The fact that he had told me not to open the door for anyone made me super nervous. I literally had the covers pulled up to my chin, like that would stop anyone from getting at me anyway. Thankfully just about a half hour later Finn came back, making me breath out a sigh of relief.
"Were you worried, my love?" He smirks at me, pulling off his shirt once more.
"Shut up." I groaned as I flung the covers off me. Now I was so hot it was ridiculous.
"I'd rather you didn't go see Baron with those two running around loose." He comments, knowing that comment was going to upset me.
"If they're dumb enough to try and take me from the pack then they deserve what's coming to them." I look at him unimpressed. We stare at each other for a moment, because I wasn't about to back down from this.
"Will you at least let me walk you there and back?" He questions. I huff at him, "The asking is me being a gentlemen, I'm not actually giving you a choice." He adds with raised eyebrows.
"Fine." I sigh. He crawled up into bed with me, wrapping me up in his arms. He was tense tonight, I could feel it. "Your anxiety about this is going to make me a hot mess." I murmur to him.
"I'm sorry." Was his soft response.
***...***...***
"So are you walking me or what?" I ask him the next day. We were in the foyer area of the castle and I was leaning up against the banister of the staircase while Finn spoke with Charille.
"Just a moment, love." He murmurs glancing up at me. I let out an annoyed huff and roll my eyes, we'd been standing down here for like an hour now and I was ready to go. "Alright." He finally sighs, motioning to the door.
"Finally." I grumble. We walk through the village and I couldn't help but think to myself how much I really enjoyed being here.
"Would you object to taking Dillon with you?" He questions. I raise my eyebrows at him, "He's your guardian for a reason." He explains.
"That's fine." I agree. Almost as if he'd been summoned Dillon appears at my side, sticking his nose into the crook of my neck. "Hi, baby." I murmur to him, giving his nose a scratch. I can tell that Finn is uncomfortable crossing over into Baron's portal and as we approached the group a lot them stood up and faced us.
"I suppose you're here for your men." Baron comments, looking at Finn seriously. Finn glances at me and back to Baron.
"No, I came to hang out with you for the day. Baramire and Jordynian are here?" I ask Baron, putting my hand on Finn's wrist. Not like it would hold him back, but I was hoping that it would keep him relatively calm.
"They came through here last night. Figured if you wanted them you'd come for them, I wasn't about to risk my pack trying to return them or nothin'." He states, "They're right there." He points to a hut.
"They're naughty." I smirk at Baron, who glances at Finn.
"Indeed." He growls low in his throat. I lace my fingers in Finn's as we approached the small hut, and he pulls the door open. Sure enough Baramire and Jordynian were basically tethered to chairs and there was a large wolf at their feet. "I thought that would be so much more difficult." He smirks at the two men. "You don't mind if I return my men to the dun-... Jail." He says to Baron looking at me.
"No, by all means take them to the dungeon. If it means it'll hold them down there." I say with a shrug.
"Nah, take 'em. Or, you can leave them and we'll cook up real nice." He suggests and I glower at him. "What? Gotta eat." He shrugs simply.
"I will come for you tonight, my love." Finn tells me, pressing his lips to my forehead then to my own lips. I nod, and watch as he along with the other two disappear from the hut.
"I thought for sure that would turn into some kind of bloody mess." Baron admits.
"So their master plan was to use me against Finn, and they got caught." I shrug as a very, very shortened version of the story.
"So has he figured out who else is helping them?" He questions. I only stare at him, "Please," He basically scoffed, "Two people may have thought that up, but it takes a good handful to execute things like that." He says. "I mean, I could be wrong but I'm betting there are more traitors in the castle than he thinks."
"Great." I groan.
"Don't worry about it." He smiles and throws an arm around my shoulder. "You wanted to hang out with me all day?" He questions, "This is kinda all we do." He says motioning to the fire pit and the group that sat around it.
"I really just wanted to have a relaxing day where I didn't have to make any kind of decisions that affect other people's lives." I admit.
"What's with the horse?" He glances at Dillon who was munching on the grass a few feet away. His ears perked up, and he looked back at us.
"That's Dillon. Please don't eat him." I smirk.
"You don't give me enough credit." he chuckles, sitting down at one of the chairs. I sit down next to him and kick my feet up on one of the logs. "Can I ask you something? And not have you think it's because Finn asked me to ask you..." I look at him.
"Sure."
"What do you want from the coast?" I question out of my own curiosity.
"We're thinking about relocating." Was his simple answer. "It's quite out there, nothing else really lives there besides the natural forest life. This land is starting to have seen its days... It'd have probably been alright for another few centuries but after Finn torching it time after time, it's just kind of, dead." He states. I bite my bottom lip and nod. "That's untouched land, it's how we like it."
"You're not lying to me?" I narrow my eyes at the wolf.
"Nope." he shakes his head. "You wanna help me move?" he chuckles.
"Because you have so much stuff to move." I grin at him. "I was just wondering." I shrug. "Finn was going to send like a whole army over there to figure out what you wanted from their and I was like, it's probably so much more simple than that."
"You're boyfriend likes to make a big deal outta nothing." He tells me. "I mean, I get it though. Sometimes it's not nothing, sometimes it's big and you need to be prepared." He adds quickly. "You wanna see it?" He offers.
"What? The coast?" I ask him, tilting my head.
"I mean, it's better than sitting around here." He says glancing around.
