Sparks and Flames (17 page)

For her part, Rukia didn’t say a word to anyone about it. Her family noted that she was happy, but they could not figure out why. They didn’t know that Rukia’s mind was on a particular boy. This boy was just a year older than she was. He should have been her number one enemy. He should have been the one that would make her tremble. In the end, he did make her tremble, but not out of fear. Instead, he made her feel soft inside. He made her tremble because she was in love with him. She didn’t care about what he did. He might have hated Elementals, but he had proven he could see past her powers. He could see her as Rukia Benton, which was exactly what she wanted.

The wedding was going to be a small affair. Rukia had found a purple dress to wear for it since she had no time to get a new one. Kian himself was going to wear one of his old suits for the occasion. They decided to choose a chapel in Calensa as it was a nice place and most people wouldn’t know about the wedding. It was also going to be held in the early hours of the morning when everyone was asleep.

“Are you ready for this?” She asked him. “We don’t have to rush into this if you’re not ready. If you want, we can wait another day…”

“No.” He cut her off. “I have a feeling that we need to get married now. If we’re together like this, then there’s no reason for us to hold it off any longer. I feel this way about you now and I know I’ll feel the same tomorrow. Now I have to know if you’re okay with this.”

“Oh, of course I am. I want to be with you,” she decided. “That’s the only reason I dug out my best dress. You deserve the best that I’ve got to offer.”

“Then it’s settled. Let’s go get married.”

“I got these for you,” he handed her a bouquet of purple flowers. “I don’t know if you like purple but they were the best I could find in the Velt. They’re not as lovely as you, but they were the best I could find.”

“Purple is fine. This is so romantic,” she sighed, looking at the purple flowers that he had gotten for her. “If only we could tell her our families about this.”

“We will when the time is right,” he assured her. “For now, I want to keep this between us.”

Her dress wasn’t a long flowing white gown, but a short purple one. He was also in a nice suit so this would do. She carefully fastened some of the purple flowers into her hair and held tightly to her bouquet. They had found a priest who could marry them right away and he was waiting at the end of the aisle with Kian. The soft music began to play even though there was no in the aisles. She slowly began to walk down, clutching her bouquet to her chest. When she finally made it to the end of the aisle, Kian smiled at her. This was truly happening. They were finally going to be together.

“I’m so nervous,” she whispered to him. “We’re really doing this.”

“Don’t be nervous. I’m right here,” he whispered back.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join Kian Ortiz-Shah and Rukia Benton in holy matrimony.”

There were no dearly beloved in the room, but they tried to pretend that everyone was there. Rukia pictured her mother sitting in the front row and crying her eyes out. Her father would be right next to her, his arm linked in hers when they walked down the aisle. Midori and Mayuri would be two of her bridesmaids, standing next to her. The Ortiz-Shah’s would also be sitting in that front row, beaming at their son and his new bride.

“Do you, Kian Ortiz-Shah, take Rukia Benton to be your lawfully wedded wife? For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold, from tomorrow till death do you part?”

“I do,” Kian said, looking down at Rukia.

“And do you, Rukia Benton, take Kian Ortiz-Shah to be your lawfully wedded husband? For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health…”

Rukia was barely hearing anything that the minister was saying. All she could do was stare into Kian’s beautiful green eyes. There was so much love in there. It was the first time she noticed how deep and lovely they were. Her hand went up to his cheek and rested on it, feeling how warm he was.

“I do,” she whispered. There was nothing else that she wanted in this world but to be with him. There was no one else that she wanted.

“Then with the power invested before me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Kian looked down at her and pressed his lips against hers. She felt like she was being brought to life by the power of his kiss. When he pulled away, he could see her warm brown eyes and felt as though they were meant to be. This was it. This meant that they were going to be together forever. This was what they had both wanted.

“I love this,” she whispered. “I love everything that we’ve done so far.”

“It’s not over yet,” he told her. “We haven’t celebrated our union.”

“We will. I’m going to take you everywhere you want to go. We’re going to start with that bakery I told you about.”

“Yes, I’ve been waiting forward to that! I’m hungry now!”
 

“Then come with me, dear husband. Let’s go and get something to eat.”

They went off together, hand in hand, ready to take on the world as one. He was hers and she was his and no one out there was going to bring them down. Until the day their bodies turned to ash and became dust, they were united.

Chapter 22

They had only been married for an hour, but it felt like they had been together for a decade. There was no after party, but Rukia kept her promise to him and took him to the bakery for blueberry cupcakes. They were now sitting in the bakery and trying out the goodies that Rukia had bought. Kian did take his wallet out, but she insisted that he kept his money.

