#5 Ashlok Dark FF-My Ransacked Hear/UPDATED/Last Chapter(Pg-34,35) - Page 23

Ashlok Dark FF

My Ransacked Heart

Chapter 65

The Final Crescendo

I will not allow

My tears to flow

I will not allow

My fears to grow

I will not let myself

Miss your touch

For I know that you have

A goal and a purpose

You are going away

To make a life for us

~ To say goodbye is to die a little ~

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

~ Sometimes people choose to leave not because of selfish reasons ~ But they just know that things will get worse if they stay ~

"After marriage", her husky voice resonating in his ear, stopped him from impaling himself on her. She was breathing heavily as if she had come back after running marathon. He threw a heated glance at her heaving breasts where the sweat droplets were glistening on her white flesh, like pearls. His gaze moved to her face, which was still flushed with desire, her moist and swollen lips were parted to let the breath escape her body inorder to calm her overheated senses.

Her eyes had still a dazed look inside them, the pupils still widened in arousal. "Changed your mind princess", staring right into those darkened pupils he asked in a cynical voice deemed to make her feel bad and she must have because he felt her flinch in his arms. She pushed at his chest to put a space between their body and the flesh that was clinging together with each other as if it had a life of it's own.

"Changing the mind is a woman's prerogative don't you know that by now", she turned her head sideways and stubbornly refused to see him even when he nipped the side of her neck to seek her attention. "What's the reason princess, almost a minute ago you were shrieking at me to f***k you?", his voice was filled with an undercurrent of sarcasm.

"Take a bath, you stink of alcohol", ignoring his query she pushed at his chest again to no avail. "You weren't complaining a moment ago princess when we were doing mouth to mouth", clamping a hand over her jaw in a steely grip he turned it towards him.

"I must be out of my senses", she answered a little out of breath as she gazed into his flinty eyes. "Yes you were and more", his mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. "I am good at acting", she said with hauteur and hitched her chin higher to watch the ruthless shadows darkening his eyes to a steely hue. "Yes you are princess", he mocked. "But this can't lie", she sucked in a breath as his eyes raked across her body in all of it's naked splendor.

"See", a hand trailed across the tips of her breasts, forcing her to watch her nipples springing into life beneath his hungry gaze. "Stop it", she smacked at his hand, her body prickling and her core pulsing softly as if it had a life of it's own...

He stopped at once. Not believing her eyes she threw a confusing glance at his rigid face. "Sure princess, as you said after marriage, then so be it", his teeth flashed in a feral grin that made her hackles rise and warning bells began to clang inside her mind. Shlok wasn't a man to accept his defeat so easily certainly it was a ploy to make her surrender.

But when he withdrew his hands from her body and pushed himself away from the wall, where he was holding her trapped she felt more bewildered as to how could he accept her decision so easily when a short time ago he was hell bent on showing her that she was lying to him...

As she looked at him through narrowed eyes, with her heart still thumping with the after effects of his seduction he stood silently with his feet a little apart, his arms folded across his chest and his dark eyes surveying her coolly as if looking at a particularly annoying specimen. "The annoying specimen" being her she was about to snap at him asking for the reason of his dissecting gaze, which was making her uncomfortable with every growing second, when he dropped the bombshell...

"We are getting married, right now". "What?", her jaw dropped in horrified surprise while the devil winked at her then retrieving his coat from the back of his lounge chair, he threw it over her in one moment hiding her nakedness and in the other hefted her right into his arms, causing her to emit a surprised squeal. "What are you doing, you beast?", she wriggled into his arms like an eel. But taking no notice of her protests, he headed straight towards the door of the study.

"Going to marry his beauty of course", he grinned. At his answer Astha stopped struggling and raised her head to stare furiously into his smug face. "Shut up", she growled. "Sure princess", twin devils dancing were beginning to dance into his eyes and when he headed outside on steady legs it suspiciously dawned on her that he wasn't looking drunk from any angle...

Infact his gait felt more of an energetic man, than an extremely drunk man, lurching into his cups. "You devil, you aren't drunk are you", she asked sharply. "Nope princess, not a single drop passed through my throat, although I can't swear that I didn't smoke a little", he grinned devilishly. "You...", she began pummeling his chest making him tighten his hold around her, while for the first time he laughed openly, as if a great burden had been lifted up from his shoulder.

