Sunrise

Summary: peheli subah Mubarak ho Jaan...

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For the first time in four years her dreams are not swarming with ghosts.

Instead Amrit dreams of sunny fields of Lahore, open blue skies and due drenched greenery budding from freshly turned earth. She walks among them, her bare feet sinking gratefully into that beloved soil, silver anklets chiming.

She turns her face up to the sun, basking in its warmth, filling herself with that scent of home.

But that scent is no longer of Lahore streets, or those fields that she loved so. Amrit turns and burrows into it, that scent of earth and spice, with tangy notes of musk and something distinctly Male.

The dream is wearing off, thinning into the cool dawn that she opens her eyes into. She is still wrapped in Veer.

He holds her against himself, an arm wrapped around her waist and the other tangled in her hair. Patterns on her bangles are imprinted into his skin. Amrit colours, bites her lip and gently pulls back. Veer makes a sound in the back of his throat, his hand making an unconscious movement of reaching out for her.

But she slips away from his arms, holding those burgundy sheets of his bedding clutched against her bosom as she sits up.

In the light of a dying wick of an ornate lamp, Veer is washed in red gold, taut lines of his body bared to her eyes and - if she so wishes - her hands.

Amrit looks away, her thoughts straying, going to places that made her blood heat up. She closes her eyes, but those visions, those thoughts are branded behind her eyelids and there is a delicious burn under her skin, a reminder of his hot mouth trailing along its smooth expanse. Or his fingers playing her like a fiddle.

Her exhale is hashed, thick with intoxicating memories. Amrit wills her heart to quiet down, yet it roars in her ears. Oh, she is no longer an innocent was she? She knew exactly what pleasure tastes like, or where the fire burning beneath her skin would lead.

So instead she checks on the drawers of the bedside  cabinet for papers. Amrit knows Veer keeps his stationery there and often leaves ink stains on his sheets when he works. He has a habit of working on the bed instead of his desk, scattering papers everywhere while he wrote.

Amrit finds what she is looking for in the first drawer she checks, the fountain pens tossed in with bottles of ink and scraps of paper.

His ink is scented, a citrusy scent that Amrit has grown to associate with their evenings at the library. Drafts of her articles came away from his editing smelling as if someone had crushed orange peels upon them, minty and fresh - with his suggestions or remarks scrawled in the margins.

When she puts that pen to paper, she cannot keep her eyes from drawing back to the man still fast asleep, languidly stretched out beside her. His pen, the one his fingers were so accustomed to play with - his fingers - no, Amrit reins that particular thought in.

Instead she writes,

Tu aag ka dariyan
Main kathra paani ki
Aas hai tujmein
Yun doob jaane ki

She closes her eyes then, lets those memories return and wash her in their heady sensations. Amrit mutters to herself, soundless words yet to be written, as the scent of Veer's ink plays with strands of her thoughts.

"Tu aag ka dariyan
Main kathra paani ki
Aas hai tujmein
Yun doob jaane ki
Tu pyaasi sehera
Main barka sawan ki
Aas hai tujpar
Yun bhars jaane ki
Tu aankon ka nam
Main mausam thanhai ki
Aas hai tujko
Yun kudh mein lipatne ki
Tu aag ka dariyan
Main kathra paani ki
Aas hai tujmein
Yun doob jaane ki"

She opens her eyes when fingers start drawing patterns along her throat. For a moment she stares at Veer, he watches her.

"Biwi sahab, utt gayi aap?" His voice is deep and creased with sleep, it makes her insides stir with recollections. Amrit's eyes drop on their own accord. "Good morning."

She tucks the paper under the pillow along with the pen not wanting him to read that particular choice of words.

But since she didn't reply his fingers curl under her chin and tilt her face to meet his eye.

"Look at me Amrit," there is no more laughter in his tone, but a dread. She sees it reflected in his eyes as well.

She has seen it before, at times when Rani ma went too far with her hurtful words, when Veer awaited her to deliver the final devastating blow.

"Humein iss tarah barbaad matt kijiye jaan," his words occur to her automatically and she knows what he waits for.

Amrit reaches for his face and  caresses his jaw, hesitantly but fondly. Veer's eyes flutter shut.
The bangles in her hand tinkle. Amrit fills herself with that feeling, that she affects him as much as he stirs her.

