Epilogue
ESMERAY
Eyes watched me from the edge of the woods.
I smiled as the golden orbs appeared in the shadows, as they always did when I had spent the day in the garden and the sun was getting low.
I didn’t immediately stop what I was doing.
Instead, I continued to tend the pumpkins I had planted recently.
My sister would make a delicious soup with them in the fall, and I was hoping for a good harvest, so she could make it many times.
I also wondered if today would be one of the days I could tempt Drakkan to emerge from the shadows of the trees and see him in the fading daylight in all his glory. As I continued to inspect the beginnings of flowering buds, I was rewarded for my patience by a rustling of leaves.
I looked up and beamed as Drakkan stopped at the edge of the garden. The skin below my ribs warmed as the light of my own goddess mark matched the brightness of my smile. Drakkan was as inhuman as ever, but after months at his side, there was something familiar in his strangeness.
I knew well the textured whorls of his bark-like skin, and could read the expressions in his slitted, yellow eyes.
My flesh remembered what his elongated canines felt like against the delicate skin of my neck and how his antlers felt in my grip as I lowered myself onto his face.
My body was familiar with the way his fluffy tail would drape across my legs as he held me in the aftermath of our pleasure.
Now I stood and brushed my hands off on my apron, not caring for the dirt that crusted under my nails.
A bang marked the door swinging open behind me as Izara danced out into the yard. She had grown used to Drakkan’s appearances quickly, as had the villagers. Witches were wise enough to know it was better to be friends with a god than enemies.
“Come visit again in a few days?” Izara asked as I stepped up to Drakkan’s side and he draped an arm around me.
“Of course,” I said with a smile.
Izara waved from the doorway as Drakkan led me back into our forest. The house was hers now, and she looked perfectly content in the cozy cottage—as comfortable as I felt in my home with Drakkan in the heart of the forest.
She was never out of reach, but I now had something—and someone—to call my own.
As we walked deeper into the shadow of the trees I paused, digging my bare toes into the soft earth and taking a deep breath of the air in my domain.
As my divine powers grew, gifted to me by Drakkan, I found myself growing more attuned to the forest every day.
Where I had always felt at home among the leaves and branches, now the life of every plant was palpable, and I could nearly understand the meaning imbued into the yips of the fox and the song of the birds.
The mix of sensations leant both a sense of peace to my life and a craving for the untamed.
“Tonight is the full moon,” I observed nonchalantly.
I didn’t miss the way Drakkan’s tail bristled and his pupils narrowed.
“It is,” he agreed. “Did you want to attend the festival?”
I stretched my arms above my head, twisting this way and that, loosening the stiffness in my joints from a day of gardening.
“I thought we might have a little celebration of our own,” I said, a sly smile dancing on my lips. “But before we start, you’ll have to catch me.”
Without warning, I plunged into the brush. I was faster now than before, and I knew every leaf and gully of this forest. Of course, so did Drakkan, but he wouldn’t let that ruin our fun.
The howl of a wolf split the air behind me as Drakkan signaled the hunt had begun. A wild laugh tumbled from my lips as he hunted his bride through the forest.