"I can act too princess", he gave her a smoldering wink which made her curse like a truck driver whom he had compared her with on many occasions. "Such a colorful vocabulary you've got princess even I am amazed, will you teach it to me after marriage", he winked at Astha who threw him a filthy glare from under her narrowed eyes. "What did you do with the liquor?", she asked ignoring his leg pulling.

"Threw it down the gutter, but yes not without pouring some of it on my shirt and dabbing on it my face and neck a little", he chuckled moving an eyebrow in a manner made to seek appreciation but which only earned him a punch across his face from his seething princess. "Hey", he protested, dropping her on the ground where she landed on her ass with a thud and a curse...

.

"Lady you sure can pack a punch for such a petite frame, what did you ate in breakfast to gain such strength", they had reached their bedroom, bickering all the way and now he was surveying his split lip in the dressing table mirror. "I should have beaten you black and blue", she was beginning to sob while sitting in the same position he had dropped her to.

"Hey don't cry", forgetting his split lip he got on his haunches near her. "You beast, I was so worried for you", she sniffed, wiping the back of a hand across her face to remove the wetness of tears from her face.

"No b***d, but beast now, I should be so happy at my promotion princess", he teased her, poking a finger at her ribs, where she was prone to get ticklish and just as he had wanted she broke out into giggles, quite forgetting her anger and her crying on his act.

"Stop it", she laughed, rolling on the floor and waving her arms to keep him away but her wrists were soon captured by him effectively and made to rest above her head. Her laughter died in her throat at seeing the sexual intensity darkening his eyes and she felt her breath left her lungs in a whoosh as he lifted his body above her in a lethal move.

Their eyes never leaving each other's faces, their breaths touching each other like a puff of a breeze Astha slowly lifted her head from the carpet. His gaze silently questioning her, as if reminding her of his given promise of sex after marriage, he never lowered his face to hers.

Her own gaze asking him to let go off the promise, she hesitantly touched her lips to his sensual ones and when he suddenly tensed above her, she put out her tongue and explored the corners of his vastly kissable mouth. His hands tightening across her wrists, he slowly opened his mouth at her insistence, letting her have the upper hand as he started to move his lips across hers, following her bidding.

But it was only for a moment then his head lowered as he lost the restrain on his senses and in a scorching move his lips crashed down against hers in a devastating precision, twisting like a serpent, and making her tilt her head so sharply that she could feel every inch of her neck muscles screaming in protest. Her wrists strained in his hold and her back arched upwards, with him crushing her body back in the carpet...

If anyone would have seen them from across the room locked together in that pose that person would have been greatly reminded of a demon sucking the soul out of a nymph...

The coat that he had wrapped around Astha fell off her, baring her to his blatant gaze. His trousers were removed by him as Astha's quick fingers made a great work of opening up his shirt buttons and then removing it off his shoulders. Their promise forgotten Astha stuck out her arms at him, pulling him into his hungry embrace and wrapping her legs around his waist to make a cradle for his thrusting manhood...

His breath choppy against her breasts, he took a turgid nipple in his mouth, tugging at it with his teeth and at the same time impaled himself inside her body with a strong thrust. A scream escaped her throat as the emitting pleasure from her sensitized nipple and her core connected and then burst, arching her body into his grip. Sweat poured at his back in rivulets and dripped off his face over her chest as he pounded inside her, kissing her with the same desperation that was wrenching his insides.

Now it was no more a game of who would surrender first, no thirst for dominance, it was just a desperate goodbye from one loving individual to the other, she thought with an aching heart, as her nails scribbled across his back, raking his shoulders as her pleasure mounted to touch the point of insanity.

Shlok's nails dug deeply in her buttocks as he lifted her more deeply into his embrace, cradling her face into his shoulder and hammering inside her, wanting to dissolve into her body to create one entity from two. "Say my name princess, please", he pleaded, his voice catching in his throat on a ball of salty tears that had risen up in his larynx. Like a candle wax Astha felt her being melted and dripping into him, making her core languid and pliable and her body moving like fluid under him.

She could hear the agony of separation in his voice, felt it in his every single move, every trembling touch and every desperate kiss. Felt the passion's fury roaring like thunder in her veins, felt his heart sobbing against her own and felt his tears falling across her face, mingling with the salty liquid that pooled from her eyes. Crying, moaning they rouse against each other like a dream, as passion bloomed like a flower under the rain of love in the thirsty desert of their bodies...

