Chapter 16: He Wants Me to Be His What?!

Nidhi

The proposal came without warning, which was fitting, because nothing in Nidhi's life had ever arrived with adequate notice.

They were in the kitchen. It was three in the morning. Nidhi could not sleep — the pre-assault anxiety was building like pressure in a sealed container, manifesting as insomnia that even Arjun's proximity could not cure. She had come downstairs for warm milk — Gauri's prescription for sleepless nights, flavoured with turmeric and a pinch of black pepper and sweetened with honey — and found Arjun already there, standing at the stove, heating milk in a brass pan with the focused attention of a man performing a sacred task.

"You couldn't sleep either," she said.

"I felt you wake up. The bond."

"That's creepy."

"That's biology."

She sat on the kitchen counter — something Gauri had told her not to do because counters were for food preparation, not sitting, and something she did anyway because rules about counters were the kind of rules she had spent ten years unable to break and now broke on principle. The counter was cold through her cotton pyjamas. The kitchen smelled of turmeric and honey and the residual warmth of the dinner Sahil had cooked eight hours ago — biryani, the promised Lucknawi dum biryani, which had been exactly as life-changing as advertised.

Arjun handed her a cup. The milk was perfect — warm, golden, sweet, with the gentle heat of pepper at the back of the throat. She wrapped both hands around the cup and breathed in the steam and watched him, because watching Arjun in the kitchen at three in the morning — barefoot, hair mussed from sleep, wearing a kurta that was too large and made him look less like a divine warrior and more like a graduate student — was a private pleasure she had no intention of sharing with anyone.

"I need to tell you something," he said.

"That sounds ominous."

"It's not ominous. It's — I'm not sure what it is." He leaned against the opposite counter, his own cup untouched in his hands. The distance between them — three feet of kitchen floor — felt both appropriate and impossible. "After the assault. After the coven. Assuming we survive, which we will, because I refuse to consider the alternative—"

"Arjun."

"I want you to rule with me."

The sentence landed in the kitchen like a dropped pot — loud, clanging, impossible to ignore. Nidhi stared at him over the rim of her cup.

"Excuse me?"

"The house of Vijay. Conquer's lineage. I'm the Horseman, which means I'm the leader, but the tradition — the old tradition, the one that predates the current generation by centuries — is that the Horseman rules with their mate. Not as a symbolic consort. As a co-leader. Equal authority, equal responsibility, equal voice in every decision."

"You want me to be — what? A queen?"

"I want you to be my partner. In everything. Not just the relationship. The leadership. The strategy. The household." His green eyes were steady, stripped of charm and pretence, offering something raw and real. "You've been a strategist since the dungeon. You mapped a coven's entire power structure in your head. You provided intelligence that four Horsemen are building a war plan around. You're not just capable of leadership — you've been leading since the moment you broke out of that cell with a rusted dagger and a child."

"I've been free for six weeks."

"And in six weeks, you've transformed our operational posture, earned the respect of every person in this household, taught my Warriorhead new swear words, and convinced my intelligence officer that you're the most valuable strategic asset he's ever encountered." Arjun set his cup down. "Nidhi. I'm not asking you to be something you're not. I'm asking you to be what you already are, with the title to match."

She looked at the milk in her cup. The golden surface reflected the kitchen lights — small, bright points that swam when her hands trembled.

"I don't know how to be a leader. Not that kind. Not the kind that stands in front of people and makes speeches and wears official clothes and attends council meetings."

"Neither did I, when I inherited the position. I learned. You'll learn faster, because you're smarter than me and more ruthless and you have Sahil, who will make you a PowerPoint for every occasion."

"Stop being reasonable."

"Stop pretending you don't want this."

She looked up. He was watching her with the particular expression he wore when he had said something true and was waiting for her to catch up — patient, certain, gentle in the way that strong people were gentle, which was not the absence of force but the deliberate choice not to use it.

"I want it," she admitted. The words came out small, surprised, as if they had been hiding in a room she had not known existed. "I want — to matter. To have authority that isn't just survival. To make decisions that protect people instead of just protecting myself."

"Then say yes."

"I have conditions."

"Name them."

"Aarav is officially adopted into the house of Vijay. Not as a ward, not as a protectee — as my son, with all the rights and protections of divine lineage."

"Done."

"Hiral gets promoted. She's been your Warriorhead — she'll be our Warriorhead, with expanded authority and the resources she needs."

"Already planned."

"Sahil gets to keep making the scrapbook."

"I couldn't stop him if I tried."

"And the assault on the coven. I lead the ground team. Non-negotiable."

"Already agreed."

She drained the milk. The cup was empty, the turmeric leaving a golden residue on the ceramic that looked like a miniature sunset. She set the cup on the counter beside her and looked at the man standing three feet away — the Horseman of Conquer, the man who had carried her out of a forest, who sat outside her door at three in the morning, who had just offered her half of everything he had because he believed she was worth it.

"Yes," she said. "But I'm not wearing a crown."

"We don't have crowns."

"Good. Crowns are stupid."

"I'll let the ancient divine tradition know."

She jumped off the counter. Crossed the three feet. Kissed him — properly this time, not the soft, tentative mango-kiss of the dining room but a real kiss, the kind that communicated intent and commitment and the particular ferocity of a woman who had decided to claim something and was not interested in being delicate about it. His hands found her waist. Her hands found his hair — those dark curls that she had been wanting to touch since the forest — and the Divya Shakti between them ignited, not with flame but with light, a golden radiance that filled the kitchen and made the brass pan on the stove glow and the turmeric in the air smell sweeter and the three a.m. darkness outside the windows feel less like an absence and more like a backdrop.

When they finally separated, breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, his hands still on her waist and hers still in his hair, Arjun said: "For the record, that was significantly better than the mango kiss."

"Everything is better than the mango kiss. The mango kiss was a nervous impulse."

"The mango kiss was perfect."

"The mango kiss made Sahil cry."

"Sahil was already crying. He cries at breakfast when the dosa comes out well."

She laughed against his mouth, and he kissed her again, and the kitchen at three in the morning — with its turmeric steam and honey sweetness and the residual ghost of Sahil's biryani — became the place where a woman who had been a prisoner decided to become a ruler, and a man who had been a leader decided to become a partner, and neither of them regretted a single thing.