FWAP! Another bullseye in the rain. Yona walked to a hay target shooting area on a cobblestone street and found a bow and some arrows there. She's only a few arrows in, but she can feel him there...

Hak stands behind her. He puts his hands over hers and lowers the bow. She turns as he wraps his cloak around her shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Princess. What I did back there didn't mean anything."

Of all days… "No, don't apologize to me. Not today. This wasn't you. I won't let him do this."

Hak watches her carefully, searching.

She breaks into tears as she admits it, "Even tonight with you. Is there no end to the happiness he'll take from me?! I shouldn't have… we shouldn't have..."

Hak's eyes go wide at that last phrase. Yona turns to go. She's only a few steps when she hears it - he falls to his knees. It's an unbearable tightening in her chest, she squeezes her eyes tight shut but she can still feel him back there in pain. It's killing them both.

"Do you mean that?"

She turns and sees his face that way she can't bear. She marches back to him, tears and rain all mixed together, and throws her arms around him, falling to her knees as well, foreheads together. She kisses him, physically trying to tell him that he's a part of the very fabric of her being now. Of course she didn't mean it.

Then, she painfully explains, "I thought I was going to die. When I lost the man I thought… I loved."

Sting. Hak feels it.

"But I didn't die, I became strong."

Hak's so vulnerable right now, staring deeply into her eyes, "You're the most incredible woman I've ever known, and that has nothing to do with him."

His hand rests against her cheek, she places hers over it, "Hak, if I lose you… if he takes you from me-"

"Where is this coming from? I won't let that bastard put a hand on either one of us!" he weaves his fingers between hers into a hold full of promise.

But Yona is lost in a terror, "Hak, listen to me! If I lose you, I won't survive it."

He's still watching her, absorbing her pain, "What happened? WHAT DID HE DO?!"

"It's both he and I!" her words are ripping something in Hak's chest apart, "He got the hairpin, I don't know how, but I just got a warning from Min-Soo. A letter. I can only imagine what it means for Min-Soo's safety… for Ogi's..."

And gears start turning in Hak's mind… oh shit.

"But what I've done is far worse," Yona now sobs, Hak watching her in helpless confusion, "I stole your life from you! I couldn't let you go. I was going to give you your freedom and… you've said it yourself, instead I've been so selfish. Only thinking about what I want, not what you need. Putting you directly in harm's way. Not even giving you the option to be general again."

Hak stares in shock.

"It's not too late… if you want to escape Soo-Won and I's twisted world. You could go, survive. I think I might be losing myself anyway because… because if he finds out about us and comes after you: …I will kill him."

Her eyes are on fire. But Hak sees that it's not a flame against Soo-Won, no. It's for HIM. To protect him.

He pulls her into his arms and rises, carrying her down the street.

"Hak! What are you-?" she notices he's angry, furious. Down a couple streets and around a corner, he produces a key from a pocket and opens a door. Warm light spills out into the street as Hak carries her over the threshold and gently sets her down in front of a burning fire, her glorious, bright kimono completely soaked through. He goes to close the door.

"Hak…"

He's trying to calm himself as he removes his sopping wet outer robe. Shivering, Yona slips Hak's cloak off her shoulders and also begins with the outer layer of her kimono. Within moments, he's at her side helping her remove it.

"Hak…" again she whispers.

When his eyes meet hers, the intensity stops her heart. Just for a moment. And their life together flashes before her eyes. He firmly reminds her...

"You are my life. Since the day we met. As though it was carved in stone the second you were born. I belong to you. I will always choose you."

Tears again, but this time moved, happy, "You idiot… you're always so…" she's getting lost in those piercing blue eyes, her mind coming back to the assuredness he always makes her feel. No, she hadn't betrayed him, she had trusted him. The enduring loyalty to her he's never broken. Overwhelmed with everything he makes her feel, she looks up at him and offers herself as his wife...

"Make love to me, Hak."

All the anger is long gone from his visage. It's just tenderness now. He smiles sincerely as he brushes a strand of wet crimson hair from her cheek and locks his gaze with the beautiful amethyst eyes staring up at him in request, "I should have done this the first time you asked."

"Why?"

"I'm going to show you."

Before she can even think of responding, his mouth is crushed against hers - she opens to the pressure and takes him in. He lifts her in his arms, carrying her to the bed. Their kissing is impassioned, fingers fumbling to remove clothing. He sets her horizontally across the bed, the pulling and grabbing, touching and kneading, so intense they can't even take the time to get oriented properly.

His upper clothing is off, her robe pulled down, each barely able to spare a second from each other's mouth and skin in order to shed another layer of fabric.

