Epilogue #4
With the dizzying amount of chatter and theorizing on social tapes, and this escalating after the curse fell from Berg and Tanyn sharing the news of royal murder, this was unavoidable.
Even so.
“But I don’t get why Climbright would have support for such an arcane bill. Capital punishment was outlawed by the Center over a century ago, when all signed the InterRealm Accord.”
“The curse on Berg collapsed, claiming you as my queen during troubled times. Aleksei is True Heir and Laura his True Bride, and the Fall hasn’t had a True Heir in nearly two centuries.
Dinyn is connecting the dots that something big is up.
And I’ll admit to being taken by surprise he’s making moves to make it less attractive to those who might be planning something extreme. ”
I’d only met the male once, but from Tanyn’s response to him, I was surprised too.
“When it comes up for a vote, I’ll be voting yea,” Tanyn proclaimed.
And more surprise.
I was not political, as such.
But I could say I was anti-capital punishment, because that was the realm of savages.
We were not savages any longer.
We were living in a civilized world that had long since learned that the punishment of death did not deter crime.
“Tanyn—”
“I don’t think this will stop Tatra. But it’d stop Arnaud.”
With their shenanigans, one out of two was one too few.
“She murdered my parents, baby,” he said quietly.
Well.
Crap.
It was easy for me to have my opinion when no one I’d loved had been murdered.
As such, I had to give him that.
“And she tried to murder you,” he kept at me.
I had to give him that too.
“You as well,” I said.
“Those she sent were easily dispatched. It was a distraction. It was designed to pull me from you so you’d be vulnerable. You were meant to perish. You were meant to perish to cause me pain. As Laura was, so Aleksei’s mate would go unfulfilled. Her MO is pain. Pain, loss and control.”
“And power,” I added.
“And that.”
Fuck this.
Fuck her.
We were on Sigil.
We’d had three weeks of peace, togetherness and settling in with each other.
Now, Laura’s beast was cavorting in the snow, for hells’ sake.
“We have flowers to lay, baby,” I whispered through my scarf, lifting the bouquet.
“You’re right,” he murmured. “Enough of that.”
He touched his nose to mine again (so adorable!), let me go and bent to put Hurley in the basket at the back of his Sprint.
He bent again to give Avie a full-spine stroke before he swung onto the Sprint, I got on after him, he fired it up, and we took off.
For a while, Avie raced beside us.
Then he veered off in another direction.
Not long later, we stopped at Darynda’s resting place.
It was the same as before, except I noticed a couple of lynx slinking into the forest beyond the marble monument as we got close.
Like they knew she lay there.
Like that was a bond that wouldn’t break, even in death.
Maybe they did, and it was.
In the end, it was simply sweet…and deserved.
We alighted the Sprint, and after I gave Tanyn the bouquet, I hung back again as he approached.
I gave him time.
He took it.
And then he turned to me and stretched an arm my way.
I was his.
And he was mine.
She was his.
And he was hers.
It was time to meet my mother-in-law.
I walked to his side, slid an arm around his waist, he returned the gesture, but only I dropped my head to his shoulder.
We both looked down at the snow with Hurley sitting in it at Tanyn’s side.
Long moments ticked by before I realized what I wanted to say.
Thank you for him. He’s absolutely perfect. And he makes me really happy.
Then…
Was it me?
Or, right after I thought those words, did a soft breeze skid over the snow, blowing a gentle rush of powder over our feet, the marble, her resting place?
That snow did rush.
But it had to be a coincidence.
“I’m moving Dad here,” Tanyn murmured.
That was the first time he’d referred to his father as “Dad.”
I tightened my arm and pressed closer to his side.
“I think that’s a lovely idea,” I whispered.
We stood there moments more, in silence, before he kissed the top of my head and led me back to the Sprint.
We loaded up.
We left Darynda to her rest, which rightly, would soon no longer be lonely (I knew it would be soon because when Tanyn made a decision, he didn’t mess around).
