Chapter 93: Taran

"I thought I'd find you in here."
Rather than turn to look at Diogo, I glare forward into the basin of ripe tomatoes I'm picking. "It was a pretty good guess considering I'm on house arrest."
"For good reason, Taran." He approaches my back, but I still don't turn around. "Less than two weeks ago you were kidnapped."
"Yes, and my kidnapper is dead," I say irritably, blowing a strand of red hair from my face. "I'm perfectly safe now."
"You aren't safe." His voice takes on a stern note, an unyielding tone that tells me he won't give on this issue no matter what I say. "No one is safe right now. The city is exploding with protests and riots. Violent outbursts are cropping up all over the place. A part of the wall was set alight yesterday. There's no telling how bad this can get; I can't have you wandering the streets right now."
I roll my eyes at his overprotectiveness. Although, to be fair, I'm not sure if he is overreacting because I haven't been allowed out of our apartment since the day he brought me back into the city. "It's not like I'd wander the streets. Not with Grayson watching over me all the time. I just want to go visit Bishop, or Milla and Dee, or the greenhouses."
"You're not going anywhere near the greenhouses," he says sharply.
I don't bother to remind him that my kidnapper was killed, therefore rendering the greenhouses safe once more. We'll work on that issue when I get him to lift some of his restrictions. "I'm sick of being locked up like some kind of criminal!"
A sharp chirp sounds from overhead, drawing our focus upward for a second. The babies are getting more and more demanding by the day. Soon they'll find their way out of our little shed and fly off on their own. They'll need to start hunting food and learning how to survive.
He kisses the back of my neck sending an annoying wave of tingles spiralling downward. Annoying, because I want to be mad at him and when he touches and kisses me, I lose my train of thought.
"Do I need to remind you how we met?" he asks, turning me in his arms and pressing his forehead to mine. "You are a criminal, baby. The sweetest kind of criminal."
"I hate you."
He chuckles. "That's just the hormones speaking, you don't hate me."
I pinch his arm until he yanks it back and grips my wrist to stop me from doing it again. "You don't get to say that to a pregnant woman."
"What if she is being hormonal though?" he asks, mock innocently. "Bishop said we should expect mood swings."
I end up snorting in an attempt to swallow my laughter. "You'd better lock up your weapons if you think it's a good idea to call a woman moody, pregnant or not. I will stab you. Not fatally, because you're the father of my unborn spawn, but somewhere painful."
"Stop calling our baby spawn." He laughs even harder.
I shrug. "When the little beast stops making me throw up and feel like a sack of shit all the time, then I'll consider calling it baby instead of spawn. Right now it's the parasite that's made me hate canned peaches, which is really the big tragedy in all of this."
"If that's the biggest tragedy you can come up with, then I think you're doing okay, hormones or not."
I ignore his hormone dig and wrap my arms tight around his middle, pressing my cheek to his chest. "My dislike for peaches is about the only tragedy I can handle right now. I can't take any more losses."
He kisses my head, resting his chin on top. "I know, sweetheart." He runs his hand soothingly down my back. "You just focus on our baby and leave the rest to me."
"That is ridiculously misogynistic, Diogo." But it sounds really good right about now.
He shrugs. "Never said I was an advocate of equal rights."
His words sober me up. He isn't an advocate of equal rights. In fact, he outwardly opposes them. He thinks survival must be at the expense of the weakest members of society. How can we possibly raise a child in such a household of opposites, in a community at war with itself, within a dying world?
Despair hits me hard as it has many times over the past weeks. Finding out I was pregnant was a shock, but I also still carry with me the remnants of grief from losing Xavier and then losing my sister all over again. I feel like I'm in permanent shock.
"I'm scared for this baby, Diogo. I wasn't ready to be a mom." We've had this argument several times over the past few weeks, but I can't seem to stop the accusation from leaking through once more. He wanted a child and I'd told him I wasn't ready.
"Our child will be treated like royalty. It'll never know the hardships you experienced when you were growing up. You have nothing to worry about." His never-ending patience grates on my frayed nerves.
"You can't know that," I snap, sitting on the nearby stool and rubbing the ache in my lower back. I'm barely three months pregnant, I'm not showing, yet the aches and pains are all real. "As a child my life was pretty good. Living in the countryside with my family back when my parents and brother were still alive. Primitives rarely bothered to come into such a sparsely populated area. We didn't have it easy, but we had each other and plenty of supplies. Then the illness came. Once my parents died, we weren't able to stay up North. The winters were just too cold and harsh for my grandparents." I pause, gathering my thoughts. "I guess my point is that you can't know what's going to happen. What if the rebels manage to overrun your forces and the city falls?"