Equals. That was the promise.

Equal tormentors.

Equal fascinators.

"Kya soch rahi thi?" He asks her, taking hold of that wondering hand and pressing a kiss on her palm. "Amrit," his eyes search her face. "Tum kush ho?"

Knowing he wants answers, she nods. She cannot find words to give him just then. Veer sits up and draws her closer, against his heartbeat. He kisses her palm again, still raw from the blow last night but skin already starting to heal.

"Dard ho raha hai?"

Amrit shakes her head not sure if he meant to ask about her hand or something else altogether.

"Aap ko?"

She lifts a cautious hand and places it on his back, indicating those self inflicted injuries.

Veer flinches for a moment but then tries to mask it up with a smile.

But Amrit is already moving, pulling over a robe and going to retreave that ointment they kept passing around for each other's injuries. It is the same that he had given her the first night they lived under one roof - the irony is not lost on her.

"Turn around."

"Biwi sahab," he begins but then complies rather reluctantly.

Those angry red gashes makes her breath catch painfully. He is warm to touch - maybe slightly feverish. Carefully, with gentle fingers Amrit applies the ointment. Veer hisses at the first brush of her finger tips and then relaxes. Each of his exhales shudders his frame.

"Tell me why you did this," Amrit says softly, choking on a lump in her throat. "Kissi ki kiye ki Saza kudh par kiyun?"

Veer entwined her fingers with his and turns around.

"You tell me," he says. "Kissi ke gham ki yeh aansu kiyun?"

"Kya aap meri nahi?"

That draws him blank. He tugs at her hand and Amrit tumbles into his arms. They are so close together that his eyes are all she could see. His arms come around to cage her and turns them over so that she is underneath him. He braces his weight with one arm, looking down at her.

"Ajeeb ho tum," he says, blowing a slow breath on her face. A finger is trailing down the side of her face, along the line of her jaw and down her throat. "Apna banati ho, phir nazarein churati ho."

"Aap ke nazar hi kuch aise hai," Amrit tells him, breathless suddenly.

"Kaise hai?" He breathes against her lips, not kissing her, just a breath apart, taking pleasure in watching how her lips trembled in anticipation.

Amrit had no idea how sensual she was, or how responsive. A simple touch or even a look, could render her defenseless. It filled his heart with warmth, this innocence.

He kissed the corner of her mouth carefully, then along her jaw and dotted chaste kisses down the column of her throat. Her chest heaved and Amrit shuddered, trapped between him and the bed, and this moment.

"Aisa matt kijiye Veer..."

"Hmm?" He hummed against her collarbone before kissing her there. Her hands locked in his hair and she tried to bring his mouth back to hers.

"Bohut sata the hai aap," she gasps, her eyes are indeed watering, her face is flushed with desire. "Dard hota hai."

When he meets her gaze Veer's eyes have gone dark. Amrit raises a hand to touch him, he burrows into her touch.

"This pain is a part of pleasure," he tells her, hands trailing over her body knowingly, familiarly.

He had learned her thoroughly the night before, mapped her with eyes, hands and mouth. Amrit colours at the thought, drawing in a startled gasp when he reaches for bare skin.

"Anticipation highlights the pleasure. Every touch, every kiss that you imagine, that you predict makes you feel more."

She thrashes from side to side.

"What are you trying to do?"

"Kaha toh tha, irada aap ko bebas karne ka hai, jitna hum kudh hai aap ke liye." A hushed gasp leaves her. "Irada jeet ne ka hai," he pauses and looks into her eyes, his gaze knife like with intent. "Aap ko jeet ne ka."

"Veer..."

"Woh shayari sunao," he mutters against her shoulder and Amrit keens at the open mouthed kiss he presses there. "Woh joh Tum likh rahi thi."

"It isn't  -" she gasped again. "Even that good."

At that Veer pulls himself up, staring at her. Amrit shivers at that look, at the power he seemed to emit. He reminds her of a predator. Not an injured one, like he often made her think of, no, one in control of a hunt. A beast that moved sleekly through the ground that favoured it, that knew and took advantage of its strength. And she - is his cornered prey.