"I mean, I guess. Ok." i agree, pushing myself up out of the chair. It wasn't far, only one portal away. It was gorgeous. Everything reminded me of New Zealand. The colors, the wildlife, the ocean... It was absolutely beautiful. "You better not ruin any of this." I point an accusing finger at him.
"Me? Tell your boyfriend that." he scoffed, playfully smacking my finger away. I sit down at the edge of a lake that was crystal clear.
"Yeah." I agree softly. "Do you think, when you meet that one person that you're supposed to be with forever... That your life is just starting, or ending?" I ask him. He sat down next to me, and gave me a confused look.
"I think that it's a new chapter in the story that is your life. Not a beginning and not an ending." He answers, "Why did you ask that?"
"Everything with Finn makes me think." I sigh, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them. "I know he wants me to move here with him, and I'm sure that eventually I will. It took me a long time but I've accepted that. But where does that leave me back home? My family? Kelly? I mean, there are places that I still want to visit, stuff I want to do and I feel like the second I fully commit myself to Finn all of that just, goes away." I explain to him.
"You know as much as I really don't like this guy I'm sure that's not how it has to be. He'd do just about anything for you, he already has. He ain't about to keep ya from your family... You already know how much slower time passes here, sooner than you realize there won't be anything left for you in that world and you won't think about it much anymore." I blink at him. I hadn't thought about that. Finn is 34 in my world, and 650 here... If I were to fully commit myself to him, marriage and all that, my visiting my family only has so many years left before they start to notice that I'm not aging. "I'm stressing you out. I wasn't trying to do that." Baron says quickly.
"No. No, you didn't." i shake my head. "It just hasn't been something that I've thought about like that and put into perspective." I tell him. "Can you walk me home?" I ask him after a few minutes.
"Of course." He agrees. "Listen, I'm sorry if I upset you or anything." He says to me when we were back on Finn's land. He'd noticed my drastic mood change, and it wasn't his fault.
"You didn't upset me." I offer a small smile. "Thanks for hanging out with me for a while." i say to him, leaning up on my tip toes and wrapping my arms around his neck. He returned my hug but it was little awkward with our height difference.
"Anytime." He smiles, "You know where I'm at." He says before starting back for the tree.
"See you later." I say before giving Dillon a pat on the shoulder and heading back towards the castle myself. I didn't go in right away, just leaned up against my horses shoulder and thought about the earlier topic. I felt a tear fall down my face and I hastily wiped it away, not even realizing that I was starting to cry. "Go, be good." I tell the horses, patting his head one more time before I retreated inside. Finn was literally right there with Charille and he smiled wide when i walked in, which immediately faded when he saw my face. I tried to hide it, but it wasn't enough time.
"What's wrong?" He asks, "Was it Baron?" He asks in a lower tone.
"No." I sigh, "It's nothing, I'm fine." I try to smile. "I'll be upstairs, I need a shower." I say to him, starting my way up the steps. I'd barely made it into out bedroom before he pushed the door open, closing it behind him.
"Annabelle..." He murmurs, turning me around to face him. I'm instantly a mess, holding back the sobs I knew where there and about to come. "Please tell me what's wrong." He presses, "I can't fix it if I don't know."
"It's nothing you can fix." I exclaim, shaking my head side to side.
"What is it?" He blue eyes shown nothing but concern.
"This. All of this." I tell him. "I know you want me to just be here with you, and i want to be here with you. God, I just want to fucking be here with you. But after talking to Baron today like it's not just that easy Finn." I try to exclaim. He's only confused and stays quiet for me to continue. "My family... They're used to me visiting them once or twice a year. If i"m here and I'm not aging... yeah it's not a problem until about 15 years down the line when they start to notice. And Kelly. I can't just leave Kelly behind." I start to cry. "If I stay home and wait until all of these things aren't a problem anymore, then I'll old, you'll still look like this and I know I'll be miserable. But if I come here now I'm giving up all of that, and I don't know if I can." I finally finish.
"I knew this would come up at some point, it's exactly why I didn't want to discuss the 'end goal' as you call it, until later." he says softly. He uses the pads of his thumbs to wipe the tears that stained my cheeks before pulling me against him. "I wish I could make this easier for you, but unfortunately I can not." He murmurs. "There's nothing I can do to make leaving your family easier, but you know Kelly is welcome here."
"I'm sorry... I didn't want to be like this when i got home." I sigh, sucking in a shaky breath.
"There's nothing to be sorry for." He assures me. "Ultimately I want you here with me, for the rest of our existence however long it may be. Annabelle, my love, it doe not have to be right now. None of this has to happen tomorrow. We can work all of this out over the next few years. I'm sure we can work something up."
"My parents are going to die at some point... Will I even be able to go to the funeral if I look exactly how I do now, 40 years from now?" I ask him wide eyed.
"We will work something out. Magic has many purposes." he assures me. "Ok?" He murmurs, pressing his lips to my forehead. "This really isn't anything to get yourself worked up over right this moment, we have plenty of time." He insists again.
"Ok." i finally mumble.
"Go take a shower, calm yourself down." He tells me, his thumb rubbing the skin on my upper arm. I only nodded, pulling the towel from where I'd set it down on the bed a few minutes earlier. "Dinner will be ready shortly." He says leaning down again to kiss me.
"Ok." I say again, dropping my had from his hip and heading into the bathroom.
Things like this didn't just go away in my head. I don't think topics like that just go away in anyone's head. They liked to stick around, eat at you, and make you make horrible decisions at some point later down the road...
A/N: I apologize ahead of time for anything grammatical I missed. I'm tired. Lol