Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

Of course, I hadn’t known it was her balcony; I’d thought it was her
mother’s. In fact, it wasn’t until she was eighteen and approached me at a
cocktail fundraiser that I learned she’d been the one collecting the notes and
sometimes leaving her own in return.
That night, she asked me to take her. To give her the gift of choice, the
same way I’d given her hope to withstand her father’s world.
She said she’d recognized my handwriting and wanted to make our
connection more concrete.
I’d refused, misquoting Paradise Lost and spent the next month trying to
erase the image of a young Elena Ricci sprawled out like a feast beneath me.
She was of age, and willing, and frankly I’d never noticed her presence
before that night, but she was also the child of the two people who’d
irrevocably changed my life.
Then Rafael asked me to watch her, and poetry became the only way I
could communicate with her.
The only way I wanted to.
Pulling the tattered book out now, I flip to a dog-eared page, my finger
immediately finding the line, even though I know most of Blake’s poems by
heart.
“'Til the villain left the paths of ease to walk in perilous paths, and drive
the just man into barren climes.”
I hold her electric stare when I recite the line, and she frowns. “The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”
“The marriage of opposites. Good and evil. Theoretically speaking, we
aren’t a sure thing,” I say, snapping the book closed and sliding it across the
table in her direction. “But given the situation, we don’t have room to fail.
I’m imprisoned in this union as much as you are; therefore, for better or for
worse, your sentence is a permanent one, wife.”
She grunts, tapping her fingers on her knee, seemingly lost in thought.
“What are the chances of you killing me, too?”
“Zero.”
One eyebrow arches. “You sound awfully certain for someone who just
killed my fiancé and whisked me away from my family. How do I know
you’re not about to take me out to the middle of nowhere and murder me?”
Her tone prods at some barely hidden annoyance bubbling inside of me,
and I bristle, reaching up to undo the top button on my suit jacket. She tracks
the movement with blazing eyes, that sharp little tongue darting out to wet