At ease, the both of them spoke of unimportant things, flirted, shared coy glances, and laughed. 
The food was fantastic, filled with spices and fragrant herbs, but it was nothing compared to the absolute joy of being with Helion again.
Hearing his roaring laughter, listening to the deep rumble of his voice, watching as his hold on his power loosened and his skin shone like the sun in the midst of night. 
But mostly they remembered. 
Reminisced on the times they shared half a millennium ago.
By the time they couldn't avoid darker topics, the food was gone, both of their plates cleared, and multiple glasses of wine drunk up.
Mother, she wanted to tell him everything.
But even the wine couldn't loosen her tongue on some things that needed to wait for another time. 
"Beron found out, you know.  That I'd been off with another man."
She could feel the venom pouring off of Helion at the mention of Beron's name.
The liquor had loosened his inhibitions, clearly, as the fork he'd been holding crumpled in his fingers.
"What did he do,"
He breathed.
Arabella almost snorted, but restrained herself. 
If she let the wine take her too far away she might never come back.
So instead she shrugged, and couldn't keep her shoulders from curving inward a bit at the memory.
"He made sure I knew I was his.  In more ways than one."
A soft snarl escaped Helion.
"So why did he never come here? Why did he never challenge me? I would have killed him then, gladly."
A tremor wracked Arabella's spine.
She had known for all this time that Helion would've done anything for her.
That was why she'd never returned.
"He never knew it was you, Helion," she murmured. 
There was genuine surprise in his golden eyes, genuine surprise that ripples across the table, interrupting waves of ire and disdain for her late husband.
"I never told him.  After a few decades he lost interest in trying to find out.  Had me under lock and key, so it didn't matter anymore."
She could almost feel the questions that he wanted to ask her, demand answers for.
Questions that he was afraid to ask.
Questions that she didn't know if she could answer for him yet.
Helion's hands were clenched into fists, shaking.
Arabella reaches out and placed her hand on his.
He stopped trembling, and met her eyes.
"I..."
He trailed off.
Neither of them really knew what to say. 
There was so much, but both of them knew that now was not the right time.
She watched as he took a deep breath and sighed heavily.
Profound weariness and sadness lay in his beautiful face.
She wondered if she looked the same.
Rather than address it, Helion simply cleared his throat.
"Shall we retire, my lady?"
He stood and held out a hand to her.
And suddenly her grief was swept away by a charming smile.
As they walked arm in arm back, the growing realization that it was his bedchamber brought forth many reactions.
First and foremost, tingles of pleasure that shot down between her legs and up her spine, making the scent of her arousal quite evident.
Arabella refused to look at Helion, and her face grew hot.
But there was also dread and shame in her belly.
She couldn't let Helion touch her, take her when she was hardly a woman anymore.
She knew that Helion could scent her arousal on her. 
She could smell it on him.
But she was terrified that he would sense her reticence and take it for lack of interest.
From the glow of his skin and the overwhelming scent of him, Arabella doubted he could tell.
They stopped before the doors of the bedchamber.
His bedchamber.
And Helion released her arm and turned to face her.
"Ari,"
She at last looked up into his eyes.
In them burned a want that spurred her own desire tenfold.
"I confess, I was selfish," he said, his voice low and sultry.
"These... are my chambers.  I recognize it was rash.  There are others nearby made up-"
Arabella stopped him.
Despite herself, she smiled a bit.
"I know, Helion."
His eyebrows rose.
And again despite herself, she leaned up, hands on his chest, whispering in his ear,
"Your clothes are still in the wardrobe."
Her breath caught for a moment.
"I could smell you on them."
Helion's heartbeat quickened considerably under her hands, and let out a low growl.
Dropping back down onto her heels, Arabella watched his face intently.
His lip twitched up, and he seemed to almost grimace.
"Im trying to restrain myself, Ari." He almost groaned.
The ache between her legs grew stronger and she could feel the slick there.
It made her want to tell him to unleash himself instead.
But she stepped back, slowly, and her hands slipped off of his chest.
"I know.  I... I'm sorry, Helion.  I shouldn't have."
The disappointment in his eyes was tangible, but he smiled at her gently.
His broad hand cupped the side of her face, and she leaned into it.
"Never apologize to me."
So gentle. So kind.  So perfect.
To love her after all these years, after she'd been sullied so thoroughly. 
But if he wanted it, she wanted it. 
"The chambers beside mine are empty for guests."
He extended a hand to lead her to them, but she paused, staring back and forth between his hand and his inquiring eyes.
"Helion...."
His brow furrowed.
"Helion I... I may not be ready to... be with you but,"
She sighed in frustration at her poor grasp on the words.
"I don't want to sleep alone."
What would've otherwise bloomed on Helion's face as a sensuous smile became something sweet and tender. 
He didn't ask any questions.
Simply pushed the doors open and left the way open for her to enter.
Arabella gave him a grateful look and walked in.
He truly was an incredible male. 
She would have understood if he had asked her to sleep in another room.
She could still smell his desire, knew that it was a struggle for him and that it hurt just as badly as it hurt her to resist.
Arabella stood in the middle of the room for a while, and Helion let her be, preparing himself for sleep.
She couldn't help when her eyes followed his undressing.
Perhaps she had overestimated her self control.
Especially when she considered her convenient forgetfulness at the fact that Helion slept naked.
Arabella was in no way afraid of the naked body.
Especially one so fine as Helion's.
But she didn't know if she could resist, even with her insecurities, if she lay beside him at night.
If his arms held her close and she could feel...
