***3rd Person POV***
Finn had left Annabelle at her house for the day. She'd insisted that she had to go to work for the day. He really needed to convince her to live more permanently with him at his castle. Being away from her only made him more irritable. He was moseying his way around the dungeons, doing just as she'd told him to do, and deciding who to be let out next when he walked up on a conversation between Baramire and Jordynian. Both his top men. Neither were aware of his presence back at the castle, so he leaned up against the wall, and listened. He was almost instantly angry.
"The fact that he's letting prisoners go is sickening. All because of a woman." Jordynian comments, throwing around a pair of chains. "It's your fault she's still around anyway." He grumbles at Baramire.
"Excuse me?" Baramire snapped back, "I did my part. Do you know how difficult it was to get those stupid pink looking hair contraptions in the first place?" He asks him. "I don't understand how she got out of it. I don't understand how they even patched things."
"She should be long gone with Solomon and he should be dead from the heart break by now." Jordynian sighs frustrated. Finn was still surprisingly against the wall, clenching his fists together as he listened to the conversation continue.
"The land should clearly be ours. Their love for each other is stronger than we though. We just need to figure something out that is unforgivable." Baramire starts to think about things. "What if we put back everything that he lets go? She's the reason he's going soft. If we put all the creatures back one by one, and she finds out about it, she'd never forgive him. She'll be long gone." Baramire basically chuckled.
"What happens if Finn finds out?" Jordynian asks him, "We'll be killed for sure." He murmurs.
"Killed is being pleasent." Finn murmurs to himself. He crosses his arms over his chest as the two men vacate the armory of the dungeon. He didn't want to admit to Annabelle that she'd been right about Baramire. Honestly he should have seen it coming with how he'd be acting around her the last weekend she'd been here. Well, it looks like it was time to make a promotion soon for one of his men. He'd let her pick who his second in command would be, she'd like that, he may even gain some brownie points for it. He retreats back into the shadows of the hallway, making his way back to the castle.
"Master Balor." Ellena greets him when he walked into the kitchen. "Are you hungry?" She asks, motioning to the food that laid across the stove and counter.
"I am not, thank you." He smiles at her. "But if you don't mind putting some away, Annabelle loves the chicken curry you make, and I like to bring her some tonight." He says.
"Of course." She agrees, "When will she be joining us again?" Ellena asks curiously. She'd taken quite a liking to Finn's intended.
"Hopefully this week. She does love to fight with me about spending a significant amount of time here, though." He sighs, sitting at the seat that was behind him.
"This is all new to her." She replies softly. Ellena was a mother, she understood the hesitation that Annabelle had with all of this. "In three months you've invaded her dreams, invaded her home, her job, her life, you've basically told her that this is how it is to be. She was kidnapped. Found the dungeons, some how managed to find a flaw in your guards to help the snake escape." She chuckle that last part, "You've fought, you've seemingly made up... In such a short period of time I do believe she's done quite well. Give her more time. I'm sure within a years time she will be living her at the castle."
"I suppose you are right, Ellena." He nods.
"Most mothers are." She smiles. He chuckles, and shakes his head. About that time Baramire, along with Jordynian walk into the dining hall. In his head he's plotting their death, but on the outside he's pretending to know nothing.
"Master Balor." Baramire greets him, taking the seat next to him. "We weren't expecting you till the weekend, good to see you home." He says.
"It's always good to be home Baramire." He replies.
"Should we be making plan for anything sir? Perhaps preparing for the battle with the werewolves." Baramire suggests.
"No need." Finn shakes his head. Both men look at him with furrowed brows, "Baron and the pack are no threat to us." He tells them.
"You don't really believe the things that she's telling you. It's just lies that Baron is feeding her!" Baramire exclaims.
"We will take no action, Baramire." He says calmly. "Why don't you gather a group of men and do a perimeter run?" He suggests. To take a group of men around the entire perimeter of his land will take a good week or longer."
"Yes sir." He sighs, shoving the chair back and standing up.
"Thank you Baramire, Jodynian... Most two most loyal men." He tells them, trying really hard to not sound sarcastic. Both men give him a slightly confused looked, but regain themselves quick enough.
***...***...***
"What are you doing, my love?" Finn asks me. He walks up behind me and both hands wrap around my waist as I continued to unpack a few things from my bag. I'd agreed to come here for the week, which is the longest I'll have stayed so far. Usually I just came out for a night or the weekend.
"Unpacking some of this junk." I murmur in response.
"I'm glad you're here." He comments, resting his chin on my shoulder. "I have a surprise for you tomorrow." He smirks.
"Am I going to enjoy said surprise?" I chuckle. I turn around in his arms and look up at him, resting my hands on his chest.
"Well... Maybe." He shrugs.
