Blood Song

As soon as we pulled into the first service station to fill up the petrol tank, I abandoned the front passenger seat for the back, and was asleep a few minutes after we hit the motorway.

I slept for most of the long journey home, wrapped in a deep, engulfing slumber undisturbed by nightmares. When I finally emerged from its delicious embrace, we were a hundred miles or so north of Banbury. Angus smiled at me in the rear-view mirror as I rubbed my eyes and yawned. I felt a bit guilty that I'd more or less abandoned him for the past few hours, so I offered to drive the rest of the way. He gave a bark of incredulous laughter, and my guilt dissipated instantly. I grinned at him, and clambered over the back of the passenger seat.

"Welcome back," he chuckled softly.

"You missed me," I teased him.

"Not enough to let you drive my car," he told me bluntly. It was my turn to laugh. He had a nice car, to say the least, and typical man, he was very attached to it. I had driven it once before when his femur had been shattered by a bullet about ten days ago, and had decided that I wanted to drive it again. He had laughingly resisted all my efforts so far, but I was determined.

"Well, I have about two hours left to persuade you," I warned him, estimating the distance we had left to travel from a signpost we passed.

"I have a better idea."

"I'll bet," I said dryly. He turned his head slightly to grin at me.

"We haven't had much time to talk over the past couple of days, so I was wondering if we should use this opportunity. We probably have lots to discuss."

"Like what?" I was puzzled.

"Like whether or not you still want to get married in a couple of days' time."

"Why?" I asked, suddenly afraid that he'd changed his mind. Before I met Angus I had never really been hung up on the idea of getting married, and I knew it had been suggested and arranged as a way to try and keep Jack away from me, but I had gotten used to the idea. More than used to it. I actually really wanted to marry this man, to tie him irrevocably to me. We hadn't had much time to develop our relationship, but sometimes I guess you just knew. And I knew with every fibre of my being that I belonged with this man. Maybe that was love, maybe not. Either way, I didn't want to lose him.