"I've never had such a cataclysmic orgasm in my life." Heavy breaths passed through his lips. Moments later when both of them settled down, Ileus picked her up and made her stand in water with him. Opening her messy bun, he stroked her hair with his fingers. "I want to return the favor, Anastasia," he whispered.

She just stood there against his chest with her hands wrapped around him, feeling comforted, relaxed and satisfied. His shaft was pulsating in between them. "I am- happy this way." With her eyes closed, surrounded by his woodsy and misty smell, she thought she was on the top of the world. Why was it so good when she was with him? It was as if she didn't want to go anywhere else. It was as if she belonged to him and he belonged to her. The thought made her body shudder.

Wait. What? She wanted to reason but her mind pushed away all the reasoning.

She grinned against his chest. Perhaps she was thinking too much. This was just infatuation, a temporary attraction in which she wanted to let go of herself in order to feel it to the maximum. She knew she would not regret it later. After all, you don't get to escape from Vilinski forever.

"I am happy too... this way..." he said in a low husky voice. He pulled away from her and then said, "Do you want to dip inside the water? It would take some heat off."

When she nodded, he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her down along with him. She squealed as cool water hit her, but her squeal was a mere warble under the water. She looked at him and saw how his black hair was streaming behind him. He made her sit under the water for a few seconds before coming out.

He came out while smoothing his hair behind. Water was sluicing down his chiseled muscles and only his torso was visible until the navel. Anastasia gasped at the sheer beauty of the man as he stared at her with his piercing, golden gaze. She opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off.

"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life." He closed in on her.

"I hope you see more than that in me."

"I see a lot in you." He wanted to say that he also saw the walls she had built around her-ones that she didn't want to raze because and would build them again all up the moment anyone tried to scrape them. He had to unravel the mystery in front of him. He picked her up and took her to a rocky outcrop now that the effect of wildflowers had ebbed. Setting her gently on it, he climbed out of the water and lied beside her, without a worry about his nakedness.

Clouds above had dissipated and the cacophony of waterfall behind them was all they could hear. Anastasia lied on her back, too aware of her naked breasts. So he pulled her closer to him and covered her breasts with one of his strong muscular arms. "Relax, there's no one around."

She blushed, but didn't move away. Closing her eyes, she welcomed the warm rays of sun on her body. He looked at the scar on her stomach and traced it slowly. She quaked a little under his touch.

"How did you get that?" he asked, his voice full of helplessness.

She cringed. "You hate that, don't you?"

He bent over there and kissed it to her surprise. Her belly dipped as he kissed the entire length of her scar. "There's nothing about you that I can hate."

She swallowed her saliva and cupped his cheek. She pulled him to her face and kissed his lips. This man was too good to be true. Who liked imperfections?

"So who did that to you?" he asked again after he kissed her as fervently as she did and settled back.

She took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. "After they discovered that Iskra was teaching me the art of war, they took him away and threw him in the dungeons. As for me, they couldn't throw me in the dungeon, but they blindfolded me and took me in a chamber where they closed me for a week. It was a small cell. There was just a small bed and a toilet, no window. Everyday someone would come and slide a plate of cold food for me once a day. Two days later they took me out only to witness how they maimed Iskra, and then hurtled me back in the cell. I knew I had to endure the torture because what I had done hurt their egos a lot. Aed Ruad couldn't believe that right under his eyes, this happened." She quivered and Ileus caught her waist tightly.

"A week later, they took me to another chamber where Maple was ready with her torture. At first she whipped me after tying me to a post. She whipped me till blood pooled in my feet, till I was numb and thought I was going to die. And then as if that wasn't enough, she took a hot iron and burnt my stomach with it. I- I screamed and shrieked out of pain and agony and-" She looked in his eyes. "Ileus, I wanted to die. No one-" she shook her head. "No one came to help me." Her voice became hoarse as she felt a pang of bile in the back of her throat. "Even Nyles."

"Ana..." he whispered and hugged her. She was shaking uncontrollably. He brought his leg over her.

"I was thrown in my chamber and healers were sent. Two days later, I ended up celebrating my seventeenth birthday wrapped in bandages, physically completely drained out and mentally exhausted." A dry sob racked her body. "My birthday was celebrated in the giant hall of the Kralj Palace without me. It was announced to the public that I was severely ill." She looked up at him, her eyes red with unshed tears. "You know Ileus, I want to kill Aed Ruad and Maple, and I want to kill them slowly and painfully, even if takes a lifetime to do that!" She quaked thinking about those days.