“This treat is on me,” she told him. “I will take care of this. I made you a promise and I intend to keep it.”

“Are you sure? I’d feel guilty if I didn’t offer to pay for mine.”

“No, you keep your money. I’m going to buy you whatever you want,” she said. “I’m your wife now. I can get away with bossing you around.”

“Oh, so that’s why you wanted to marry me,” he teased. “You want to be able to boss me around. Well, I am at your command, Rukia. Do as you wish with me.”

“What I want you to do is to sample these chocolates,” she said, showing him a plate of chocolates. “Take one.”

He took a sample and tried it. It was indeed the best chocolate that he had ever eaten in his life. Not even the best stores in the Velt could have made chocolate this decadent and perfect. The sample that he had picked had a cherry in the middle. “How did you know I like chocolate-covered cherries?”

“I didn’t. I know you love marzipan, but I just made a wild guess on the chocolate,” she joked. “I’m glad I picked the right thing. Speaking of marzipan, they have some of the best marzipan candy here.”

“You said the magic words,” he grinned.

As they sampled all the goodies that the shop had to offer, Kian couldn’t help but look at his new bride. Today was the beginning of the rest of their lives. Today, he was going to be her husband and she was his wife. They were no longer going to be the Elemental from Calensa and the hunter from the Velt. His thoughts had changed about a lot of things. He didn’t know if he was going to be able to hunt Elementals from now on.

“What are we going to do about jobs?” He asked. “I can’t rely on the family business all the time. I’m also thinking about quitting.”

“You want to quit the family job?”

“No, the other one.”

Rukia was floored by this. “You get most of your income from that! Why would you give that up?!”

“I didn’t have you back then,” he admitted. “I didn’t have a reason to stop hunting until you came into my life. Now that you’re here, I feel like I should do something else with myself. I should be a more caring, protective husband. From now on, I want to protect you and any family that we end up having. Hunting doesn’t have the same meaning to me anymore.”

“How will everyone else take that? You can’t just tell people that you are quitting because you married an Elemental,” she said. “You can’t stop working for your parents either. I don’t have a job yet so we need some income.”

“I’m not sure about how I feel about hunting,” he said. “It used to be something I loved doing. It was something that I couldn’t live without. Now I know that the only thing I can’t live without is you. Call me crazy, call me out of my mind, but it’s true,” he stroked her hair. “If I do anything, I’m doing it for you.”

“Oh, Kian,” she breathed out, kissing his palm as it came close to her face. “Please don’t give everything up just yet. Let me find something and we can decide on our future then. Right now, we have to live separately. Our families don’t know about our union.”

“That’s the other thing; we need to buy a house,” Kian said. “We can’t keep living apart. When we do start living together?”

“Not right now. No one knows about us,” Rukia said. “All of that will come soon. You just have to be patient.”

“I can’t believe I did this,” Kian whispered. “I can’t believe that you and I are married now.”

“Believe it. We’re husband and wife though we can’t tell anyone,” she said. “We still have a long way to go before our families can be united. We have a long time before humans and Elementals can be together.”

“Now that we’re married, when do we show people our love for each other?” She asked. “When are we going to let them know how well we get along?”

“Not yet. I don’t think some people are ready for that right now,” he said. “For now, let’s be on our honeymoon.”

“Where do you want to go? I can take you anywhere.”

“Take me to the stars!”

“I’ll take you to see any star you want!” Rukia took him by the arm and they began to run down the streets of Calensa. She could hear Kian’s heavy boots hitting the pavement as he tried to catch up with her. “You got changed out of your suit so fast.”

“I don’t really care for those fancy dress shoes. Give me my boots any day.”

“I like them on you,” she admitted. “They suit you better than the fancy shoes you had to wear at the wedding.”

“Those fancy shoes were hurting my toes and cut my heels,” h
e admitted, taking off one of the boots and showing her the injuries. Sure enough, he had a blister on his heel. It was already bleeding and some of the blood was on the socks he had. “I forget how much breaking into new shoes hurts.”

“You need to put something on that,” she said. “You’re bleeding. Don’t you want to clean that up?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine.”

“You are the Dragon of the Velt,” she said. “Everyone is scared of you when they come across you. Too bad they never get to know you.”

“None of them are worth knowing me,” he said. “They’re not you.”

“You are just too sweet.”

Rukia had a point. All happy things came to an end. They were surrounded by the flames in the married life. Would those same flames be around them when they were apart? Would these flames take them down?

She didn’t want to find out right now. For now, all she wanted was to be with Kian from now until the end of time.

To Be Continued in
Smoke and Ashes (The Tale of Kian and Rukia)