A Short Story --started.. 'Love and Beyond' by: Rhonda Hayman

[Rhonda Marie Hayman]

Love and Beyond
By Rhonda Marie Ledbetter Hayman

Rated "PG" by the Author.


Love has no boundary. Two people come together in a hard land and battle enemies and love eachother no matter what the cost.



He's coming. He's coming.
She races towards the castle. In her haste to get away she doesn't see him already on her heels. Her heart has set its own tempo, she can feel the beating pulse in her chest.
He has been gone for so long. Now he returns. Now when she has learned to be her own mistress. When she has learned to fight battles with their enemies on her own. When she had finally put him from her mind.
All it took was one look upward in a split seconds time and there he sat atop he great beastly horse. His own mane flying with the breeze. Long golden strands of the thick glorious hair that was always in her mind. Along with the ice blue eyes that pierced her to her very soul.


As she reaches the gate his large hand reaches down and swoops her up onto his big mount. Her side to his chest, she can feel the heat radiating from him.
He breaths in her sent and nuzzles his nose in her her long black hair.
"Elizabeth, my Beth, my dark angel. How
I have missed you." He whispers in her ear. A deep urge to pull her into an embrace and smother her with his kiss so strong that he can scarcley contain himself.
"Wolfgang. You are here." Elizabeth responds out of breath and feeling gittery with sensations running through her at his touch.
"You must put me down. What will people think seeing a giant barbarian of a man running down and snatching their mistress?" She pulls at his big strong hands to no accord. He is holding firm.
He smiles at her concern and softly runs his finger down her cheek to stop at her lips. "I have not been away so long that they will not recognize their Lord. Do you think?"
"Away long enough I think to make them question their eyesight. Besides, you could have given a proper hello inside." She is not so concerned about what the people will think, but more concerned with them seeing her react wantonly toward him in her need to feel him close.
"Is it not proper then for a husband to greet his lady wife with affection after such a long absence? Besides, once I saw you running like a scared little deer towards the castle I knew I couldnt wait another moment to have you in my arms." He pulls her close and puts his finger under her chin, lifts it softly and kisses her with all the pent up longing and desire he had been denied for these many years.
He had seen and been around many women in his time away but none appealed to him. None had the sparkle in their eyes and the grace in their walk as did his Beth. None could make his heartbeat like he had just fought a hundred men on a battle field and came out triumphet.



Walking into their home together for Elizabeth was hard. She had begun to believe that he would not return. That he lay dead somewhere and would never grace their home with his awesome presence again.
But here he was. In all his glory. A few added lines around his eyes and mouth, but that was warfare. That's what it did to a human being. At thirty years old he was still gorgeous. A powerful man. Powerfully built with his wide shoulders and thickly musceled chest, arms and legs. His leather jerkin fit him like another skin and his white linen shirt hung open to show his tanned lightly sprinkled with hair chest.
For Wolfgang it was just as hard to walk into his home. He had been afraid that after four years of absence that she would have moved on. Thought him dead and taken a new husband. At the same time though, he knew that their love was strong. That she loved him as much as he loved her. They had been married for only one year before he had to leave. She had been so young, only seventeen when they had wed.
But here she was. Walking beside him, proud and happy.
"Come up to our chamber. I'm sure you would like a bath and I have so much to tell you and ask you." Elizabeth pulled him along up the long winding staircase in a hurry to get him to herself.
Wolfgang smiled and let her lead the way.
Once inside their room, with the door shut behind them, he pulled her into his arms. He ravished her mouth. She was lightheaded and moaned.
Their need was so great. They hardly had their clothes off and tumbled on the bed before he was inside of her.
Their passion built from a raging storm to out of control. It was blinding and mind consuming. It rocked them to the core. And when it was finished they both lay there on the bed, breath mingling. Trying to recover from the fall over the cliff.
"I love you, my Wolf." She smiled at him beautifully.
"I love you, my Beth." And he kissed her.
They both lay there dozing for a few minutes before Elizabeth finally leaned up over him and with tears coming down her face, from sheer joy, put his hand to her heart.
"I have something to tell you that I think will make you very happy." She whispered.
"I already am happy. What is it that could possibly make me any happier?"
"When you left for war I was 2 months gone, pregnant."
"What?" His eyes wide he can't seem to catch his breath.
"Seven months after you left we had a baby. A beautiful little boy. He looks exactly like his father." Elizabeth can't keep from beaming. Her heart is so full.
"A son? Where is he? Did you not know this before I left?
"I was so upset over the idea of you getting ready to leave me that I didn't notice missing my cycle and the queasiness in the mornings I thought were from the stress of you going away."
"I'm so sorry that I wasn't here for you. It must of been difficult going through that all alone. I would have done anything to be here! You know that right?" He was so happy yet distressed about missing the pregnancy and the birth. Not to mention the last four years of his sons life.
"It's ok, my love. I know what is in your heart. And he knows who his father is. I speak of you to him everyday. We prayed for you together everynight." She touched his face to smooth away the frown.
"His name? What is my sons name?"
"I named him after his father. Wolfgang. Wolfgang Conar Eiricksson. A strong name for a strong lad."
"You named him for me, I am so proud, I must see him at once. Is he in the nursery?"..the questions formed on there own accord. "Will he be afraid of me? Will he be asleep right now?"
"He is wide awake I presume and driving his nurse crazy with his antics." Beth replied with a smile and sparkle. Thinking about how much the son was like the father.
"Come my love, it is time to meet your son."