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Ashlok Dark FF

My Ransacked Heart

Chapter 66

The Parting Of Ways

Lightning Strikes

Upon this barren land

The land that once hold so many promised

But has nothing now, since love got banned

Black clouds

Darkening this place

A place that once was a safe haven

Now it's just an empty nightmarish space

Withered flowers

Covering broken dreams

A desert of lost memories

Sugar coated with the demons screams

Swirling rivers

Made of bitter tears

Soundless crying from a torn up soul

Heartless laughter filled with fears

Insanity rises

All has become undone

Everything just seems unimportant now

Because my one true love is gone

~ Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation ~

Khalil Gibran

"Shlok", his name was torn out from the cavern of her heart as the world burst into a kaleidoscope of colors behind her eyes. "Astha", he cried her name in a hoarse voice as his body heaved against her in the last throes of passion...

And then they fell like a wave crashing its head against the cliff and breaking to scatter into infinitesimal waves...

Like the crescendo of an opera, reaching its climax while being played on cellos...

Astha's eyes had rolled back into her head and her mouth had opened to let out an inhuman scream, which Shlok had stopped from escaping her lips, by putting a hand across it. "Shh it's okay", he whispered inside her ear, as she moved her head from side to side, her features contorting with the agony of separation. "Stay with me", a sob escaped her dry mouth. "I am heavy", he protested trying to get off her body, to lay beside her.

"No you are not", she husked, her arms going up to wrap around his naked torso. He was heavy but she wasn't complaining. Lying flushed against each other, with the escaping sweat from their bodies mingling together she felt ecstatic and for the first time peaceful...

"What are you thinking?", he whispered in the hollow of her neck, his hot breath stirring the embers of her spent passion once again. "I can understand now what you must be feeling", she twisted her face to place her cheek over his head, her fingers playing with the strands of his hairs, sweeping them off his sweaty temple.

He went silent at her words, then after a moment's hesitation asked her again in a low probing voice, "What Am I feeling?". Sighing she shifted her body beneath him, the carpet was chaffing against her bare bottom and back but she didn't care...

A little carpet burn was nothing if she could lay like that with him, so close as to feel his heart beat being absorbed by her body. "I was so angry when you told me that you have to go away, I wanted to curse and rage at you for giving me this pain again", she wiped away a lone tear from the back of her hand that had rolled down on her cheek. He lifted his upper body away from her, one arm bending to tuck his head in the palm of his hand, his probing gaze wandering across her crying face.

"Then what made you change your mind", he flicked another tear away from her cheek. Sniffing, she rolled on her side to watch him properly too. "You, it was you who made me change my mind", she lifted a hand to place it tenderly over his chiseled jaw. He lifted a brow in a questioning look as she moved her hand in a caress along his jaw bone.

"I thought that you must be suffering more than me I have Abhi to rely on but you would be all alone there with no one to take away your pain and no one to eliminate your loneliness", she whispered achingly, wiping away the tears which had started to fall from his bruised looking eyes.

"Cry as much as you want to, let it all out", she slowly gathered him in her arms, cradling his head against her chest. No thought that they were indecently naked on the carpet crossed their mind. Sometimes the pain surpasses everything even the thought of what is right what is wrong, what is decent and what is not decent...

Cause pain itself is an eliminator of all feelings...

"Let it all out", she sobbed, caressing his back while great shudders shook his body and tears pours from his eyes to fall in the hollow of her neck. She was mother earth to him, absorbing his pain in her sand, taking away his every agony and hurt in her womb, so that someday the seed of hope will bloom into a flower...

The walls silently stood as witnesses to the couple crying in each other's arms oblivious to their surroundings, while the sunlight filtering through the window dappled their skin a golden brown...

It was the end, but the end which would have a new beginning...

Two hours later they were married in a simple ceremony with Astha's mother and Ramu Kaka standing as their witnesses together with little Abhi who clapped cheerfully, his chubby cheeks glowing with happiness on having worn a little three piece suit. How they had managed to dress themselves in such a short time was another story. Shlok had bought their clothes three days ago and had been hiding them in his closet inorder to surprise her.

Astha's dress had been a mixture of scarlet, green and off-white anarkali angrakha dress with churidaar and stone work on the bodice together with beautiful tassles on the dupatta and frock. Shlok's three piece suit had been custom made to fit his broad frame. He had preferred wearing white this time, a change from his customary black and dark brown suits. He had teemed it with a black shirt and scarlet tie...

