As a warning, this isn't like the dream journaling as it was with Dartanian and Amelia. Damon was more of an analytical mind. The one who thought stuff through and he really wasn't that much of a romantic at first. It grew on him, I suppose. Haha. Anyway, I just wanted to warn y'all that this post is a little different but still has great backstory for this couple. Enjoy!
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Damon
So, Soul Magic.
Many have ideas of finding a perfect spouse but most never do. The ironic portion of this whole ordeal is that only those with magical capabilities will be able to tell if they have met/found their Soul Mate. Even then, finding a Soul Mate is so very rare because nothing regarding love or feelings or shared whatever is certain. That is, it is not certain if both people will be born even within the same century. Which makes Soul Magic the second rarest form of magic there is (I think that is right for its order).
Once Dante had completed his training, I brought up the idea of this magic again regarding our spouses and potential children. I mean, we were healthy young males, and the idea of ‘safety’ wasn’t really a thing, but we looked, and we found no children of ours. Many claimed some were ours but a quick paternity test using magic – which most did not know we possessed at the time of our relations- stripped them of any holdings over us. It still disgusts me that some women would go that far just to be taken care of. Off topic. My apologies.
To try and figure out this Soul Magic, we did research. I mean, what else can we do during our stint of immorality? Might as well learn something, right? One of the ideas I had in my head is that we, the Volkenheim brothers, would not be able to procreate until we had all found our Soul Mate. There was some discussion about this, that maybe it just kept us unable until we found ours and did not affect the rest of the brothers.
Alright, so I just remembered this is supposed to be about Naomi and myself. Let us see…
When I first met Naomi, I realized that Soul Magic was not some ultimate unseen force. It drew on and magnified what was there that could grow. That is, it takes the years of getting to know one another out of the equation. When I first met her, well, I was dumbstruck that is for sure. Even though I had seen it firsthand with Dartanian, it never really prepares you for when you find yours. However, I sensed that Naomi was in distress and it prompted me to find her quickly. A good thing too. That damn bastard she was married to for a good number of years became a brute because she could not conceive. Imbecile.!
Well, I scared the tarnation out of that jerk, giving him the ultimatum of willingly signing the divorce documents or letting me persuade him another way. I almost wish he would have done it the other way. Naomi was mine to protect and protect her I would. Though I wasn’t dumb enough to try anything with a married woman, which is why I needed that jerk to sign the documents. Once that was done, well, the rest is history. I am not the most romantic guy. Love is an action, and I think what I did for Naomi and have done says more than words will ever say.
Naomi
I was born neither wealthy nor poor but some ways between the two. When it was my time for marriage, well, it was not my choice. Arranged marriages were the thing to do and it was the duty of the wife to care and support her husband and family.
I would not say I loved my first husband, but I did care for him. I think I was quite lucky, at first, with whom I wound up with. My father wanted to marry me into the Britell family. There was only one sole heir and he was five years my senior. Which was abnormal as most females were married to a man ten to fifteen years older than they were. Thankfully for me, as both heads of house wanted this arrangement, they were okay with our prolonged engagement. When he turned 30 and inherited the company from his father, our engagement ended, and we married. I had remained pure, he had not. He came to me so much during our first six months that I knew something was wrong when I didn’t’ conceive a child.
A visit from the Doctor ruined any love that might have grown between myself and my first husband. I was sterile. Unable to have children. He stopped coming to me after that, except on those rare occasions when he drank too much at home. Who was I to refuse my husband? I could try to find love elsewhere, I mean, he had dalliances and didn’t’ even try to hide it. He was gone more after we found out my condition. I was damned to a fruitless marriage with not even the blessing of children to get me through…at least until I dreamed of him.
They were sporadic at first. I thought nothing of them at first, just a wild imagination trying to create a life I wished I had. However, after a month of these dreams, some more real and clearer than others, I knew it was something far different. Magic existed, of course. Everyone knew, but no one talked about it. It was the only explanation I could compose.