"That kinda makes me nervous." I look up at him from under my eyelashes. "Nothing bad, right?" I ask. Not like it'd matter at this point, he already had me over here.
"Nothing bad." He agrees and I breath out a sigh of relief. "Would I really surprise you with something bad?" He asks me, "It may be a test though, of things you've said to see what you may actually do." He shrugs simply.
"I didn't understand that, can you reword it?" I ask him. I'm pretty sure I understood all of it, I just wanted to be sure.
"Nope." He shakes his head, dropping his hands from my hips and sitting down in the chair a few feet behind him.
"You're ridiculous." I shake my head. "Will people think any less of you for releasing whatever may be in the dungeons?" I ask him curiously. I sit on the edge of the bed and look at him expectantly.
"It doesn't matter." He shrugs after a moment of thought. "How other's feel about me, doesn't concern me." He states.
"Ok." I murmur, turning back to my things.
***...***...***
"Why are we in this room... For my surprise?" I ask him hesitantly. We were in the one room in the entire castle that had all sorts of midevil looking torture devices in it. I could be a little kinky, but I wasn't this kinky.
"Charille. Dortmoue." Finn greets to men as we walked in. I'd seen them around the castle quite a bit. "Be patient, my love." He tells me. We both turn around when Baramire and Jordynian walk in. Baramire glowers at me, but you could hardly tell. "Baramire. Jordynian. Seemingly my two most loyal men." Finn raises his eyebrows. I cross my arms over my chest and lean up against one of the cages in the room, it was litter with spikes on the inside.
"Sir, was there something we were meeting about?" Baramire asks him, glancing at the other two men in the room.
"I wanted you both present, when I promoted Charille and Dortmoue." Was Finn's simple response.
"I don't understand." Baramire furrows his brows, glancing behind Finn at me for just a second.
"It's recently been brought to my attention that I have two weasels sneaking around my castle." He growled from deep in his chest. This time, it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. The conversation suddenly had my full attention.
"Sir?" Jordynian asks him. I could see the panic cross his face for just a second.
"You see... I came home early about a week back, to check on things as I sometimes do. I happened to be wandering the dungeon when I walked up on your conversation in the armory. I don't believe I remember it all, but the main subject was banishing my existence and Annabelle seemed to be your pawn in all of this." He replies casually. I called it. I knew that someone in this fucking castle was out to get me. "So instead of losing my temper and rage killing both of you, I decided to wait it out until she could be here, so as she may chose your punishment." He smirks at them. "Charille, you're now seco-" He stops mid sentence and glances back at me, "Third. You're now third in command, and Dortmoue you'll replace Jordynian. Your first task will be to arrest both of these men." He motions to the two completely stunned men in front of us.
"I knew you were a dick." I look at Baramire, who was glowering hard at me.
"You, ruined, everything." He snarls at me. I only look at him, completely unimpressed.
"Baramire knew you were going into the dungeons and thought that if he and Jordynian could use that to their advantage, you would leave me. Resulting in my death, and Baramire inheriting my land and my people." Finn explains to me. "So, my love, I apologize for not believing you a couple weeks ago when you brought this up. You were right." He nods curtly. I was in total shock at how calm he was handling this whole thing. "You may do with them, as you please." He looks at me.
"Oh..." I'm now wide eyed, because it wasn't in my nature to be mean or punish anyone. I didn't even know how to go about anything like this. "Can you just put them in jail and I'll think about it?" I scrunch up my nose.
"Of course, a chuisle." He nods. I furrow my brow at the term, I knew it was obviously Irish but I didn't know what it meant. He nods at Charille to take the two away.
"What does a chuisle mean?" I ask him curiously.
"It means, 'my pulse'." He answers simply. "I understand if you're not comfortable with choosing a punishment, I only wanted you to know that if you wanted anything specific it could easily be arranged." He tells me.
"Both of those men have families..." I look up at him.
"They do." He agrees. He could see the torn look on my face. It was obvious that neither guy could be trusted, but I also didn't want to kill anyone or torture anyone that had a family. A wife and children. If anyone did that to Finn, I'd be devastated.
"You can't, banish them? Or something?" I ask him hopefully.
"Now is a perfect time to start introducing you to the decision that I have to make on a daily basis." He starts off. "Yes, love, I could banish them. I could banish them and take the risk of Baramire forming his own army to attack everything we have." He states. I pull my bottom lip between my teeth.
"I'm not capable of making decisions like this." I admit to him.
"I know you are not." He smiles softly. "I only wanted you to see what I'm faced with every day, it's not always a matter of me being cruel and heartless. I also wanted you to see and hear first hand what they had done, and I wanted you to see me handle it in person. I want you to see all of everything that happens here." I fist his shirt in my hands and pull him flush against me, biting his chin playfully.