There had been no time for doing a whole makeover but Astha had made good use of the little time that had been left to her after she and Shlok had let loose their inhibitions and had made love on the carpet. It still made her blush to think of how abandoned she had been in his arms and how they let out all the agony filled in their hearts while crying in each other's embrace.

"Sign here please", the registrar's voice had brought her out of her thoughts and her blush had deepened as she had seen Shlok looking at her with knowing eyes. "Don't blush princess it doesn't suit you, you look like an idiot", he had leaned in to whisper inside her ear, his voice had been laced with lazy mockery!

Her embarrassment had vanished at once. "I am not blushing", she had seethed. "Sure princess", he had winked at her and at that moment his eyes had been dancing with devilish laughter. She had captured the moment in her eyes, a tender smile had been growing on her lips at seeing him laughing so heartily. For a second that had seemed like eons their eyes had been locked together in deep yearning and tenderness and a click had brought them back. Ramu Kaka had captured that poignant moment in the camera for forever...

The proof of their infinite love...

After the marriage ceremony had been over Shlok had lifted Astha in his arms as was the customary ritual followed for centuries by the bridegroom. Securing her arms around his neck she had placed her head trustingly over his shoulder while he had crossed the threshold, grumbling in mock protest about her weight and had earned a playful punch by Astha on his shoulder...

Abhi had been taken by Kalindi to sleep in her room, giving the couple privacy for their wedding night. They had taken residence inside the past Kirloskar house and now Agnihotri residence. Shlok had gifted Astha her own house as a wedding gift. For a whole week they had made love inside her old room, played with Abhi, had engaged in heated arguments with each other, ranging from politics and warfare to kids clothing. They had even dared to visit many public places, ate street food and had enjoyed tussling with each other on the beach and ofcourse on their bed...

A night before he would leave for the next morning, their lovemaking had taken on an insane intensity, they had been crazy, taking bites out of each other like starving animals, rolling in heated passion all over the bed and floor and trailing their hands over each other's bodies to capture every single detail about each curve and angle for their memory. Sweat had poured down their body, mingling with the tears that flowed down from their eyes in the healing process...

Astha had kissed each and every scar on his body, relishing in his masculine groans while he had given her the upper hand to kiss and touch him to her heart's content. She had atlast healed him from outside and inside. He had absorbed her light inside him where all the colors of life were absent and he was floundering in darkness searching for the end of tunnel. His little princess had snatched him away from the demon's of his past and had brought life to a frozen him...

Even if he had died at that moment he would have felt no regret. As he had looked at her grateful eyes, she understood what he had wanted to convey. His little princess was telepathic in his case how could he have forgotten that?, he had given a watery chuckle at the thought. Shaking her head in negation with his unuttered words she had brought her mouth up to anoint him with a tender kiss across his lips...

"Don't you ever dare think that again?", she had admonished him, looking like rapunzel with her silky soft hair covering his chest and her weight lying across his body. And he Shlok Agnihotri had once again fallen in love with the amazing woman that was his wife...

The next morning he had left while his wife was sleeping but not before he saluted her lips with a goodbye kiss, put a note at the side table, kissed and hugged Abhi and Kalindi and then and only then he really left...

Astha woke up from deep slumber, as the sunlight hit her but oblivious of everything she laid still for a long time, suddenly too tired and exhausted to get up, infact she never wanted to get up. Her eyes took in the room's furnishings.

Everything was the same before she had met Shlok. Or did she really met Shlok? Had she been really married to him? Did she give birth to a child? Wasn't it some sort of a dream? Had she been in a limbo that happens to people who are in coma? Was her father Avdhoot Kirloskar still alive, would he come inside to hug and kiss her like he did every day? Would her mother feed her breakfast from her own hands?

Strangely as these questions whirred inside her mind, she felt no curiosity to find there solution, just silence, completely eerie silence that comes after the soul has left the body to visit the valley of death...

Her empty cage of a body felt like a crypt of her dead senses, the walls of her room like cold walls of the vault enclosing on her. She felt suffocated, her throat constricted as her empty eyes flickered trying to focus on the dust motes wandering aimlessly in the air, just like her life would be from now on, she thought with an aching heart. She never moved her head to see the empty bedside as she already knew with a heavy heart that he had left...

Taking her soul, her essence with her and leaving her body to decay behind. And she would certainly decay behind him, waiting and dying for him everyday...