During that month of getting to know this dream guy, who might not even be a dream, well, I realized I didn’t’ want to just bend to my husbands will anymore. He came back from his month-long venture and wanted me. He was not drunk and... I fought him for the first time. I told him no. I kept trying to refuse him. I just did not want to go through this with him anymore. Wrong time, most definitely.
He became a beast. He had never struck me before, even when he was drunk. Maybe it was because I had never refused him. I almost wished he had been drunk. Perhaps he might have been easier to fight off. Well, after smacking me around a bit, I remember getting tossed on the bed, clothes being torn off, and then pain. It had never been painful before. He said the most vulgar things to me that night and then left me in my bed, stripped and bleeding.
I had neve been so happy to have a dream in my life then the one that night. I cried to this man of what had transpired, and how hopeless my marriage was. After all, it was the law that women couldn’t’ divorce. Only the man could. Barbaric, really. It was nice to feel some comfort after those events, but it was what he said before I woke that stuck with me: “See you in the morning.”
He had never really talked like that before. It made me think he knew where I was. That I’d have a rescuer, but when I cracked open my eyes, and all around me was the wreck my husband left, I forgot what he said. I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but my maid bust through the door and jostled me up working to get me ready and mumbling about how horrid this place would be without me. I tried to ask her questions, but my mouth was dry, and the words just didn’t’ come out. After the maid threw my hair up in the most ridiculously messy pony, she drug me down the hall, the stairs and all but shoved me into my husbands study.
I saw him. I blinked rapidly, not quite believing it was real, but there he was in all his tall glory. He was not alone. He was being restrained by two other men who looked remarkably like him. We’d never properly introduced ourselves so how I knew his name I’ll never know but is slipped right out my mouth after I was done being stunned.
He turned his head toward me; a smile and sigh of relief passed his lips before he turned back to my husband and said with a snarl, “Hurry it up or I’ll kill you on the spot. They can’t hold me back forever.”
I looked toward my husband who was sweating profusely, eyes wide and standing rigid behind his desk. Damon lunged for him again, and my husband gasped, then bent over the documents and signed them. He stood erectly and held out the documents. The two who were holding Damon back looked to one another before looking at Damon who said, “Only once, I promise.”
They let him go and he rushed toward my husband snatching the papers away before swinging out with his other arm and knocking my husband across the room. Documents in hand, Damon swung around and stalked toward me. I was tall for a woman, but oh man, Damon was so very tall, and I craned my neck to keep looking at his face which had softened.
“Sorry I was late.” Was what he said to me.
“Why are you here?” I had asked to which he replied, “I just got you divorced. Now would you like to come with me or be taken elsewhere? Whatever you want.”
I had to hold back tears. I’d never really had concrete decisions in my life but for once I knew exactly what I wanted so I let him know by circling my arms around him and pressing my face into his chest. His arms wrapped around me, the divorce papers crinkling, and then my stomach lurched. He had to have expected it because he let me pull away abruptly and retch into a bucket he had made appear.
“Happens to everyone their first time. Naomi, would you like me to heal you?”
I still could not find the words. I just nodded and closed my eyes, feeling his hands on me everywhere. But it was gentle and warming, passing over every cut and bruise. When he was done, and I was feeling better than I had in a long time, I felt his fingers tip my chin.
“Are you ever going to speak to me?”
Opening my eyes, I finally found the strength to speak and then was horrendously embarrassed by my choice of words. What did I say? Just this, “Only if you marry me.”
For whatever reason, despite my mortal embarrassment, he and his -twins I found out later, as he had been a quintet- just laughed until they cried. When Damon finally found his voice again, he hauled me against his chest, my feet dangling, our eyes level. “Damn right I will.” He whispered before finally kissing me. It really felt like the first time I had ever been kissed in my life. Damon continued giving me choices and let me decide when and where we would be married. I did not want to seem like I…well, I don’t know what you would call it. I guess I care too much what others think, so I waited five months, a period of mourning you could call it, before I let him marry me.
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