“I’m memorizing,” I say. “In case you disappear.”
She gives a soft, amused sound. “No more adventures for a while.”
“Hmm. I like adventures with you. I like sharing a bed with you, too.”
Her lips curve, that faint smirk that always undoes me. “Your tongue is too sweet. I miss when you used to be quiet.”
“If I speak words, it is because they are true, my flame-haired goddess.”
She sits up, reaching for her robe, and I reach first, catching her wrist. “Stay.”
“Vann,” she sighs, “you can’t keep me in bed forever. I have work to do.”
“I can try.”
When she looks back at me, her hair slips over her shoulder, red-gold in the firelight. I could look at her for a lifetime and still not feel finished.
“Marry me,” I say.
For months, she has slowly let me back into her life. Into her house. She knows we are mates. We know we are for each other. And yet…
Her mouth quirks. “No.”
“Please,” I whisper against the fragile skin of her wrist, my voice rougher than I mean it to be. “Please, marry me, Arlet.”
She turns to me fully now, one brow lifted, eyes soft and dangerous all at once. “I will,” she says, “when you stop asking every morning.”
“That sounds like never.”
“Then you’ll just have to live long enough to keep asking.”
I laugh, low and breathless. “Cruel woman.”
“Patient man.” She tuts. “Though you have your own cruelty in you, too.”
She leans in and presses her forehead to mine, and for a while we just breathe—two pieces finally made to fit. The Fuegorra hums faintly at her sternum, its glow reflected in my own eyes.
I help her dress—though she hardly needs the help—and when my fingers brush the back of her neck to fasten the clasp, she shivers, just slightly. It’s enough to make me forget words for a while.
For some reason, she doesn’t leave. So, I pull the small leather-bound scroll from the table.
“What is that?” she asks.
“A story,” I say. “One I thought you’d like.”
Her expression softens. “Then read it to me.”
So I do.
I open it to the first page, the ink still fresh. The letters are uneven—my handwriting’s never been as graceful as hers—but I’ve rewritten it a dozen times until the words sound right.
“It’s about a troll,” I begin, “and a human who lives at the edge of the world, in a cottage carved into the rock, with looms that hum and windows that catch the first light of dawn. He builds her a library with more shelves than sense, and every night she fills the pages with stories—some true, some not, all beautiful. They raise wild children who never sleep, who climb trees and steal stones and torment crystal wraiths, and who grow up listening to their mother’s tales and their father’s songs.”
She’s smiling now, quiet and full of happiness. “Does it end happily?”
“Of course it does,” I say softly. “They live a long time. They fight, they forgive, they build something that lasts longer than curses or kings.”
Her eyes meet mine across the firelight. “And do they love each other?”