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"I know..." Terryn sighed, eyes fixed on the ring sparkling on her finger. It felt like a lead weight to her hand, making it hard for her to move. "We were hasty. This is why I had distanced myself so much. Terrible things happen when people in my family fall in love."

Terryn shook her head, choking back tears as she buried her face into Marcus's nightclothes. "But what can we do now? I do not want to take it back...that would be too much of an inconvenience anyway, but I can not just stay stagnant like this while my father just lets himself become more depressed." She shut her eyes tightly, cursing herself for turning into everything she had despised. "At least when I lost my mother I was young. I still needed him and he had someone to protect. I wish I was a child again...he needs someone to watch over."

Terryn raised her head immediately, staring at him blankly as he rushed his coverup explanation. She relaxed back into his chest when he finished, plucking absentmindedly at a thread in his nightshirt. "Perhaps a pet...my father was always fond of hounds. He used to have one as a youth, but he left it with his younger brothers when he got married." She tried very hard to focus on the idea of an animal. The alternative was out of the question, not even worth considering. Then why was she still even thinking on it?

"He might enjoy hunting," Terryn affirmed with a nod. "He used to shoot ducks out by our pond with my brothers when Momma...my mother and I were tending to the garden." She cleared her throat, trying to swallow the block that had formed when she had referred to her "Momma".

"Papa would not like gardening." Terryn didn't even try correcting herself this time. "He never spent much time there after Momma died and I think bringing him back now would cause too many painful memories to resurface. I think a good bloodhound or something to go hunting with is the best idea."

"And will not die in three years." Terryn frowned, making what sounded like halfway between a moan and a growl. "Not a newborn, though. They tend to be a little too hyper."

Terryn nodded, glancing out the window at the moon. It was very low, and odds were that they weren't more than a few hours from sunrise. "I hope...and then we will not have to..." She shuddered at the thought of what splitting up would entail, only gripping him tighter as she tried to relax.

"Like the bloodhound," Terryn pointed out yet again. She was insistent on this pet idea of theirs. She wasn't sure what, but something was nagging at her mind and her chest and her stomach. She looked at Marcus, her friend, her husband, and could only bring herself to kiss him, pressing her lips tightly to his and shifting so that she had one arm on either side of him, holding herself raised above his torso on the bed by her forearms.

When she finally pried her mouth from his, she raised her hand to brush his hair away. "How do you do this to me? Before I met you I doubt I would feel so horrible or desperate over this. You..." She shook her head, confused. "You make me feel things, Marcus. I don't understand it." She leaned in to kiss him again, laying down and pulling him on top of her. She didn't feel like doing the work at this moment, and couldn't help but take a guilty pleasure in feeling his warm, strong body above hers. It made her feel more safe and sheltered.