The long velvet case was soft in her hand. Her fingers shaking, it took her what felt like an eternity to open the jeweled clasp. He still didn’t say a word.
But now, now Nikhat could feel the tension coil around them, as if someone had left a live wire around them, fizzing, crackling with expectations, and hope and love.
Her jaw fell as she saw the two rubies—one big, sitting in a stark setting, and the relatively smaller one set in twinkling diamonds. She almost lost her nerve then. She looked up to see Azeez eye the rings, saw the moment realization dawned on him.
His jaw tightened, but the fire in his eyes, she knew that fire. “Be very careful about what you’re going to say, ya habeebiti.” Instead of scaring her, however, the low warning note in his words stirred her, stroking her heart, her skin, the very core of her.
Clasping his hands, she looked up at him. “I’m sorry for running away from your love. I’m sorry for not trusting you enough. I thought my condition made me unworthy of you, but it was my fear, my doubt of your love and my own.” She had to breathe to speak past the lump in her throat. “I know that you’ll protect me from the world, from everyone, even my own insecurities. And I need you, Azeez, I need the joy you bring to my life. I’m ready to be your wife, Azeez, I’m finally ready to be your queen.”
The fingers that tilted her chin up were shaking, and when she met his gaze, the love that glimmered in those dark depths shook her from within. “It killed me to send you away, Nikhat.” A shudder racked his powerful frame and she hugged him harder, tighter, realizing it was fear. “It wrecked me to tear out my own heart like that, habeeba. But you, your magnificent strength, your innate duty, you left me no choice. Realizing that I was in love with you again, whilst also realizing, in that same moment, the man I needed to be, it tore me apart. But I couldn’t ask you to bear this for me. Not when you made the choice once to walk away from this very fate.”
“No. Not from you.” Pressing her cheek to his chest, she curled around him, feeling the hard muscles, learning him. He was her home, her everything. “I understand now, Azeez. And I’m so sorry I took so long to realize it. I wish—”
Clasping her cheek, he pressed a fierce kiss to her mouth that shook her very soul. The scent and taste of him seeped into her, invigorating her, filling her with a dizzying joy that had her shivering.
With a hard grip, he tugged her against him, until there was nothing to look at but his beautiful, proud face. “I’ve never doubted your strength, Nikhat. Your strength in the face of everything you went through, your sense of purpose in everything you have accomplished, it made me realize what I needed to do.
“You showed me I couldn’t walk away from my destiny. And I’ve only ever wanted it with you by my side, habeeba.”
Smiling through her tears, she plucked the ring out of the case and slid it onto his finger. They had been made for each other, they had both been through fire and emerged to find each other again. “You are the most honorable, most courageous man I’ve ever met and you are mine.”
He clasped her cheek and kissed her, and Nikhat melted into his embrace. “Always,” he said, his gaze shining. He pushed the ruby ring onto her finger and kissed her hand, his heart, his love shining in his eyes. “You complete me, Nikhat. You always have. I don’t need an heir, I don’t need anything in the world, if you are by my side. Do you understand?”
Nikhat nodded, her heart bursting to full with joy, and fierce determination.