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“Sit, my love,” Jong Su greeted his fiancé the next morning.  “Tomorrow I get to sit up.”

“Oh, how delightful!” she intoned sarcastically.

“Hey!  It is!  I’ve been lying flat in this bed for four days.”

Her eyes caressed his.  “But I’m worried that your shoulder will aggravate you.”

“My shoulder is already aggravating me.  Sitting up isn’t going to make it worse.  I will be less frustrated when I can face you easily across this short distance.  Instead of staring at the ceiling all day long for days on end.”

She nodded sympathetically.  Sook Myeong was feeling a bit shy this morning.  Uncertain how to be around Jong Su today after revealing her heart to him yesterday.

“I’m glad you’re here,” his voice stroked her lovingly.  “I’ve been awake since dawn.  So I’ve prepared a little something for you.”

She quirked one flat, dark eyebrow at him.

He smiled at her as he opened his mouth to speak again.

“Once I wandered lonely and sad.

But now your heart has made me glad.

You finally looked my way too.

Therefore, I am no longer blue.

“Once I wondered if I could find

A girl like you who would be mine,

Soft and sweet, compassionate, true,

Bright and lovely, ready to woo.

“Then one bright day you looked my way,

Opened your mouth, prepared to say,

That you were mine and I was yours.

You opened to my heart your doors.

“You let me in, prepared to stay

Close by your heart every day.

Surrendered to me your sweet lips.

Carried my heart on lovely trips.”

He fell silent, and Sook Myeong simply stared at him.  Her face a study in vulnerability.

“I love you,” he whispered.

And she blinked.  His words washing over her in an endless tide of beauty.

His eyes fluttered shut.  And no other words escaped him.

“Your words are lovely,” the princess finally admitted softly after many seconds of silence.

“What?” he breathed.  “No critique?  No criticism?”

“Everything rhymed.  In perfect time.  But it was the sentiments of your heart that caught mine,” she whispered.

His lips quirked upward.  “Princess, I think you may be a poet too.”

“Nah.  I’ll leave that job to you.  You’re much better at it.”

“Okay.  I’ll leave the shooting to you then.”

Her eyes riveted to his.  “I told you.  I’m not practicing anymore.”

Sober now, he gazed at her.  “Then who will save my life the next time I’m in peril?”

She held his stare.  But remained silent.

“I’ll go with you.  Next week.  To the practice field.  You can show me how it’s done,” he murmured.

Still, she didn’t speak.

“Sook Myeongie, you are the bravest girl I know.  This, too, you shall overcome.”  His eyes drifted shut and before long he was asleep again.

So this time, he didn’t catch the tear that slid down her cheek.

She sat watching him sleep for a long time.  But, truthfully, she was exhausted too.  She hadn’t been sleeping well.  Not this whole horrid week since he’d been pierced by an arrow. 

She gazed longingly at the other side of his bed.  But she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.  And fell asleep.  Sitting up.

That was how her brother found her half an hour later when he came to kiss his wife.  He glanced at Eun Sook and shook his head.  “These two need to be married now.  Then she could sleep in that bed with him.”

“We slept in a bed together before we were married,” she murmured with a sheepish smile.

“There is no way I’m allowing my sister to crawl into a bed with a man she’s not married to.  It’s not my fault your protective, older brother was nowhere to be seen when I carried you off to my room.”

“Careful.  He might hear you,” she whispered as her lips curved into a smile.  “And I’ve been through quite enough of an ordeal this week with him getting shot.  I don’t need to deal with him shooting you too,” she teased him softly.

“He already knows.”

“What?”  She came out of her chair then.

Jin Heung approached her slowly.  Prowling.

“He knows that I shared your bed before he arrived?”

The king nodded languidly.  “Someone told him.  He appeared before me in the hallway.  Your avenging angel.  Bent on destroying me if I gave him the wrong answer.”

“So, what answer did you give him?”

“The truth.”

“The truth?”  Her snowy eyebrow smacked her hairline, startling a blush into it that then descended to cover her entire face.

“Well, mostly.  I didn’t describe our kisses.  If that’s what you’re worried about.”

He reached for her and tugged her gently into his arms as he grinned mischievously down at her.  “I think I need another of those kisses right now.”  He bent and nuzzled her neck.  “I’ve been missing you something terrible this morning.”

“You are a glutton for punishment, Jijin,” she giggled.  “You just left my bed an hour ago.”

“Bed?  That’s a splendid idea.  I think you should take a break from guard duty and retire to our bedchamber with me.”

She glanced at his sister.  “Who’s to keep an eye on them?”

He shrugged.  “They’re both asleep.”

“Jijin!  Are you going to leave your sister unprotected?”

“From the man who nearly died saving my life?” he queried, one bold eyebrow ascending to reign over the other one.

“They’re not married yet.”

He glanced back at them.  “No.  But I think they will be soon enough.”  He grinned.  “As soon as the prince can stand, I’m betting.”

She giggled again.  “They are crazy about each other.  He’s been writing her poetry, Jijin!  And she’s shed quite a few tears in front of him.”

Now both of his eyebrows crashed into his hairline.  “I don’t believe you!” he ejaculated, shocked.

She chuckled.  “I was too far away to see them.  But he mentioned them.  And she responded as though she didn’t know she’d been crying.  So I have two witnesses, you see.”

“Remarkable,” Jin Heung stared in awe at the prince.  “He really is her match, isn’t he?”

Eun Sook grinned saucily.  And bent to whisper, “She asked him to marry her.”

“What?”  Now those eyebrows were launching an all-out assault against his hairline.  “When?”

“Yesterday.”

“How did you not come to tell me this last night?”  He kissed the side of her neck.  “Or even early this morning?”  Another kiss followed the first.

And she giggled.  “How ever could it have slipped my mind?”

He straightened to stare down at her as a huge smile slowly lit up his face.  Then he bent to capture her lips with his own.

A groan from the bed interrupted them.  “Oh, would you two get a room?  You’re disturbing the sleep of an invalid,” came a dry comment.

Eun Sook jumped, attempting to separate herself from her husband, but his arms were wrapped tightly around her, preventing her desertion. 

“Excuse me, but we have a license for such behavior,” remarked the king.

“Not in front of me, you don’t.  I’m not about to witness you ravishing my sister.  Take her to your rooms, Jin Heung.”

“You know…you’re getting awful familiar with this king,” Jin Heung replied.

One cinnamon eye cracked open, and the prince glared at the king.  “I do believe, your majesty, that the hole in my shoulder might have bought me a couple of untitled comments.”

Jin Heung’s lips curved upwards into a smile.  “Oh?  Do you now?”

“As well as my permission for you to marry my most esteemed sister.  Brother.”

Humor now lacing his voice, the king responded, “Oh, yes?  Brother?”

The two men chuckled, and Jin Heung whisked his wife from the room without a backward glance. 

But she looked back.  “You’re going to leave your sister alone with him?”

“The man needs to move quickly.  My sister is a fickle, stubborn creature.  She could change her mind at any moment.  I need all the leverage I can get to secure their marriage.”

She gasped.  “You’re saying that…”

“I’m saying that now I can hold it over her head that she was alone with him.”

Eun Sook shook her own head.  “Jijin, sometimes, you are…”

He gazed down at her affectionately before opening the outer door.  “I am…what?”

“Absolutely adorable.”

She sealed those words with another kiss.