And we went home.
“All right, is it me, or were all the females acting weird all night?” I remarked as Tanyn and I walked up the steps to our new bedchamber.
“Something did seem up,” Tanyn replied.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked.
“No clue,” he answered.
I believed him.
I did because he hadn’t been acting weird during dinner, or during the hot, spiked cocoa we sipped as we chatted, sitting around the fire after it.
But Laura, Gayle, Aleece and Zyra were sharing looks, and Gayle even emitted intermittent giggles at, apparently, nothing.
We’d been through a lot.
Sure, the last three weeks had been relatively normal, notwithstanding all of us suddenly living together in Berg Castle.
But now we were removed from all that.
Even with the attack here, the consistent buzz of the Red Wing Stealth-Arrows patrolling the skies, the increased defense bots stationed everywhere, this felt somehow removed from all that drama.
Maybe, being away from it, our crew was unwinding and their behavior was suppressed hysteria being released.
We had a solid four days here before we had to get back.
Plenty of time to unwind, recharge and be ready for whatever was next.
That must be what it was.
Letting it all go, which was why we were on Sigil in the first place.
We were closing in on the solar when Hurley barked and raced forward.
He disappeared into the solar.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“Again, no clue,” Tanyn answered, casually guiding us forward.
I heard it when we hit the solar.
No.
Not “it.”
Them.
I stopped dead and whipped my head around to look at my fated mate.
“Is that…?” I couldn’t finish.
Tanyn grinned, bright and glorious.
“You had no clue?” I accused.
Tanyn kept grinning.
“You liar!” I cried happily.
Then I detached from him and rushed into the bedchamber.
On the bed was a crate where the noises were coming from.
Those noises?
They were irate kitten mews.
I dashed to the crate and looked in.
When my head loomed over them, they stopped mewing and stared up at me.
One was white with soft beige accenting its fur and emerald eyes, the other chocolate furred with tawny eyes.
They had wide faces, thick fur and chunky bodies.
“Oh my gods,” I breathed. “They’re Landian Shorthairs.”
“They are,” Tanyn, now standing beside me, confirmed. “Mac found a breeder for me.”
At our voices, the angry-at-being-trapped mews returned.
I reached in and nabbed them both, then cuddled them to my neck.
Their fur was so soft.
“Tanny,” I whispered, raising my gaze to his. “I love them. I love them so much. I love them to my bones.”
“You just met them,” he said with unconcealed humor.
I glared at him to communicate how I felt about his doubt about my instant devotion and snapped, “I love them.”
“I see,” he said softly, his now black gaze crackling with red lightning.
Hurley barked his interest in these two new creatures.
Oh no.
I loved that pooch too, but he wasn’t getting anywhere near my two new babies. Not until I knew they’d play well together.
And not right now, when they were all mine, mine, mine.
I cuddled them to my chest and alternately cooed and kissed their still-mewing-indignantly furry heads.
“They need names, sweetheart,” Tanyn told me.
“Sexes?” I demanded.
“The white, girl. The brown, boy.”
I lifted the white. “Jolie.”
Tanyn’s body locked.
I knew why.
I pressed Jolie back to my chest and lifted the chocolate.
“And you know,” I said gently.
“Flynn,” he said gruffly.
Yes.
Jolie.
His mother’s middle name.
And Flynn.
His father’s.
“Fuck,” he growled. “I love you so fucking much.”
“That’s good,” I replied somewhat giddily (yes, me, Catla Truelock-to-be-Firefierce, giddy). “Since we’re momma and daddy to a burgeoning family.”
For a second, I thought Tanyn would crush our new babies because I was certain he was going to snatch me up and kiss me.
He didn’t do that.
He threw his head back and roared with laughter.
Not my first choice.
But it was a close second.
Very close.
Yes.
Perfect.
The End
The Four Realms Series will continue…