They walked down the long hall towards the nursery. Wolfgang at a fast pace, anxious to see what he and his Beth had created together. Beth all smiles knowing how the father would react to the site of Wolfgang, the son.
"Let me go in first and prepare him." Beth told Wolf.
"Be but a second, I can hardly contain myself."
Beth walked in and closed the door within seconds the door fung open and a little boy with golden hair and beautiful skin came running out, flinging himself at his father.
"Father, you have come home. Mother has been worried for you, she has cried at night, I heard her, when she thought me asleep." Wolfgang told his father as Wolf pulled him up into his massive arms and held him close.
"I am sorry for making your mother cry, have you been a big boy and comforted her for me in my absence?"
"Yes father, I have been a big boy. Mother said you would be very proud of me." Wolfgang sang out proudly.
"I am proud, you are a fine young lad, I am extremely happy to be home and have you in my arms now." Wolf smiled at his son.
Not wanting to put him down just yet Wolf walked into the nursery with him and Beth. When he got inside he found a very frustrated nurse waiting with foot stomping.
"Do you have any idea the trouble this boy causes me? Ingrid, the nurse said sternly. "He runs about causing havoc, distroying everything, just so he can try to fix it again, then he believes it funny to sneak out of the room and go to the stables and hide in the stalls with the horses. While I hunt him in his many hiding places."
"What a fun boy you are." Wolf said, "I gave my nurse much trouble as well. Like father, like son huh?!"
"Wolfgang smiled sheepishly and shook his head in the affirmative.
All the while Beth stood back and watched her two boys as they bonded. She never thought this day would come, not really. She really had feared her love dead. She had thought that their precious child would never have the priviledge of having the love and tutorship of his father. Have a chance to learn how to be the man his father is. Those are the things she could not teach him. Those were the things that she would have to ship him away to another families keep to learn. Which she could not of done. But look at them now. Their family was one again.



After spending an hour with their son, Wolf led Beth out of the nursery, outside of the castle, out of the walls to their special place. Just theirs, noone else was permitted in that one spot. A brook with big rocks surrounding it and such clean clear water. Trees flowered over it hanging like a canopy.
Once at the side by the greenest grass around, they sat down next to each other and just listened. Listened to the quiet, to the peaceful songs of the birds, to the jumping of the fish, holding eachothers hand.
:"You thought I dead, did you not?" Wolf looked at Beth with sorry eyes and a sad expression on his mouth.
"I feared it, yes. I had heard nothing in so long and men were passing by all the time on their journey home, and no you. I would ask them each if they knew of you and some would have known the name, others would have known you personally, and then others knew not of you at all." Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she spoke.
"I am truly sorry my love. I thought of you and our home every day, if I could of, every second. I fought a good fight and won many battles. But they were fought in the hopes of getting home to you all the sooner, safer." He leaned over and kissed her tenderly.
He raised his head and looked into her eyes and saw that the tears did flow freely now. And the love swelled in him to such great proportions that he thought his chest would burst.
"All is well now sweet. You are home, safe, whole and kissing me. You have seen your son. You have made sure that I was still only yours. Always is always after all my Wolf."
"Yes Beth, always is always, and I shall love you till the end of always. I must tell you, the castle looks remarkable. You have done a beautiful job taking care of our home in my absence. I am extremely proud of you. You must fill me in soon about the goings on here. But first, I want another kiss and maybe another..." Wolf was on top of her in an instant and Beth was lost in his arms.



Wolfgang and Elizabeths story is a remarkable one full of mystery and romance. Their meeting was by chance alone. He found her. She was not looking for him, was not looking for love. Did not want to marry at all. It was all a bunch of bullying men yelling at their wives, expecting brood mares instead of a loving partener, who they would cherish and she cherish in return. But there he was, he could not be ignored. Though she tried and fought the feelings that were there immediately, she was lost to him.. naturally, their love seemed meant to happen, for them both, it was a natural easy thing and it felt better than heaven.
Others viewed him as a playboy, chasing skirts where ever he went. He was known as the coyote playing wolf, what, trying to live up to his name? Once he met Elizabeth though the coyote became a magnificant wolf.. Full of love and compassion, the look on his face was different. He was a new man. Full of promise and a heart filled with hope for a new future.
Elizabeth knew from the second meeting that he was her heart. That her life would be filled with him and only him. She was amazed at how easy it was to love him, to need him in so short a time. But need him she did. She was not skiddish with him as she had been with so many brought to her by her father with intended marraige. With him, she just knew that he was her destiny. She had never believed in such things before her Wolf. Now she did though.
Wolf himself, had loved many, but never with the heart before..
Their seperation seemed to make them stronger. They appreciated every moment they had now. They were one, they were as they should be. Nothing could touch them.

to be continued........

[Mary-Chris]

O O O, it's wonderful, and I would like sommore please!