A Passion for Potions (Petalfall #1)

64. Sixty-Four - The Easiest Answer

Sixty-Four - The Easiest Answer

Ana

Will I…

“Of course.” I don’t know why I’m surprised. I shouldn’t be.

Confusion bundles into a cord and then pulls tight. Snapping. Oh. Oh! Oh!!

“Of course !”

I slide down off the rock and they step toward me, concern on their faces.

They shouldn’t have put me up there in the first place.

But they let me kiss that concern away a moment later.

“Of course I’ll marry you.” I say, still a little breathless as I lean back to look up at them. “I want to claim you in front of the Goddess and declare myself as yours as well.”

The smile that evokes makes me want to kiss them all over again, but Viggo takes a step back from me.

He opens the ring box and the band inside is topped with a green pearl, flanked by teardrop shaped black diamonds, and golden leaves wrap around the band.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“We had it made especially for you from one of my family’s older rings.” Viggo lifts it free of its place between velvet cushions. “And Penny supplied the pearl from one of his grandmother’s broken pieces.”

Viggo slips the ring on my finger. “We didn’t want to ask you on your birthday. That was for you. Tonight can be for us.”

I grab the front of Viggo’s shirt, hauling him to me and kissing him as I reach for Penny and reel him closer too.

I want to kiss them both, but have to settle for switching back and forth between them.

I’m breathless before I know it.

“You want to marry us?” Penny asks, as though I might have changed my mind.

“Yes.”

Viggo picks up my hand, pressing a kiss to the inside of my wrist. “Promise?”

“Yes!”

“When?” Penny asks as Viggo says, “Is tomorrow too soon?”

I laugh, but Penny says, “Yes. Tomorrow is too soon.”

And I have to agree. “Can you wait until the shop alterations are finished?”

Viggo takes a deep breath and lets out an even deeper sigh. “I suppose so.”

But he smiles as he says it and then looks at Penny. “You need to talk to the carpenter. I will pay him double if he can get it done tomorrow.”

This time it’s Penny’s turn to laugh and my turn to lightly scold him. “You will not abuse anyone’s time to make more for us.”

“Of course not,” he says, but adds, “You cannot blame me for wanting to make you ours in front of the Goddess and in the eyes of the world as well.”

Penny leans closer and pretends to whisper. “I’m told that vampires find patience as they get older, but I think ours might be a hopeless cause.”

Viggo snaps his teeth at Penny, but I say, “I don’t mind.”

I certainly don’t enjoy being patient when it comes to this.

“What he has failed to mention,” Viggo says, “Is that I have been patient.”

Penny’s lips purse in a smile. “He might have proposed the first night if I had let him.”

Viggo picks up my hand, pressing a kiss to my wrist. “I’ve known we were meant to be together from the moment I saw your face bathed in the glow of those moon berries.”

“Did you?”

“I might not be able to see the future... but I know when something is right.” He looks at me and then at Penny. “The three of us are right.”

And eventually we will go before the Goddess, but for now…

“What is this place?” It has to be something special. “Or did you simply bring me out here so that the others wouldn’t interrupt your question?”

“It was partially that.” Penny glances at Viggo, who makes a face that leads me to believe he may have had more to say originally than the simple question he asked. “But also this.”

Viggo steps to the side and they take my hands again, leading me to what had seemed like a dark path, but everything shimmers between one step and the next.

A veil of elf light halos a tall and narrow dome set on columns that are slender enough I think I could hug them and touch my hands together.

It’s a summer house half covered in the pale purple and blue vines of doe ivy.

Walking up the steps, I turn in a little circle. Someone—I don’t need to guess who—has placed a circular bed in the center of the space. Wine and glasses wait in ice, apricots and grapes and strawberries in a bowl beside them…

When I crane my neck to look up, the dome is open to the sky through a crack that nearly splits it in two. Stars twinkle far overhead. Everything is so quiet.

The slender columns are dark and old... the carvings once on them have been worn away by years of water and wind…

We might not be able to declare ourselves before the Goddess in her temple, but we can beneath her stars and to each other.

“What a beautiful place.” I turn back to them, fingers going immediately to the buttons of Penny’s shirt.

“I found it last week.”

Viggo chuckles, helping with the buttons at Penny’s wrists. “And his first thought was ‘I can clean this up and fuck my lovers in it.’”

Penny shoots him a glance, but he doesn’t disagree.

“There’s nothing an elf loves more than being naked in nature.” I slip Penny’s sleeves from his shoulders.

“Not true.” Penny catches my lips with his, and when he pulls back, I snatch away the clip that held his hair in place. As it tumbles down his shoulder, he says, “I love the two of you far more.”

“And I love you both more than I love the way moonlight feels on my skin.” Viggo says as he shrugs off his own shirt.

“Who knew it was a competition?” I tease them. “Aren’t we all so blessed that we get to have everything we want?”

Maybe I did get some of my mother’s luck... but instead of wealth, my luck has brought me them.

I’m much happier with them.