"That won't happen." His hard voice holds an unassailable assurance.
I shake my head. "Sanctuaries are fragile, Diogo. They require a careful balance in order to survive. While never perfect, we were at least stable before the last few months." Before Diogo and I got together, setting in motion a chain of events that would destabilize the entire city. "Now, the city is in chaos. Every day that you leave I'm terrified you might be killed. Become a target for the rebellion. And I sit up here in my cage, helpless to do anything but watch an entire city burn."
Diogo's eyes darken in understanding. I almost hate him for it as he sees right through me, sees my concerns, understands my worries, but continues on just the same. Maybe it is hormones directing my thoughts, but my concerns are valid. Diogo is a target and I would serve the city much better on the ground.
"I want to help create a city where our child feels safe to grow up," I say passionately. "I can help, Diogo. I shouldn't be a prisoner, I should be an advocate for change."
"As the mother of our baby, the child that may possibly be the future leader of this city, you will be an advocate for change." He pauses, his expression hard and unyielding. He approaches, standing over me where I sit on the bottom rung of the ladder. Does he know how intimidating his hulking presence is? Even if I stand, I'll still only reach mid-chest. "You are not my prisoner, Taran. You have many freedoms and liberties that can be easily taken away. I show my respect for you by allowing you the freedom to express your opinions, whatever they may be. I allow you the freedom of the roof and access to all of the resources within. If you desire something all you need to do is ask. You've made yourself a prisoner in your own mind."
"Can I come and go as I please?" I demand, balling my hands into fists so I don't launch myself at him. "Or go see my friends without permission?"
"No." His response is immediate and uncompromising.
"Can I go to the slums?"
"Never."
"I want to visit my rebel friends. Have them brought to me if you won't allow me out to see them. Let me make sense of this mess in our city and try to help!" I know my arguments are pointless, but I can't help it. I'll argue with a concrete wall if it means I might have a chance at chipping away the immovable barrier. "I can help calm the rebellion if you'll just let me."
"Taran," he says sharply. "Stop it. You know I won't allow these things. I don't need your help with the rebellion, I can handle a group of riffraff troublemakers myself. You need to stay here and nurture our child."
"Thank you very much for clarifying my position within your household," I say scathingly, unable to hold back the fury bursting through me. "You have just outlined exactly why I am your prisoner, and every way in which we are not equal."
He looks down at me for a moment, his own features hardening into the professional mask I know so well. The Warlord. "I've never said we're equal, Taran. It is a fact that we aren't equal, nature has made it so."
I jump off my stool and poke a finger into his chest. "Nature has also given us the ability to reason and decide right from wrong. What you're doing right now is wrong."
He grabs my hand in a move so swift I try to jerk away. He jerks me back into his body, tugging my arm out to the side so he can press me closer. I tip my head up to glare at him. He looks down at me with a glacial expression.
"Right and wrong are human constructs we create to control masses of people."
"Says every evil despotic ruler ever," I snap, tugging on my arms, trying to free myself. I hate that the heat from his big body seeps into mine, igniting a visceral response from me. I want to relax, to melt into him and accept what his body offers. Even if I also want to stab him in the throat when he talks like this.
"You think I'm despotic?" he demands gruffly, sounding genuinely offended. My anger melts away even more, leaving me with the urge to laugh.
"Well, you are autocratic, tyrannical, oppressive" I stop, trying to pull away from him and push my arms up his chest instead. His hands follow mine, capturing them and holding them against his body. His eyes flash amusement as he catches on to my playful tone. "You're also sexy and attentive. You keep the pantry stocked and you never steal all the hot water if you get in the shower before me. You're a strange mix of good and evil, and I don't know what to do with you."
"Love me," he says huskily.
"That's my problem, Warlord," I tell him, some of our earlier seriousness leaks back into my voice. "I do love you, and I'm starting to think I can't live without you."
"That shouldn't be a problem." He cups the back of my head in one of his big hands and leans down to kiss me. "Knowing I have your love makes me more selfish than ever. I will do whatever it takes to keep it, even if it means tightening my reign on this city."
I suck in a breath at his declaration. Sometimes his softness toward me makes me forget how harsh of a ruler he can be.
"You scare me when you say things like that."
"You don't ever need to be afraid of me, baby. You're the last person I would ever hurt."
"I'm not afraid for me. It's everyone else I worry about."
His expression darkens, and he says, "Good," before taking my lips in a fierce kiss.