"Humein apna banana itni bhi aasaan matt samjho biwi sahab, tumhe kudh ko khona honga iss saudein mein." He draws a intentful finger along her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, past her trembling lips, pounding pulse and having chest.

"Veer Pratap Singh kudh ka nukzaan nahi karta. Tumhari har saans humare, har kwaab humare - har raaz humare." The heat of his mouth brands each word upon her skin, making her draw delirious.

There is victory in his eyes, an odd mixture of pride and triumph.

"Sunao." He says.

And the words tumble from her trembling lips, Veer kisses her in return of each breathless word that she is a mess of throbbing sensations by the time she is done. Tears escape her eyes and trickle into the lustre of her hair. He wipes at them.  She turns her face away.

"You are cruel," she mumbles.
He kisses her forehead, stroking her cheeks with his large hands.

"But yours." He brings their faces closer, nuzzles her and burrows into her hair. "Mathlabi hai hum, tumhe baatna nahi chahate.  Tumhe khona nahi chahate. Humse raaz matt rakho Amrit, they use it against us. Woh agar tumhe humse cheenliya toh hum - hum Jee nahi payenge."

He sighs against the crook of her neck and presses his  cheek there. Veer remains like that for a moment, absentmindedly stroking her hair, breathing her in.

"Say something," he tells her.
Amrit's fingers trailing along his back are cautious. Her face is still turned away.

"Aap kush hai - kuwar sahab?" Her voice is rather small.

Veer draws back and looks at her, registering the use of that distant address. His brows frown a little when he notices the tears clinging to her lashes. He touches the back of his palm to her cheek, there is a darkening shadow there, where she had been bruised. His heart clenches painfully.

"Amrit?"

He knows she is watching him in the peripheral vision, Amrit's fingers works on a lint in the bedspread instead.

"Am I really enough?"

Veer turns her to face him, she complies and rolls back into his arms.

"Chhod kar nahi jaayenge na aap?"

"Yeh kaisa behuda sawal hai biwi sahab?"

She closes her eyes, tears dust over her raised cheeks. The exhale that escapes her is heavy with regrets.

"Aap chale gaye the. Woh log - woh log mujhe -" she shudders at the memory. "Aur woh bhai hai aap ka. That brother you wanted found since forever. That brother you love so much. That brother whose death you were shouldering all along. Woh agar mujhe maang liya toh - uss din ki tarah phirse kya aap -"

Veer says nothing. His silence cuts her deeper than any blade possibly could. Amrit feels like sobbing but she doesn't.

"I know I'm not your first. You are too experienced - too fine, it doesn't matter. But I can't help but wonder. If there've been others, what makes me different? What makes this forever? What will I do if you decide one day that you've had enough - that just like those - women - I am not what you want.

"Kyun ki meri haan hamesha ke liye thi, poori zindagi ke liye thi, har pal, har saans ke liye thi - bass ek raat ke liye nahi thi. Something died inside me when you walked away, I couldn't even call you back. Had you not come looking for me, wahaan, uss jaga  - meri saans rukh jaati. Agar aap ke alawa kissi ne mujhe chua hota main - main marr -"

Veer kisses her hard at that, not allowing the cursed word escape those lips. His fury at himself for failing her, for traumatising her pours into it. It bled into her longing, fear and desperation and grew more intense.

It isn't their first kiss, no, they had lost count the night before. But none of those kisses had the raw blazing passion of that one. Her fingers trailed across his face greedily as she took possession of his mouth, tugged at his lips and her teeth worried at their supple flesh.

His hands seek and possess her, trailing fire along their wake. The slow exploration from the night before is taken over by despair and need that blazed, they couldn't draw each other closer enough.

He sank into her, simply a missing piece of her soul coming home, and Amrit throws back her head in a harsh cry. Veer kisses her throat, her closed eyelids, her flushed face. Her heart still pounds, he kisses along that throbbing pulse, soothing it down as she comes to from her high. Her hand clenches in his hair.

"Mujhe darr lag raha hai kuwar sahab," she breathes, clearly helpless. "This feeling scares me. I've never felt like this. I was in love before - this - this is different. This is decadent - it's- it's -"

"Sinful?" Veer supplies, lips tugging into a knife edge of a smile. He kisses her jaw and rises above her so that he could look into her eyes.

