"Shai, you must tell him..." Rochelle's voice came in a hushed whisper as the door to the suite snicked closed and the medical practitioner took his leave from Belglade. Having just returned from their travels, he had come out to give her one final checkup and had made a discovery.

The Greek sat, perfectly erect upon the ottoman and stared out of the window. The day was so very bright, there was not a cloud in the sky. A cool breeze came from the sea and danced through the pines and willows, punctuating the tinkle of children's laughter coming from the surrounding property.

The conversation she had come upon the previous day between Kruger and Sophie floated through her mind. ?I?m afraid it is too late for me to have a pure heart angel?you keep her pure in yours.?

How was this possible? Was it some horrific folly that fate was trying to play? This could be the crack in the foundation, the end of all that was perfect.

"I cannot, Rochelle. Not now." Burning streams of tears were coursing down her cheekbones and stretching to drip in pools onto Shai's lap. When in truth, her heart ached so painfully to run to the Blacksmith and tell him what should have been glorious new's....she could not.

"Has your faith in him faltered, child? I daresay it has not." The woman set a palm to her shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

"It is not about my faith in him..." Breathy in what turned into a sob, she spotted him down near the footbridge with Ely, one of the children and sucked in a harsh breath.

"The Lord has seen to this, for his own reasons, Shai. When it was believed you could never become pregnant. These may not be understood, but they are for his reaso..." Rochelle's words were cut off sharply.

"It is not the Lord who was just told they were with child, Rochelle....a child that could have been bred in violence and hatred! Go, leave me now!" Shai had never spoken to her in such a way and the Italian shrunk as if she had been slapped hard across the face.

Not another word said, Shai heard the doors close as she was left alone and openly wept.

Shai knew Kruger was there. She could smell his scent long before he had even come through those door's. While part of her cringed, the rest of her felt as hot as smoldering coal's.

Erect, she still sat. Undaring to move, not the first millimeter. While she was far from old, the years she had in fact lived were flying through her minds eye at the moment Kruger touched her. Bred to be perfect, to educate, to be the epitome of wickedness and wonder in a wantonness that had the highest of paid hours blushing in envy.

To do such with intelligent abandon, it was near brilliant at some point's. Etiquette and lies. A pawn to the most masterful of player's. While her thighs were not spread for them, everything else had been. She paid her dues. The dues that had been drilled into her brain that she had owed since the moment she had been born. And now, when it was the most real as it had ever been, the stakes were untouchable.

Unmovable.

The one thing that fell into rainbow dreams and sugary sweetness. She kissed him in return. Oh how she did. And while he would feel her response, he would also feel the violent trembles raping her from the very core of her and exploding from her pores.

The respect, the respect she had for this man....would be her undoing long before it ever touched him.

Her trembling brought his protective arms encircling her high and low on her back. Engulfing her in his warmth, encompassing her in his sphere of contentment that she was the center of. He pushed an envelope in the feelings for her...the upper right hand corner could not contain the strength of his feelings.

Kruger crushed her to him becoming her rock...the stable point that she might cast off all doubts and fears. "Perdez-vous en moi mon amour!" It was the gentlest of commands given to her encouragingly.

There he would keep her as long as she needed him. To stand for her, whiling away the hours content with the touch of her the knowledge that she wanted him here as much as he wanted to be there.

In that instant, nothing could break them apart from the outside. It would have to come from within...a letting go of him, a turning away from her. He had no intentions of letting her go. His heart thudded silently in his chest flesh pulsing to meet her form and back again.

All Shai wanted to do was to crawl inside of Kruger and bask there, where it was home. He was truly home for her. So many times, she had witnessed the pain he had gone through over and over, throughout his life.

So many times, she wanted to take it from him. To make it better. To make him whole again. To see him smile and hear the rough tumble of his baritone laughter. To help him find peace. All for what? To be the one who could destroy it all? Not at her own hand, but in essence a product of it.

Glancing over her shoulder, Rochelle was hoping Shai would come back inside but she had not. Standing at the bathroom door, this could have been one of those awkward moments when your mother saw you naked and just like one of those times, it truly didn't matter. "She is outside, I am not certain where she has gone from there and yes, there is something that you need to know." But she didn't blurt it out. No matter how much she wished to do just that.

Twisting her finger's together, Rochelle was in the throes of inner turmoil. "I cannot help her, Kruger....only you can." Hoping the Greek was sitting in the garden's, it was the place she found absolute peace. While she knew where Shai's mind was, it didn't change the simple fact that it was an absolutely harsh reality she was now confronted with.

A bitter one as well. Rochelle's biggest fear, was the woman would pack her things and vanish into thin air, in a saving of sorts of her Blacksmith. Turning to go, fingers wrapped the door knob. "Do not allow her to face this alone, Kruger....please do not. She will be lost, entirely lost."

There was a quick dabbing of towel across water beaded flesh. Rochelle?s concern had struck a strange cord with him. He wrapped the damp towel about his waist, long enough to fish some fresh black cotton pants from his chest of drawers. They were slipped on quickly while the events leading to this moment were replayed in his head. Her state when he had found her in the room.