"You told Charille that he was third in command." I try my hardest not to smirk at him.
"I did." He nods, kissing my forehead. "Because you are my second in command."
"I love you." I murmur, pressing my forehead to his chin.
"I love you too." He tells me. "Now I need to go take care of this mess. If you do happen to think of a punishment you find suitable, let me know." He says.
"Ok." I sigh, walking out of the room with him. A few hours later I'm out in the field behind the castle with Gannicus and Dillon. I'm leaning up against Gannicus's neck in the crook of his neck while he rubs his face and chin in the grass. Dillon is a few feet away, grazing and swashing his tail back and forth every few seconds. "What are you doing?" I chuckle and Gannicus. He only looks back at me with big hazel eyes. "You're a goofball." I boop his nose that he'd stuck in my face.
"Dillon, you handsome boy." Finn greets him, running his hand along his neck and down his back. "You're dirty, she's not brushing you." He glances at me.
"Whatever, I brushed him this morning. He rolled." I glower at him playfully. "You just wait until my dragon can breath fire. You'll only make a snarky comment once before you learn your lesson." I smirk at him. Gannicus snorts at Finn, looking at him with an unimpressed expression.
"Clearly we know where his loyalty lies." He comments, returning the unimpressed look.
"Clearly." I nod. He narrows his eyes at me, trying to hide his smirk. "Will you come in for dinner? Ellena made you something special. She says its... American." He says it slowly, like he's trying to figure it out.
"Ok." I agree. "You stay and be good." I tell Gannicus. I wasn't worried about Dillon going anywhere, since the fencing around the castle was good enough to keep him in anyway. Gannicus though... His wings were starting to mature and even though Finn didn't worry about it, I worried about him taking off.
"He's not going to leave you." Finn insists, lacing our fingers as we walked back to the castle.
"Oh my gosh, Ellena!" I exlcaim, looking down at probably the largest burger I've ever seen in my life. "It's huge, you didn't have to do this for me." I tell her.
"I enjoy cooking anything you enjoy eating." She smiles. "Master Balor doesn't let off on his favorites." She tells me, glancing at him.
"Don't let him fool you, he loves that cabbage and sausage dish you make." I tell her.
"And you?" She asks.
"Not so much. Not that your cooking isn't amazing, I just really hate cabbage." I tell her with a shrug. "But I love this burger, and thank you very much for making it." I smile at her. Later that night we were upstairs in the bedroom, it was getting late. I was leaning against the door frame on the back patio, looking at the jail.
"What are you thinking about?" He asks from the bed. His sexy shirtless self was lying in the bed, one perfectly sculpted arm placed behind his head.
"Baramire and Jordynian." I sigh, crossing both arms over my chest. "What did I do to them? I was always nice to both of them." I say confused. I'll never understand why people did horrible things to other people.
"It had nothing to do with you." He answers. "And everything to do with me. I'm sure that they'd been thinking of ways to get rid of me for a while now, because decision like that are thought up over time. You just happened to be the perfect way to do it." He shrugs.
"Stupid." I grumble, making him chuckle. I retreat over to the bed and straddle his lap, resting both hands on his bare chest. His own hands slide up my thighs and rest on my hips. "I'd like to go see Baron tomorrow." I inform him. He huffs and lets out an annoyed sigh while he rolled his eyes at me. "Seriously? WHy don't you be a little more dramatic about that." I stare at him. He grumbles something in Irish and I continue to stare at him. "WOuld you like me to ask what he wants from the coastal land for you?" I tease him.
"I don't understand what you see in that mutt." He mutters.
"You're going to be busy with Charille most of the afternoon anyway, you won't even notice I'm gone." I smile at him. I lean down and press a few slow kisses to his chest and collar bone.
"I'll notice." He shakes his head. "You could be busy with Charille with me." He suggests. I glare at him, "Alright... I suppose that I can survive a few hours without you tomorrow." He sighs, finally agreeing with me.
"Thank you." I smile, pressing another kiss to his neck before laying down in bed next to him. I'd barely hit the mattress and there was an urgent pounding on the bedroom door. Finn raises his eyebrows and glances at it, not in a hurry to answer the door.
"Come in." He calls.
"Sir. Baramire and Jordynian have escaped from the jail!" Charille exclaims, barreling into the bedroom. I look over at Finn, who looks more frustrated than anything. "It happened during guard change." He explains.
"I have to arrange a search party." Finn sighs looking over at me. "I'll be back." He states. He slides out of bed and closes the back door, locking it. He locked the door... Should I be worried about Baramire coming all up in here? The guy has to know that I'd whoop the fuck out of him right?
"I'll be here when you're done." I sigh.
"I love you. Don't open the door for anyone." Was the last thing he said to me before pulling the door shut behind him.