Abhi, her child, her baby the only hope left in her otherwise empty life, the proof of Shlok and her love the thought made her sit up on bed with a start. A white note slithered on the floor as she threw back the covers from her. The corner of her eyes caught it's fluttering movement and she at once dived across the bed to catch it.

With shaking fingers she opened it. The words written in Shlok's beloved writing blurred across her eyes, as the flood of tears started to brim from her tear ducts.

"Shlok", her numb lips voiced the words and a wave of extreme pain shattered her heart. She let out a scream that would have woken the dead such was the feeling of agony inside it...

I am no longer me, you are no longer you, I am you and you are me Asthu, for infinity, the words written across the note smeared before her eyes, as tear after tear fell on it, mingling with the ink to fade it away from the paper. "Come back please Shlok I will die", she had collapsed on the carpet, her arms wound tight around her body as the pain was tearing inside her womb and shredding her organs. Drawing her knees to her chest, she cried until she had no energy left to cry...

Ashlok Dark FF

My Ransacked Heart

Last Chapter

Infinite Love

When I am feeling lost and alone

My inner light guides me home

Helping me walk that extra mile

Giving me a reason to smile

Reminding me that all is well

Even when things don't looks well

The universe unfolds as it must

All we can do is believe and trust

Just as the seasons come and go

We have to live life in the flow

Keeping love in our hearts

For love is something that never departs

Keeping the light shining bright

Enjoying each day and night

Knowing there is nothing to fear

Infinite love will always be here

~ I will love you until the infinity runs out and which is never ~

~ Your darkness attracted me in such a way that i dimmed my light just so i could get closer to you ~

5 years later

Prince Charming's exist in reality too, but sometimes they don't come charging on white mounts to rescue you but come on black mounts to snatch you away from a far worse life that you would lead. You would be thinking that they are tearing you away from your loved ones and you would rebel against them. But in truth whom you would have loved the most in your life as to give your life for them, maybe in reality that person would be a total fraud. And whom you had hated the most in your life may have some conscience left inside them.

Hatred begets hatred, Pain begets pain, hatred is born from pain and pain is born from the extreme of all feelings. And the person who feels that pain and hatred has still got a chance to love someone in life. Cause if they can go to the extreme in hate we can guess that they are not so inhuman as they can still feel. And what if they would be given a chance to love again? Sure their love would hit the extremities of insanity too. Extreme hatred can lead to extreme love...

It's just a matter of when...

From the journal of Astha Agnihotri

"Don't ever break the trust of your children, they suffer the most when you betray them. Even parents are human beings, they were common men and women before they become parents. So they may have sinned, they may have done virtuous deeds but in their children's eyes they are Gods.

They'll do what you'll do, they'll act, what you'll teach them to act. So never break their trust, never ignore them and most importantly never hurt their feelings or it may have disastrous consequences to your children's lives. And a criminal is born. Once turned towards the dark path, not everyone's life is reversible and not everyone gets a chance at redemption.

Stop your child before it's too late, give them love and tenderness until they have no will left to taste the bad, cherish and protect them until they have no curiosity left to destroy someone's life.

"So gentlemen and ladies here ends today's lecture, I bid adieu to you, take care until we meet again next week and we will continue from here on Child Psychology", Astha took away her spectacles and rubbed the bridge of her nose in weary relief.

"Mam when is your next book coming on Child Pshychology?", as the people started getting up on their feet, one man raised a hand to seek her attention. "Next month, don't forget to come Mr. Wadwa in the first week I am signing free copies", a smile broke out over her mouth as she addressed the man who was also a dedicated fan of her books from 4 years...

After Shlok had left she had floundered with her life, wandering aimlessly along the corridors of her house in search of inner peace, until she would fell on her bed at night and still sleep won't come to her.

Kalindi had told her worriedly to initiate some sort of hobby so that he daughter won't fade away before her eyes. Astha had first rejected her mother's idea but then one day she had picked up a notebook and had started scribbling on it. Once she had started new ideas and concepts had started to whirl inside her mind. And she had poured all of her heart out on the note book about human psyche. Her mother had forced her to publish it on the internet and from her the golden path of her career had started.

Her book had broken all records of the latest books on psychology and she had been visited by a book publisher who had taken interest in her wok and had started publishing her books with his publishing house...

She had filled her empty life by remaining busy but the still the aching and the yearning had never gone, as if some pirate had taken away her heart and locking it inside a wooden trunk, he had thrown away the key. Every minute was agony, everyday was a wasteland and like a dying breath she was wasting away. For three years he never contacted her. It was like he had vanished completely off the face of earth...

