He stepped forward at once, his hand coming to her face, his thumb brushing her cheek as though to make certain she was real. Then he kissed her.
It was not hurried. It was warm and steady and full of everything neither of them had managed to say until now.
When they parted, it was only because breath demanded it.
“Jamie,” Iona whispered.
“Aye,” he said. “We will see her first.”
They went together. The castle felt different now as they moved through it. Quieter, yes, but not empty. Not haunted. When they reached Jamie’s chamber, the door stood slightly ajar. Caitlin had left a candle burning low within, and in its soft light, Jamie slept peacefully beneath her blankets, one hand curled near her cheek.
Iona went to her at once, kneeling beside the bed. She brushed her fingers gently over her daughter’s hair, then leaned in to press a soft kiss to her forehead.
“Safe,” she whispered.
Frederick stood behind her, his hand resting lightly on her back. After a moment, they left her there, warm and untouched by the night’s horrors.
The bath was already being prepared when they returned to Frederick’s chamber. Steam rose gently from the tub, the water fresh and clean and nothing like the cold, damp air of the lodge.
Iona stepped in first, the warmth wrapping around her in a way that made her eyes close briefly. Frederick followed, settling behind her, careful of her injured arm as he drew her back against him.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
He took a cloth and dipped it into the water, then began to wash her back slowly, his touch deliberate, almost reverent. As though each movement mattered. As though she mattered.
Iona let herself lean into it, into him, into the quiet that had replaced the chaos of the night. She turned within the space of his arms, facing him now, her hand lifting to his cheek. He leaned into the touch without hesitation.
The closeness between them shifted then. A quiet recognition of what they had nearly lost and what they now chose to hold onto.
When he kissed her again, it was with that same care. The same intention. Two hearts sharing one rhythm. Frederick pulled her out of the tub, and Iona’s legs instinctively wrapped around his waist as he walked them to the bed.
The light of the blazing fire danced across his darkened features as he hovered above her only for the briefest of moments.
“I love ye, Iona.”
Her breath hitched, and she arched her body up to him as she pulled his lips down to hers. “I love ye too, Frederick.”
It was hours in one moment when they came together. His thrusts were slow at first. Letting her desire wrap around him tightly. Each time he buried himself inside of her, all she could think to say was “I love you, I love you…”
“Ah!” she cried in ecstasy as he plowed into her harder.
“I love ye so much, mo chridhe,” his words were so delicate as his rhythm increased.
The two people who had finally spoken the truth of what lay between them, and found it stronger than anything that had tried to break it. It was her and him against the world, and nothing would get in between them. Nothing at all.
Frederick pumped into her, matching her cries for more until finally her grip on his shoulders tightened as she arched her body again toward him. His pace was almost punishing, but if he stopped, she thought that she would surely die.
“Please, Frederick. Please, my love,” she said finally. And with a rough groan, she felt him buck into her with such force that it threw her over the edge. Her cries of desire escaped from deep within her.
Frederick held her against him. “I have ye, Iona. Forever,” she heard him say as waves of heat crashed over her trembling body.
It was several minutes before their breathing caught back up to them, and the room came back into view. Frederick eased himself off of her and rested on the pillows beside her.
Iona’s head beneath his chin, and his arm around her once more. It was as it should be. Every action, every breath, every thought was shared between them.
And for the first time in longer than she could remember, Iona felt no shadow waiting at the edge of it.
Only peace.