Finally free to touch and love each other, they're both moaning and throwing themselves entirely into getting closer, deeper. The rhythm is impossibly fast, the eye contact consistent, hands folding in and out of each other, inhibitions completely absent, love itself making everything and nothing matter in that bed.

At last when their clothes are off, panting, Hak plants a firm kiss on Yona's lips before looking into her eyes for comfort and consent to continue. She nods with need, panting as well.

He whispers, "I'm going to open you up for me."

She doesn't quite understand, but then she's gasping. His mouth is on her womanhood as his fingers find their way into her. She was already very wet for him, now she's sopping. He sucks her clit, rubbing his tongue over her nub. He shakes his face gently to tug and pull. It's incredible, a sensation Yona was neither expecting nor had ever felt before. Her moans are savage, broken, yearning.

She puts her hands into his hair, fingers shaking against him as he works. He brings his mouth to her opening and sticks his tongue inside her. She opens her thighs wide, making all the room in the world for him, and lifts her hips, bringing herself into him, desperate for more, barely able to take it at all, "Hak!" calling his name into the night. He moves back up to her clit and goes to work vigorously on it, sucking, licking, his arms wrapped around her thighs-

-and her thighs shudder as she comes, brought to climax, her body pulsing on the bed, her center exploding with pleasure that reverberates throughout her entire body, chills to every extremity, even down to her toes, and a flood of endorphins to her head, a blissful state leaving her almost in catatonia.

He climbs above her, mounted. He runs a finger over lips as he watches her return to him, back to life from that earth-shattering moment.

"I don't want to hurt you..."

"...you always say that."

"I love you… and you're the princess. I never forget."

"I love you, too… and you're the strongest warrior in Kouka. Don't let me forget."

He smiles at the challenge, "My pleasure, Princess."

His mouth is on hers, he takes the kiss gently, relaxing her, he's taking his time, suddenly she's fully engaged in and distracted by the kiss, how he sweeps his tongue across hers, nuzzles his face against her, and then-

"Ahh!" the penetration is full, deep, it expands her, the thrust powerful, though she always knows he's being careful with her. Gentle, but so strong.

He's still as she gasps, he pulls slightly away from their kiss, "OK?"

She nods against him, tugging on his back. She notices his breathing, too, is ragged. His look far off, in some sweet ecstasy, before he regains himself and looks down into her eyes, full of meaning and connection as they lay coupled together, her legs spread wide for him, ankles wrapped around him. He gently pulls himself a ways out of her, then THRUSTS back inside. Yona throws her head back as she moans and arches her back. He thrusts again. Her nipples are hard, breasts swollen, her head digging into the bedding, one of her hands in his hair, the other around his back, she clings to him as she absorbs all the pleasure she's ever handled. He thrusts again.

She meets his eyes once more and they lock a heated gaze as he thrusts into her, slightly harder, slightly faster as he goes. They stare into each other as they both moan, grunt, try to remember to breathe. Every few thrusts Hak leans down to kiss her. One second she's biting her lower lip, the next she's biting his. She's losing her mind in his arms. At once it hurts and it feels incredible. It's too much and not at all enough. Is she even in her body anymore? The emotion of the experience is overwhelming and she can't say his name enough, "Hak, oh H.. Ha… Hak! Oh Hak, please, Hak, oh Hak, harder, Hak."

Hak has been trying desperately to focus, to keep from losing it all right away. He looks down to see himself going inside of her vagina, in and out, rising and falling, thrusting and pulling, gleaming wet, rock hard. That and the breasts below him, the legs around him, her trembling arms, and the way she's calling his name, "...Yona…" he lets escape.

He had no idea - the effect of that word from his lips is Yona's climax around his penis. Her walls squeeze tightly encompassing him, their warmth, their softness, cushioned around him in such a way he cannot handle - no preparation could have stopped this, he releases instantly inside of her, a thorough, incredible volume of semen. He spurts and spurts into her, aftershocks simultaneously sending shudders through his body. He finishes filling her, possibly the most he's ever released in an orgasm, then collapses over her shoulder, careful as to not put pressure on her beyond a soft, hard warmth over her.

He lay inside her, both of them panting in awe, for a few moments after, then he slowly pulls out and moves to the side of her, pulling her against him in his arms.

"I love you. I love you so much," completely unoriginal but thoughts so big at the moment that they take up all the space in his head.

Yona kisses a beautiful peck in front of her face, her lips touching the scar, "You were… incredible."

He kisses the top of her head, not believing this moment is real, "I didn't hurt you?"

"It was the best hurt."

"I'm sorry, I-"

"I want to do it again."