She shook her head and grew red in the face when Helion met her eyes and gave her a cocky grin.
His eyes flared and she turned away. 
Holy mother she'd forgotten how big he was.
Desperately, she shook her head, fumbled in the wardrobe for a thin silk robe, and walked quickly to the bathing room (which mercifully did, in fact, have a door of sorts).
The image of him was still burned in her mind. 
And it was not helping her remember to hold off.
Her face and neck and chest were all flushed like the cardinals in Autumn.
Absolutely mortifying.
Even more so was when Arabella stripped and donned the robe, and realized how utterly short it was.
With no undergarments.
Considering it was Helion, she was lucky the robe hadn't been completely sheer.
In the mirror, she examined herself, robe tied loosely, hair cascading down her shoulders and back like some waterfall of rubies and flame, eyes still lined with that kohl that brought out the copper and amber tones.
The jewelry was long gone, in a neat pile on the table beside the wardrobe.
With a sigh, Arabella began to scrub the makeup off of her face.
When she was fresh and clear of any cosmetic, she again looked in the mirror.
The glow from her skin was still there.
And she realized that now that she had escaped, that Beron was dead and she could be here, with Helion, that glow would never again fade.
She smiled and walked back into the bedchamber.
Helion lay back, eyes closed, sheets only covering him up to his low hips.
Her breath hitched.
Somehow I'm seeing him like this was even more alluring than seeing him completely naked. 
The silk sheets dipped so low that she wanted to hook her finger beneath them and slip them down just an inch...
Arabella closed her eyes and cleared her head.
This was ridiculous.
She was nearly a thousand years old and still falling to her urges like a youngling.
She padded carefully to the other side of the bed and crawled in beside Helion.
For such a large room and such an extravagant male, the bed now seemed incredibly small. 
The heat from his muscular body radiated towards her, almost like warm hands that caressed her body, up and down.
Helion's eyes remained closed, his hands still behind his head, his torso stretched out and open to ogling.
A shiver ran down her body.
He was so painfully close to her.
Staring at him would do absolutely nothing to distance her mind from sex, so instead she rolled over on her side, her back facing him.
The presence of him there was almost as gruelingly desirable.
And almost immediately, his broad arm draped across her waist and pulled her close to him, against his body, that heat spreading through her deliciously.
She could feel him, hard against her back.
In more ways than one.
"Helion..."
He hummed contentedly in her ear and settled back down into the bed, his arm a heavy weight over her slight body.
She'd never felt safer, happier and more loved.
His breathing was even but she knew he was just as far from sleep as she.
So she spoke.
"I haven't shared my bed like this in many many years."
Helion tensed behind her.
He paused before...
"I assumed-"
"Most do.  But Beron and I had separate chambers."
Helion was silent, either contemplating his words or waiting for her to go on.
"Most times, if he wanted me, he sent a servant to fetch me.  When he was finished he sent me back."
She shuddered and Helion's arm tightened.
"Sometimes he came to my rooms.  In the days after his death, I still woke, expecting him to be there, in some rage."
Arabella could only hope that this gave Helion some explanation for her refusal of his advances. 
Some explanation as to why she still wanted to sleep in his bed.
Helion held her painfully close, but she let the proximity, the protective hold, consume her.
Beron had been possessive. 
Controlling.
But never protective. 
For 700 years she had been guarding and protecting herself, not only from Beron's enemies and unsavory consorts, but Beron himself.
Helion was silent.
For a long while.
"I should've... I never knew what it was like," He said quietly.
There was rage simmering there.
And guilt.
"I knew what was happening but even my eyes couldn't find out what he did to you."
His spies.
Beron had always taken extreme precautions to feed false information and blind all informants to other courts.
Trust no one and survive.
Arabella leaned back into his chest.
"And what would you have done if they'd told you the horrible details?  What could you have done, Lord Helion?"
He, the High Lord of Day, could have done absolutely nothing unless he wanted to bring the people's of Prythian to absolute war. 
He knew that very well.
It was why he had never come for her.
And yet he still punished himself.
"I could have stolen you away," he whispered, face buried in her hair, against the sensitive skin of her neck.
Even as a shiver traveled down her limbs, she brushed her hand over his arm.
"Don't be foolish, Helion," she said.  Gently.  Gratefully.  Lovingly.
He pressed a kiss to her shoulder and rested his chin there.
"Perhaps we deserve to be foolish.  After all this."
Arabella turned in his arms to face him, hands flat against his chest, face but an inch from his.
Her own kiss found its mark on his lips, chaste but lingering.
When she broke it, she looked into his eyes.
"Let the past remain in the past.  It led us here.  That's all that matters."
He seemed loathe to let it go, but he brushed his lips across her forehead and pulled her close.
"That's all that matters."
...
Helion watched as she fell asleep beside him, curled up against his body.
His beautiful, wonderful Arabella.
How he had wanted her tonight.
From the moment he had seen her, free of Beron's terrible grasp.
But some things were more important.
And though he ached to ravage her, to make love to her, having her sleep soundly and peacefully beside him, having her there, holding her again, was more than enough.
He would be there for her like he hadn't been able to before. 
And he would never let her be taken from him again.
Her deep, even breaths soothed his soul like a balm on a burn.
A thrill ran through his body.
Arabella was here.
The shock fully set in now.
The body beside him was the female he'd fallen in love with so thoroughly all those years ago, and who all those years ago he had resigned to never seeing again.
But here she was.
And when Helion finally closed his eyes, he fell asleep.
At peace.