If you take liberties with me, I shall repay you tenfold for your efforts.

He leaned very close to me, brushing my earlobe with his lips. "You ought to be careful, my love. Even reformed, I am still me. And I never let a debtor go until the debt is paid…with interest." I gasped and arched my back reflexively as he bit down and began to suck, tugging gently at my hair to expose more of that side of my neck. His tongue and teeth trailed downward until he found a sensitive place just below the corner of my jaw, and he let out a low growl of satisfaction as he pressed the full weight of his upper body against mine. His grip tightened, and something very hard brushed my hip and stroked my thigh. I felt its heat through our clothing. I felt-could almost see it in my mind-his blood rushing, filling him, making him throb and smolder against me. I could not reach for him, and he did not seem to mind in the least. I was immobilized, flushed and moaning softly, powerless to do anything about the blazing, iron-like length which strained against its cage of fabric, sliding relentlessly in strong, slow strokes along my inner thigh while he savored my neck, sucking, licking, kissing, biting... My eyelids fluttered, and my breaths grew shallower. It almost hurt. The air was cold as I drew it into my heaving chest. I saw stars and grew dizzier and dizzier, until it seemed as though the whole sky was spinning. I closed my eyes tightly. I was panting with desire and the overpowering warmth of male weight pressed against my body, bending me to his will. Taking me at his easy leisure. But refusing to sate me.

I felt alternating thrills of fire and ice dance through my veins as I realized just how desperately I wanted this. I loved everyone and everything with all of my soul, I truly did, but this did not alter the fact that I had been born to fight. I was a weapon, custom-made, molded to the specifications of a woman who had privately waged the longest, most brutal war in history. But my enemies were all dead, now, or else forgiven and therefore cherished. And I knew then that my heart was still breaking for them. I needed the righteous struggle, the taste of dust from the road, the sour smell of a bandit king's fear just before I brought him to his knees and spared his life. I knew it strayed dangerously close to an evil line of thought, but I needed it helplessly all the same. In this moment, I wanted not Adrian, but Reaver. My mortal enemy. My prisoner. My oppressor. My greatest love.

And he knew it. As he raised his head to look at me, there was a profound darkness in his eyes which I had not seen in months. But I knew that this darkness churned beneath the surface of his easy smirks every moment of every day. He did not often have the opportunity to release it, now.

I will give that to him, I thought fiercely. I would make my body, my very soul, into a dowry for this man. I would milk the poison from him and taste it for myself. I would know him fully…or not at all. Danger was my desire, and danger was coming, I knew that now, not from Reaver, but from somewhere within me. Garth, my mind pled again. Speak with Garth! I swept the thought away. All things in their time... I wanted my husband.

Time… the voice inside me whispered desperately, seizing the word like a life line. We are all prisoners of time. Even me. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry…

"Stop tormenting me and take what is yours, damn you!" I cried in a rush of shaky breath. I was almost writhing beneath him, now. This was important, though I did not know why, anymore. It went far, far beyond desire. I needed him to show me the darkness inside his mind, even if I had to rip it from him, myself. "That is, if you think you can…Reaver."

His long thumb untangled itself from my necklace and traced a slow, bold line toward the bust of my dress. His hands were clean and smooth, but unmistakably masculine, well-muscled, with strong veins; his grip, I knew, was like iron. I recalled with a shudder the way he had beaten his younger self nearly to death until I had intervened. Reaver mistook my shudder for a sign of fear and bared his white teeth in a predatory smile. "You rejected the wedding dress I picked out for you, ma minette. I thought you might, and I'm pleased that you did. This simple gown is much, much better. It is your favorite…and it will be less costly to replace."

I felt his thighs tighten around me, his long, lean muscles bulging as they held me in place, and then he tilted my head backward, gripped the front of my dress with his free hand and ripped it open with a powerful jerk which came all the way from his hips. I gasped at the sudden tugging at my scalp, the sound of tearing fabric, and then at the rush of cool air against my bare skin, blinking rapidly. The sky was spinning again, and I let out a breathy cry of longing. Suddenly he was on his feet, swift as a hunting cat, lifting me into his arms without the slightest grunt of exertion. I closed my eyes. My ears were buzzing, my hands and feet tingling. I heard the whisper of his cravat as he pulled it from his neck, and he placed me carefully on the grass again. I was heady with the sweet scent of honeysuckle and jasmine, but underneath it all, I smelled the roses. My roses. I felt the fabric loop itself around my wrists, and then my hands met smooth bark. My eyes shot open. He was tying me to a small tree—no…a rose bush. Thorns pricked my back as I struggled to sit up, and I quickly lay flat again, my arms suspended above me in the tangle of white roses.

"Don't struggle, my pet. You'll hurt yourself. We mustn't have that. Now…you have provoked me, Rose, and I believe I know why. So, you would do well to prepare yourself." He moved closer, tall and impossibly handsome...but subtly dangerous. "I will give you what you want, my love," he said quietly. "I can do no other. All that I can give is yours for the asking."

He lowered himself onto his knees above me, framed by silvery moonlight. It glinted in his hair and cast deep shadows over his face. "Our guests are only just out of earshot, and that could easily change at any moment. So you must take care not to make a sound. I, of course, will do my utmost to draw as much noise from your lovely lips as I can. I am an exhibitionist, but I respect the fact that you are not. So it is up to you to preserve your dignity. On your head be it if we are discovered here, my lady wife."

I nodded, careful to keep my arms away from the thorns. "Yes…" I said steadily. "Show me everything. Spare nothing...please..."

"That is my sincere intention."

He moved, then, blotting out the moonlight, and darkness fell over me. But we plumbed its depths together, and all conscious thought was left behind beneath the dying light of the stars as dawn raced to meet us...and swallow them whole.