She had been stiff, erect as though poised on the edge of a deep crevasse knowing that she would need to move forward despite the drop.

Kruger hadn't seen it; it had been far from his mind this in between condition. He wouldn't have noticed the missing shirt had he not been prepared to put the dirty one back on. A crisp white linen shirt was pulled over head; it drew moisture from wet hair and a body that hadn't been properly dried. His boots just went on, no search for proper footwear to go inside those boots.

With luck there wouldn't be too far to go before he got his chance to talk with his fiancee. He took the stairs in twos, in a hurry to make it out before time and distance could swallow her up and leave him clueless where to begin. He scooped a couple of hard rolls from the dinner that would have to wait and stepped through the doorway into the waning light.

Kruger sat next to her, the rolls put aside. He could smell her oils differentiate them from the surrounding flowers, but this was hardly the Shai he knew her to be. "I haven't started eating, Rochelle was beside herself enough to enter the shower with no notice. I knew you hadn't eaten either so I thought to bring something out so we could talk." As bad as it might have looked to Rochelle, the rolls were meant to be shared. "Part of me expected to find you halfway to the city."

"Are you going to talk to me or leave me blind? I saw how you were after the doctor left, what is wrong?" He kept eyes on her face waiting patiently for her to decide if she trusted him enough to speak freely.

He let a few moments tick by before trying once again. "What did he say Shai? I swear there is nothing we can't get through together." He slid from the bench, kneeling before her and looking up into her face. He took her tiny hand in his, trying to get her attention out of wherever she was being haunted. To bring her back to him in the here and now.

He could see Rochelle framed in the lighted window watching from the corner of his eye. Without Shai's compliance on the matter the only one who knew for sure what was going on was not going to speak on the matter.

A little preparation other than I am not certain where she has gone would have helped. Kruger's brow tightened down in concern over his bride to be. "You don't have to bear every burden alone mon amour."

The closing in of the darkness brought forth the crickets and night birds. Kruger would have given up all the sounds of the world to have the truth out of Shai. In that moment even the harshest of words would be heaven to his ears.

The skin on Kruger's back went cold, the reasons for her behavior becoming very clear to him. Surely she was confused how after so long that she was able to become pregnant. Worse than that would have been the doubt...the not knowing or gods the belief that the child she carried was not his. His grip on her fingers tightened.

He had questions...many questions but they all could wait. Shai was his main concern, her well being. His face softened and a small smile came to his features, a match for hers in stature until he began to will the universe to form to him.

He didn't have that kind of power exactly, but his belief in what is had fought a battle in the moment he realized what she was going through. Possibilities presented themselves to him. Reasons for pairing these two, when he spoke he did so having flushed away every doubt that had entered his mind, and determined that those doubts would never linger in his mind.

"This is wonderful news mon amour, that we shall be parents. I hope she has your good looks, those dark eyes will be impossible for me to resist though." He took her hands and kissed the knuckles of both hands. He didn't know for certain it would be a girl child, but it was what he hoped for. A little one to wrap him around her little finger and keep him reeling.

"We should decide on which room should be the nursery. I think perhaps the one just down the hall from us, though that is far away during the day....likely she will take on my need to be up until the wee hours of the morning."

The final statement given was his subtle claim of the child. His way of telling her she needn't fear. "We should start thinking on names too, though we have plenty of time for that. There are so many names though. Shai...you will make a wonderful mother to our child." His face was nearly rapture his smile deep and genuine.

Kruger's sense of rightness in this matter had shoved aside doubt and remorse. Shai carried his child, he knew it and no one would tell him differently.

Kruger watched Shai's face, praying she would have the faith in him that would make his claim true.

He knew the child was his....she needed to know it as strongly as he did.

(Thank you to the player of Shai for all your help on this)

Kruger's eyes closed at her kiss, the pain in her voice fairly killing the man. His breath came deep and slow as he tried to imagine how Shai felt...no tried to live through the experience. To be powerless, helpless, victim to the strength and evil whims of another. To be hated for what you are, what you represent, and worse the possibility that the one thing you have always wanted came from that hate...that unwanted touch. He could feel the tears building, but did all he could to fight them away.

His voice came quiet then, speaking with his head bowed. "The child needs me none the less...you need me none the less. I say the child is mine because none other will take it as their own. It is mine because it could as easily be mine...This is not some bastard that I have raised and discovered. I go into this with my eyes open...Shai...mon amour...This child is mine."

