Chapter 138: Taran

I almost cringe as the last word leaves my lips. Damn it. So much for being more thoughtful. I'd just let Diogo have it, giving him the verbal tongue lashing I've been working up to since I found out he killed Xavier.
At first Diogo looks taken aback. I wait, breath held, for him to release the fury that must be building after that diatribe. Then he does something completely unexpected. He laughs. He tilts his head back and releases a full-bodied laugh filled with humour. I can't help it. My lips twitch in response. No wonder he's laughing. Instead of calmly talking through some of the issues I have with him, I tell him to shut his mouth. If anyone else had done the same, told the Warlord to watch his tongue, they'd be counting the seconds left in their very short lives.
Diogo confirms this last thought when he finishes laughing and pins me with dark eyes, still filled with mirth. "Not a single person has dared to tell me to shut up. Well done, wife."
I'm not sure what he means by that. Well done, as in I've done it now? Or, well done, I'm finally getting through to him.
"Come," he says and takes my arm.
I'm so stunned by the unexpected turn our argument has taken that I go with him willingly, somewhat bemused and very confused. He pulls me up the stairs leading to the roof, and like it does every time I traverse these steps, my heart thumps painfully. The memory of our last home, now burned and gone, assails me. I've tried shaking it off, but the pain still lingers, keeping me away from the roof. As a result, I don't often go up. Since our marriage has turned cold, Diogo tends to go to the roof when he's home from work, while I stay inside. I'd only come up once in the past several weeks and that was when I asked Diogo about extending the wall to envelop Old Tucson.
"Diogo..." I trail off, not really knowing what I want to say. I don't want to go to the roof. Some of our best memories occurred on top of the Tower. Our most passionate moments, the declaration of our love and probably even the conception of our child given the amount of times we made love up there.
"It's okay, love," Diogo says, understanding infusing his tone. And he probably does understand. He loved his rooftop patio and greenhouse before I even became part of his life. It'd become something we could share, something we could glory in and grow together. I also notice the way he avoids calling me baby, he hasn't once since I yelled at him that Stryker had called me that.
We step out into the bright afternoon sun, warming the rooftop and casting glowing beams around a paradise right over my head that I hadn't even known existed.
"Diogo!" I gasp, pulling my hand from his and stepping out onto the patio, my gaze wandering in awe. "Did you do all this?"
"With a little help," he murmurs, pride suffusing his voice.
I stand quietly for a few minutes taking it all in. It's just like our old rooftop patio, but better. The greenery that constantly chokes abandoned buildings has creeped its way into every crack and crevice, but instead of cutting it away, Diogo has tamed it, using it for his own purposes and creating a canopy of lush green vegetation. I step through the arch he's built over the doorway and into the beautiful eden.
The greenery hasn't had quite enough time to crawl its way up the trellises Diogo has built to encourage the growth into usefulness. I can still see metal beams peeking through, but the overall effect of industrial and natural is breathtaking. Like a snapshot of our world. The way nature is reclaiming all that humans have built and destroyed one inch at a time. Yet, also capturing our determined struggle to fight for our survival. But instead of depicting the constant battle, Diogo's rooftop paradise shows an intertwining of both, human activity and nature.
This stunning creation isn't an accident. Diogo is far too intelligent to create art by accident. He set out to envision a snapshot of the world we should be living in. Not one where humans must triumph over nature, or vice versa, but a world where we can co-exist peacefully.
"I don't know what to say," I tell him, finally turning to face him.
His eyes are filled with the intense passion I've become used to from him but haven't allowed myself to experience in weeks.
The edge of his lip quirks up and he says, "You don't need to say anything, your face speaks plenty."
I nod and gaze around, my mouth dry with the need to cry, but with good tears instead of pained ones. I pick out different features and wander to touch and look my fill. There are metal beams built into the project giving the vines a place to wend their way overhead. I stare straight up, imagining what it will look like in a few years once the green canopy has truly taken hold. Diogo has brought in a stone bench set a couple of feet from the edge of the roof. Built so we can sit and watch the city together, voyeurs set above the rest of the world. Separate, but still a part of everything.
"For you," Diogo says, coming up behind me. "All of this is for you, Taran. Everything I do is for you."
I nod, my gaze still on the sun-soaked city far below. Instead of the familiar pang of loss I'd felt coming up here before when I remembered losing our last home, I feel only peace. Diogo has built regrowth into our new home, a pathway between the old and the new. He's no good with words, often pisses me off when he drops his autocratic decrees. But his actions here are so much louder than the speeches of a Warlord.
Of course, he built this for me. I can see his intent in every part of the scene. The canopy to cast shade when the sun is hot. A tomato plant set next to the bench, symbolic of the first seed I'd planted so many months ago. The greenhouse, an exact replica of our last one, only bigger and longer. I wander toward it, wanting desperately to see inside. To see if he's built it the way I know he has.
I open the door and step inside, the warm humid interior embracing me like a long-lost hug. The scent of earth, greens and flowers spinning through my senses. I walk toward the back, dimly noting the rows of freshly planted boxes. I stop next to the stepping stool leading up to a beam set in the roof. Next to the beam is a hole, allowing sunshine and desert air in.
The tears finally fall, splashing against my cheeks and dripping down unheeded. I don't bother to catch them because they are cathartic, good and happy. They're the release of weeks of fear and misery. The terror that something new will jump out and kill everything I love and take away my new home. I turn blindly and step into Diogo who has followed me in. His arms envelop me while mine wrap around his waist. I bury my face into his chest and allow myself to cry for everything we've lost, everything we've discovered, and the things we've built, both together and apart.
"Can you find your way back to me?" he asks huskily, his voice strained as though he's also holding onto his tears.
"I don't know," I say honestly, tipping my face back to look up at him. "I'm beginning to realize that your killing Xavier isn't an anomaly, it's who you are. The violent Warlord is part of the package that includes loving husband and father, protective partner, and sensitive lover. I can't agree to accept one part of you while turning a blind eye to the other."
He stares down at me, his dark eyes fathomless. He absorbs my words thoughtfully and then says, "It doesn't matter what you can and can't accept. You are my wife and I won't let you go."
"Even if it means war instead of marriage?" I ask.
"It would be the sweetest war I've ever taken part in."
I can't help but laugh at that. "I would make sure that any war between us was far from sweet, Warlord."
He dips his head low, so his lips are hovering near mine. My heart leaps in anticipation and my lower belly floods with warmth. "You wouldn't have a choice, rebel," he says, his voice soft with an underlying core of steel that makes me instantly yearn for more. "I would tie you to my bed and force the sweetest orgasms you've ever known from you. I would stroke and lick every inch of you until you no longer remember your own name, let alone your reasons for fighting me."
I have to swallow the moan that leaps up my throat as his words sap the strength from my lips. "All talk," I whisper against his mouth. "No action."
He bends so suddenly I gasp when his arms go beneath my knees and sweep my legs out from under me. As he strides through the greenhouse and toward the door leading inside, he says, "Consider this war started, wife."
I tighten my arms around him and grin into his neck.
No, husband, consider this war over.