In the initial days when she had pleaded with Ramlal to tell her news about Shlok, he had only told her that Shlok was studying hard and trying to set up his own business and after that no news had arrived about him. Even Ramu kaka had lost contact with him...

And now here she was the most famous author, who took seminars on Human Psychology, wrote book about it but still felt empty from inside. Once many people had asked her about her husband to which she had told them that he was a business man and was living abroad after that if one would inquire about anything related to Shlok or her father, she would refuse them politely saying that she won't answer any personal questions. She had been labeled by many as a haughty woman, who was too arrogant for her young years and who seemed to be not on friendly terms with the people surrounding her.

Some had even gone as far as to call her a gal who had a superiority complex. As she had gained enemies with her growing popularity she had also gained a small circle of friends who respected her privacy and valued her beliefs...

Five years of remaining in constant stress had taken a toll on her. She had matured into a woman, but a lifeless woman who was now used to wear her hair into a bun and spectacles on her sad eyes. She never wore jewellery after Shlok had left but preferred to dress in simple clothes on which someone had even cracked a joke about and that too on an interview on national television, calling her a widow who was hiding her husband's death by refusing to give answer to personal questions. At the man's vicious remarks Astha'a face had paled and she had fainted right in Kalindi's arms...

The man had been admonished and rebuked greatly by her fans but still the damage was done. She had cried herself to sleep that night, shuddering with horror at even the thought of a dead Shlok...

"Choti Bibi there is someone who wants to see you", a man servant had come inside her office to tell Astha about the new arrival. She had been standing at the window, with her back towards the door just like Shlok used to do when he would be too busy pondering over his memories. "Who he is?", she asked in a tired voice. "I don't know bibi ji, maybe some old acquaintance, I am only here from one month ji", the man explained. "Okay send him in", she heaved a deep sigh, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.

Taking out a fresh cigarette from the back she placed it in her mouth and was about to lit it with a lighter when a strange smell wafted inside her nostrils. Every muscle in her body froze and she was brutally hit by nostalgia that seemed to engulf each and every pore of her body, making her light headed. It couldn't be him, could he?, she though gulping in to take his smell inside her lungs, like a thirsty person.

"Tuh, tuh princess did no one told you that cigarette is injurious for health", the strangely lilting masculine voice, filled with rebuke could only be his. To Kalindi's consternation she had started smoking cigarette in Shlok's memory, because the smell of ash and smoke had reminded her of Shlok and that way she had consoled her heart that he was by her side...

But now her imagination had become the reality, or was it still her imagination who had come out of her memories to haunt her...

"Shlok", the word fell through her convulsing throat in the confirmation to her imagination and with a fearful but joyous expectation of seeing her imagination emerging into him, she turned on her heels to absorb the dear sight of her beloved inside her thirsty eyes. "Who else princess"?, he arched one questioning eyebrow. The same features stamped with masculine pride, the same love being shown from his eyes, the same arrogance in his posture and the same signature smirk of his lifting up the corner of his mouth...

The cigarette fell from her nerveless fingers...

Everything was same except that the years had been quite unfair to him or maybe he had paid his hard work and struggle with some strands of white who were now, glinting like jewels at his temple. Some wrinkles that he had gained on his forehead because of working in the harsh sunlight. He had also lost quite of the weight but the fat had been replaced by muscle now, giving him a lean hardness and a chiseled jaw. It had added a plus point to his already attractive persona...

"I am not dead princess and you are not seeing a ghost", his customary jokes hit her solar plexus and a feeling of excitement poured inside her, warming her from inside. The prince had atlast came back to breathe life into the frozen statue of the princess...

Giving a leap of joy that belied her mature years she dived straight into his arms with an excited squeal. "Hey you've gained weight princess, what did you eat in my absence? A horse", he joked while wrapping an arm around her waist. "Shut up let me hug you", she gave him a mock punch on his shoulder and hid her face in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply to fill her empty lungs with his unique smell. "Definitely a horse", he faked a groan as she tightened her arms around his waist.

"What took you so long Shlok, I missed you so much?", her voice was muffled as she was hiding her face in his shoulder. "I missed you too princess, but I couldn't come because I wanted to make myself capable in your eyes", he kissed the back of her head, then opened up her bun to sift his fingers through her fragrant hairs. "I almost died waiting for you", she wailed in his neck.

