The Tyrant's Pet

Aries smiled against his lips, resting her forehead on his. A chuckle slipped past their lips, drawing away from each other to look into each other's eyes.

"I love you," she whispered, feeling this relief saying those words she couldn't speak for years, nor could she bear hearing.

Abel cupped both her cheeks and closed his eyes with his forehead still against hers. "I love you more," he breathed out.

"No, I love you more."

"I love you more than that."

"We will not stop if you keep competing with me." She giggled, sniffing hard.

"This is the only thing I will want to win against you." He chuckled, drawing his head back, eyes searching for her. "There were billions of people in this world, but I only want you. Just you. The rest? They can all die for all I care."

"Even Sir Conan?"

"I'll bury him myself if I must. He and Dexter can share the same grave."

"How about Lord Darkmore?"

"Apparently, he already prepared his own grave." He shrugged, making her laugh. "Isaiah is picky, even to where his body will rot."

She smiled subtly, fluttering her eyelashes ever so tenderly. "I love you," she repeated and wanted to repeat it as many times as she could until her vocal would explode.

"I love you more." She chuckled at his reply, before he confessed sincerely than the last, "I love you."

"I love you more." She held his hand that was cupping her jaw. "I love you."

"I love you more."

They looked at each other and laughed, shaking their heads. They were silly. For someone who had already shared intimacy and had grown familiar with their bodies, those simple words still brought butterflies to their stomach.

"Oh, darling." Abel leaned in and rested his forehead against her once again. "What should I do with you?"

"What do you want to do with me?" she asked, eyes closed, lips stretching from ear to ear.

"Undress you and spend a night of passion? Kiss you until you suffocate? Hold you? Jump from the roof together and up to the sky? Carrying you to your husband's chancery and gloating about our upcoming wedding isn't a bad idea as well." Aries chuckled at the list he kept spewing, but he did none of those as they remained slumped on the floor, inside the wings that were keeping them.

"Aries," he called under his breath, drawing his head back once more to look her in the eye. "I love you."

This time, his tone was a hundred times more sincere than the previous one. It was as though he never wanted to forget that his heart belongs to her. She was the only owner of his heart — no one else but her.

But her response was always better than his own confession. "I love you more."

<strong>More.</strong>

That word alone was enough to fill his heart with pure joy.

"Love… is not something you do alone anymore, Abel." Aries cupped his jaw and smiled, nodding reassuringly. "If you love me more, then I'll compete with you and show you I am crazy enough to love you even more than you can."

"More — much more and more and more," she continued with a bright smile. "Until you get tired of me. I will stay, even if you beg me to leave and cry blood or whine all day long. I will stay."

"You're stuck with me," she added.

"Oh, no…" he humored, leaning in and tilting his head. "Throw away the keys. I'm not getting out of this shackle."

She giggled against his lips, closing her eyes, basking in the tenderness of his lips. Aries crawled her arms over his shoulder, locking her hand behind him, and pressing her lips to deepen their kiss. However, she flinched when she accidentally touched his wings.

Abel chuckled. "Scared?" he asked in her mouth before drawing his head back.

"Well, I am." She was clutching his shoulder as she looked up at the wings around them. "I had been wondering if they had feathers."

"Disappointed they're not the same as those angels?"

Aries looked back at him and studied his face for a moment. "Your face is angelic." She bit her tongue, knowing in a sense his beauty was far too beguiling to consider angelic.

"I'll pretend I didn't see through your lie." His smile stretched wider. "Want to see them up close?"

"Can I?" he laughed when her eyes lit up like a kid.

"Sure." He nodded, glancing at his left-wing before it moved down close to them. He watched as she widened her eyes and leaned forward to examine them.

"Do they hurt?" she asked, almost taking him by surprise as that question was something no one ever asked. When he didn't reply for several seconds, she looked back at him with curiosity in her eyes.

"Do they?"

"Now? No."

"How about before?"

"Before this… I'm used to it."

"And before you got used to it?"

Abel laughed with his lips closed at her persistent question. "Like hell," he confessed. "It felt like someone was deboning me, breaking it apart to make it a piece of art. I cried."

"You did?" she asked, giving him a knowing look.

No, of course, he didn't. However, Abel batted his eyes and pursed his lips, nodding.

Aries leaned closer and planted a peck on his lips. "Better?" she asked, despite knowing he was lying.

"I think it still hurts. I'm not actually numbed by the pain."

Again, Aries kissed his lips. "Better?"

"Hmm… a bit…?"

She rolled her eyes and kissed the apex of his nose, showering him with more kisses, starting from the cheek, to both his eyes, to his eyebrows, to his forehead, and even down to his chin. After kissing every area of his face, Aries drew her head back and tilted her head to the side.

"How about now?" she asked, almost curiously.

This time, he didn't feel like lying as he smiled. "Never been better."