“Hey sweetness,” he whispered, leaning down to nuzzle his nose against hers. “You okay?”
Maggie took a shuddering breath before she nodded. “Yeah. Just had the best and worst dream I have ever had, and it is one that I have most nights.”
“Best and worst?” What exactly did that mean?"
“I was with my parents, and we were together, and I was happy,” Maggie said quietly. “I can never really remember what we were doing, but it never really matters. Just as I am filled with the love and laughter that comes with being with people you love, they are wrenched away from me, and in my dream, I am plunged into darkness.” Maggie’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “The only thing I can hear in the dark is my uncle. I can feel his hands on me, and his breath against my skin, and I want to get away, and I am screaming for help, over and over. Calling for my dad, needing my mom. But there is nothing and no one to help me. I am alone in the dark with nowhere to go.”
Kingi held himself completely still as her words registered for him. His mind filled with images of horror and unspeakable evil that had him trembling with rage.
Everything around him turned red, and all he could think about was vengeance. The need to hunt her uncle and make the fucker pay for what he had inflicted on this beautiful woman was almost a physical mass building within him. A tumor that his hands could only exorcise ending that bastard’s life, and making so his woman would never know that fear again. He-
“He never raped me.”
Kingi was pulled from his bloodthirsty thoughts immediately, but he could do nothing more than stare at her in silence.
“My Uncle John,” Maggie said slowly, as if speaking to someone struggling to understand, and to be fair, that was an accurate reflection of his cognitive skills at that moment. “He never actually made it that far. But he was threatening to more and more, and what he was doing was getting a little too close for comfort, if you know what I mean. But he never actually violated me.”
Maggie’s voice was shaking and Kingi leaned down to press his forehead to hers. “I am in awe of you, Maggie Cross,” he pressed a soft kiss against her lips, all the while holding her gaze with his. “Baby, I am more thankful than you know you didn’t have to endure that. But there is more than one way for a person to violate another. His violation was of your trust, and of your sense of family. That asshole abused your when he would have been protecting you, cursing you when he should have been cherishing you.”
Kingi pulled back a little, then lifted his left hand to gently cup her cheek. “I make this promise to you, my Maggie. I will protect you, and I will sure as hell cherish you, for as long as you will allow me that honor.”
Maggie held his gaze, her eyes never wavering from his for a long moment, but Kingi did not move. He didn’t even blink. He knew she was searching his face for some kind of sign or sign of trust. When she gave him a sweet smile, he knew she had found it, and thanked every deity he knew for that blessing.
“You know that it’s a two-way street, right?” Kingi loved the sound of her voice.
“Two-way street? What is?”
Maggie laughed softly, and his heart clenched at the sound. “The whole protect and cherish thing. If you and I are meant to be together, fated by some being or however you want to put it, then it will be my job to protect and cherish you just as it will be yours to be that for me.”
Kingi settled back against the swing and pulled her close to lie against his chest even more. “I like that sound of that Maggie-mine.”
The two of them sat talking for a long while, getting to know more about each other as the night began to lighten into dawn.
Maggie inhaled sharply as she stared out at the valley below them. “Is that smoke in the trees?”
Kingi smiled. “It looks like it, but no, it’s mist. For my tribe, Tūhoe, this place is more than just our home. For Māori, our lands are part of who we are, and as Tūhoe, we believe we are direct descendants of the mists and the mountains.” Maggie watched him intently, and he loved that his heritage was something that seemed to mean so much to her. “We are the children of the mist. Hine-pūkohu-rangi is the mist maiden, and she lured Te Maunga, the mountain, down from the heavens to be with her here on earth. From their union came Pōtiki, my ancestor, who all of Tūhoe are descended from. We come from the ranges you see around us, and the mists that envelop them each day.”
Maggie exhaled dreamily and gave him the sweetest smile. “I love that connection. It must be so great to truly belong. To have a people, and a place that is yours. It must be nice.”
Kingi did not like the sadness that had crept into her tone, so leaned in to press another light kiss to her lips. “Just so you know, Maggie-mine, I would follow you anywhere you wanted to go. You are my woman, my mate, and you could lure me from heaven to the depths of hell with nothing more than a glance, and I would go with a smile on my face.”
A beautiful sweep of red rose in her cheeks and charmed Kingi even more. The two of them stayed on the porch watching as dawn brightened again into a new day, and eventually listening to the sounds of his family rising from within the house. There was a lot to do today, and even more they needed to talk about, but that could all wait. As long as Maggie was in his arms, there was nothing more important in the world.