"Shh princess don't talk about death now, it's okay everything is okay, I've been able to set up my own business and I have also thrown away the gang life", he explained in one breath, inhaling her sweet womanly scent. "Did they let you go?", she lifted her head from his shoulder to look anxiously in his eyes. "Not easily, I earned a broken rib and fractured legs to convince them that they would be happy without me", he rolled his eyes at her.

"What?", she gasped, her eyes widening in shock. While Shlok couldn't control himself and break out in laughter at his own joke and earned a punch across his jaw, this time not a mock one. "You b****d, you did that on purpose, sometime you make me want to choke you to death", she gritted her teeth, forming claws of her fingers near his neck. "Now that's my truck driver princess, where were you sweet heart", he gave a laugh of appreciation and lifted her in the air by her waist to twirl her around until she protested that she was getting dizzy...

Laughing heartily he landed her securely on her feet, then as she smiled at him breathlessly he bent his head to claim her lips in a kiss that was tender to begin with but grew stormy as all the pent-up emotions of their past 5 years, burst inside them. Yearning was in the way he angled his head over her lips, unfulfilled passion was in the way he bit at her lower lip and love was in the way he restored her soul inside her body with one touch of his hand across her back and abdomen, with his one kiss on her hungry lips...

"Ouch mom is kissing dad", a child's shocked voice coming out of doorway broke them apart. Startled Shlok looked at a pair of four eyes peering from behind the half-closed door. "No stupid, he is too old to be our dad, our dad is young", a girl's voice protested against the boy's statement.

"Old, here goes your personality in the gutter Shlok Agnihotri", Shlok's made a face. "Abhi and Sanjana", Astha smiled at his muttering. "They are your son and daughter", her voice held the pride of a mother as she answered to the questioning look that Shlok threw at Sanjana.

She had purposely kept Sanjana as a secret because she had wanted to surprise him when he would come back to them. "Mine", Shlok was unable to believe on his eyes that he was now the father of two children. "Yes whose else", she rolled her eyes, mimicking his uttered words of a little time ago...

"No he is our dad", the boy and girl who had come inside at their mother's call were still squabbling over the topic of recognizing Shlok as their father or not? "Yeah...umm...mom is he our dad", the 4 year old girl who was the carbon copy of his sister Sanjana from his childhood memory, decided to ask her mother directly.

"Yes darling he is your dad", Astha answered fondly and heaved her daughter up in her arms so that Shlok could see her at eye level. "See what did I tell you?", Abhi swelled his chest causing Shlok to look at him with a father's pride, while a tender smile had broken out over his face. Abhi was totally his own carbon copy as he had looked as a child in his childhood pictures...

"Can I call you dad?", he was asking Shlok, to which Shlok suddenly dropped down to his knees and crushed his son in a tight embrace. "Yes my child, my babe you may call me dad", his voice was heavy with unshed tears. Feeling his dilemma Astha too got on her knees near him.

"Me too, I wanna call you dad too", Sanjana parroted her brother, waving her arms excitedly towards her father to which Shlok lifted his head with a watery chuckle and wrapped the other arm around Astha enclosing her in his embrace, while Astha completed the circle by enclosing Abhi and Shlok in her embrace. Their on the carpeted floor of her office they shared a warm groups hug among themselves...

The walls of the office who were silent for such a long time, joined in their excitement, silently applauding the man, the woman and the two children for their reunion after 5 years worth of pain and separation...

Kalindi closed the door of Astha's study on the unnoticed four members of the family, who were deeply engaged in each other's arms. Smiling, she took a sigh of relief and headed towards the kitchen to make preparation for a grand party...

All is well that ends well...

Two broken souls who had wandered through the sands of time, while one had started his journey with a heart filled with hatred and revenge while the other one had begun her journey in the pursuit of love and happiness. Who would have thought that the travelers of two different paths would one day walk together on the same path...

Some may get the chance of redemption if someone would lead them from the path of hate and darkness to the path of love and light. As Astha had done, she hadn't eliminated Shlok's darkness, she had just absorbed herself in his darkness, until he was her, and she was him and until her light had lit up his dark world. The rebellion, the rivalry had been gone between these two elements and thus they had co-existed with each other, light unto dark and dark unto light...

A never ending phenomenon of nature...

Relationships of the world are made to end, love may end one day with life, even the love between light and darkness may end someday...

But Ashlok's love was infinity that would never end...

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Hello my dear EQ Mahi 😈!