Pulling the light shawl around her arms, Shai stepped not far away and heard him. Heard him well in fact. While this mixed in a heady affair within her heart and mind, it was something she was having a problem wrapping her mind around. Heeling both palms to her swollen eyes, a light sniff was given and she turned to face him there, crouching down in the process. "And what if, Kruger....what if the eyes that peer up at me while they are being fed are not yours, not mine....but that of a stranger....what then? How do I love someone, and fall in love with them at their first breath of free air when I know, deep within me that it is possible, the child is not yours and not bred from love. How do I do that? Please wave your wand of ember and tell me how I can accomplish that task, which should simply come naturally? How?" While her tone did not change, nor did volume rise....the struggle was in plain view. "I cannot speak of this any longer...." There came the dismissive hand wave. "I simply cannot..."

He listened to her talk knowing what she spoke of, knowing that Shai would see and be forced to see repeatedly. "What are you suggesting then Shai? This child is part of you, love that part..." He stood and turned towards her. "You would give it up? Destroy it before it? I am with you Shai, and this child has done nothing but ask to be born. Regardless of how, she will love you unconditionally..." He watched her dismissive wave and shook his head. "I support you in anything Shai, even this..." He slipped behind her and put arms around her, whispering in her ear. "I am with you even were we to disagree...I can only advise...you must decide. My only question would be if this child is not the work of that animal...and you terminate..." He couldn't finish the question in his mind. It hurt to say it and he was already on dangerous ground where his emotions were concerned.

"This...this terminate that you speak of....over the years, I have watched so many of my women do such things as if they were rolling their stockings up their legs, mon amour." Leaning back against him, she was such a roller coaster of emotion; she went from anger to whisper in two seconds flat. "It was always kept in secrecy, and when found out they were dismissed from my employment. I was jealous that they so easily could attempt to manipulate a man they were paid handsomely to escort in such a way without the first thought. When they realized they could not steer the male away from their wife and standing, they would seek the herb or drink pulp from an orange mixed with sugar syrup, which would throw them into a miscarriage. I would be so angry that they could do such heinous monstrosities. I wept for every one of those children, wishing they were mine." Slender arms crossing over his, she lowered her head. "I could never do such a thing, mon amour. Not ever. Even now."

Hands traveled down to hips, not with that intimacy that would take on other occasions. This was simply a way to hold her closer, to throw protective arms across her abdomen knowing the precious cargo it carried within. "I hoped that would be your thoughts Shai, which leaves only two options, because I will not let you raise this child alone." He laid lips on the back of her head; he could hold her forever this way.

The woman was in a state to be sure, but at the very least he needed to assure her that he was all in. She needn't worry over where his mind would be in twenty years. "Either you keep the babe...or you give her up...and you needn't decide now...It is too much at once, it is possible that you will go one way and then another throughout this process."

Shai hung onto his every word, much like she always did but in that, something continued to strike her. Why? Un-turning to face him, Shai shook her head. "I do not think I can ever understand the ways of you at times, Kruger. Why you would ever allow yourself to be a part of me from the very beginning until this moment falls short in my ability to understand. You are a strong and feral man, you are a creature of honor and for you to allow me to dishonor that in such a way, is not something I will ever grow used to. I have known women that were beheaded for allowing themselves to be brutally raped. I now stand here and add this to it. I should be packing my trunks and returning to Greece, allowing you to live in peace and with your honor intact." Two ways. Two different bred cultures. Two people. "Kruger, my own father disassociated me when I was only 11 year turns, for being raped. He has never spoken to me again and it is known if I was to ever set foot into his line of sight, he would kill me without the first thought." Finally, she turned to face him. "Do you see why I struggle so very much with this? It only scratches the surface of all this could mean to us."

He listened to her knowing that she came from a different way of thinking than he did. How to make her understand him was perplexing. "When I was among the clans migrating there was a young woman who was heavy with child. She had no husband, but it was known that she had been taken repeatedly during a raid...The child she brought into the world was welcomed into the tribe...In truth it held greater rank than I did myself for it was half clan to my quarter." He didn't know if she understood that for him it wasn't dishonor to be attacked. "Men bring evil into the world from their hearts and minds...then choose to accuse devil or deity for their actions...I love you mon amour, there is no tinge to your honor?or mine."

"Will the God's understand that I wish not to toss this child away, as if it is of no consequence in the same manner your clan had done...? I cannot simply give her away to the highest bidder and pretend it is of no matter. I would spend my days wondering and worrying." Shai was struggling and it was clearly obvious, but something maternal had already dawned within her, even if she didn't recognize it. Turning to face him, a trembling hand cupped one of his cheeks. "We will take this as you say, one day at a time. I want to scream from that same hilltop, of this joyous news, mon amour. Perhaps that day will come swiftly, when what comes to the forefront of my mind is no longer pain and rage, but replaced with happiness and anticipation of this new life that we have been blessed with."

Happiness tinged with pain went through him. Happy that she had come to this decision, knowing that it would be greatly difficult for her to come to terms with the ?what ifs? associated with the child. Pain because her struggle and uncertainty, were not what he wanted for this woman. He too would struggle through this, not to fall into wrong thinking. He knew his decision was the right one, regardless of parentage this infant would need him to be close. "The babe shall carry my name; none but those around us and the physician know the whole story. Our child need never fear being named bastard."

(tbc)