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Your actual real opinion, please?” I said a little too curtly.
    “Opinion wise, I think that I feel like you and I belong together, that I claimed you inside long before anyone,” he touched his heart. “The importance to the prophecy is not for me to say or what I can tell you about it.  I can’t help, Grace.  I’m supposed to let you figure that out on your own.  I have a jealous heart that worries you’ll be taken from me.  It eats me up inside. Sometimes, I can’t tell if you’re agonizing over being with me because you think it’s my duty just as you announced, or because you want to, or if I should release you and let you find out what you might want otherwise.  I didn’t contemplate what would happen once you got to court.  I knew your heart for years, but when one is shocked into a new world, can their heart change?”
    Wow, he felt just like me.  We’d both bottled up the same feelings.  I felt the load lift off my shoulders like this huge elephant of feelings pressing down on me daily was finally walking away. But...he still knew something I didn’t.  It was there on the edge of his voice that I’d known my whole life. 
    “Ian, I don’t know what will happen next, or tomorrow, or ever, but I do know that I don’t want to be anywhere else but by your side.  I don’t know what this thing with Pike is, but I am very sure that this claiming thing doesn’t change how I feel about you or affect him like you seem to think it does.  Yes, he is tied in, I feel that. But Pike can suck a lemon for all I care in that department.  It’s obvious you think he is great at what he does and that you have some worry that I think he might sweep me away, but he is just Pike.   That’s it.  I don’t want to hear about him anymore now.  If you need to hear I love again I’ll say it a hundred times.  I.LOVE.YOU.”
    He surrounded me with his arms.  I was lost in him within seconds with no hope of surfacing.  Did Pike’s feelings really matter if they couldn’t be changed?  If Pike is listening, who cares.  Right?
     
                 

Chapter Four
concealed - v. 1. keep from sight; hide 2. to keep secret; prevent from being noticed
     
    I looked ridiculous but I was off on my secret mission to the range in full armor hidden behind a mask concealed to prove I could defend myself.  The tough task was doing it alone.  I didn’t want any tattle-tells so it was on with the super great idea of mine!  Second guessing oneself is normal...but this was the craziest secretive plot twisted idea I’d ever had.
    The helmet was so hot and sticky it was not hard to comprehend why men were so cranky coming out of battles. They haven’t had a woman’s touch in so much time and they stink like this and no woman would touch them.  My mom used to say something along those lines when dad would return from a huge trial that took weeks and all nighters in his office.  And that they have the manners of a grizzly bear.
    Sweat ran down my back making it itchy but unable to reach and scratch due to the way it tied on.  I'd be cranky too.  I am cranky and I haven't even started.
    The range was full of hot, sweaty men doing the same thing over and over.  I’d never noticed this before. Like maybe I was too centered round my own little universe and tunnel vision with only Ian in my sight.  These men actually spent most of their days preparing to protect the court.  And me!  I was in awe of the devotion and at the same time, wondering why couldn’t I do some of the same.  I’m not completely weak. No, I may not be a front liner, but I could shoot from the back.
    Inching between men to practice was hard to juggle in the getup they wear and only three others were wearing all the armor.
    I threw the daggers, shot arrows, and even sparred a little before excusing myself to rub my eyes of dripping sweat now blurring my vision.  I rooted myself on after each victory hit on the targets, but had to