"You may have been in love before," he says slowly, meaningfully. "But you weren't in love with me. You were a child before, you weren't ready for feelings such as these. Sixteen is not an age to marry Amrit, whatever your family were thinking.

"You are a woman now. A wife in every sense of the world. You don't have to be afraid of anything you feel for me. Least of all, you don't have to be afraid of me. I might push your limits from time to time, I might torment you - but I would never, never ever do anything that hurts you. You can say no at anytime and I will stop, no questions asked. Aur khabardaar agar yeh chhodne wali baat phir kabhi bhi humse ki toh. Khabardaar."

He rests his forehead against hers and lets that last word which was merely a breath wash over her.

"I will regret that moment of walking away from you until the moment I die. Maybe even after. It cannot be put to right, it cannot. I will never forget how I found you there - how you didn't recognize me.

"You must think of me a beast if you think it possible for me to let you even cross paths with that man again, let along give you to him. You are not a thing to be given or taken Jaan, kudh ki maalik ho tum. Tumhari meherbaani hai hum par. Hamara haq nahi hai. Hum kya de de tumhe kissi ko?"

He dabs at her tears, gently along that swollen cheek.

"My feelings for Prem are still the same. But he is no longer a five year old boy. He is a grown up man - a man who has wronged you. My feelings for him or Ma Sahab has nothing to do with that."

He pulls back and away, leaving her to catch her breath Veer starts to dress.

Amrit watches him, knowing he is well aware of her gaze and did not mind it in the slightest. There is something rather homely about that, about how easily and completely he made way for her in his life, in each of his moments.

"Chaliyen," his voice jerks her out of her thoughts.

Amrit lets out a startled scream when Veer lifts her into his arms, cuddled in those blankets and that heavy robe she wore before.

"I'll show you the sunrise of Shrigar."

"Nahi," she protests halfheartedly, too bundled up to actually do anything about it. "Koi dekhlenga. Veer, no, I'm not even properly dressed! Koi dekhenga toh kya sochenga?"

"Iss mein sochne wali baat kya hai?" Veer asks her, single handedly pulling away the drapes that covered the doors leading out into the balcony. "Koi quantum science toh hai nahi."

The breeze of the balcony plays with her unbound hair and Amrit raises a hand to comb through it.

"Tum ho, hum hai. Saat the. Saat hai. Kissi ke dekhne se kya hota hai?" He holds her closer, buries his face in her sweet smelling hair, and confesses against her ear. "Aur hum chahte hai ke log dekhein."

"Kyun?"

He shakes his head at her curious gaze.

"Aap poori raat humare saat thi Amrit. Hum gawah hai kal raat ke har ek pal ke liye. Ab ya toh Shrigar apne kuwar ke baat maane, ya uss ke Dai ma ki." He arches an eyebrow at her. "What do you think?"

Amrit doesn't know what to say. Her throat tightens at the implication he smoothes off, how many more stones aimed at her has Veer blocked silently? How foolish was she, to make him go through all that? How heartless was she to take all he gave and then ask him if he would ever grow tired of her?

She leans her head against his shoulder, as the silver of first light turns into the gold of the new day. In the eastern sky that they face sun is a blotch of sindoor against the blue dawn.

"Woh dekhiye Shrigar ka suraj," Veer tells her, in her ear his steady heartbeat pours. "Peheli Sabah Mubarak ho, jaan..."

**

Again before you ask, the picture came from silsila 😂😂 yes humari phooti kismat.
Since there seem to be some confusion I'm putting this up again, CK is updated thrice a week. Monday. Wednesday. Friday.
If you get update notifications on any other day that's a special update because - monster probably I have something to celebrate, including my mood changes. 😋
Best and easiest thing to do is add this story to your library (personal) and you'll get notified when I update.
These few chapters will be a little slow based and rather romantic, before- as usual things begin to get stormy. So forgive the drag of few chapters and enjoy the romance because real villains will come knocking soon. I hope you won't get bored with the story before that.
Thanks for reading, do vote and comment and keep CK going!❤
We will meet again on Wednesday 🤗