Chapter Thirty-Six
áedán and I settled into a life neither of us expected.
The cottage became ours. áedán added more shelves in the main room for my books.
A picture of my gran stood in a place of honor on the mantle.
My laptop claimed permanent residence on the kitchen table, power cord snaking across floorboards that never rotted despite áedán constantly trailing water across them.
Oh, yes, and we had electricity! It had cost a pretty penny, but the Bonnie Loch Beast was a wealthy man now, and my pay wasn't too shabby either.
We had a refrigerator, a water heater, and lights in every room.
I hung my jacket on the hook by the door, next to áedán's.
He made space in the wardrobe for my clothes, and my sweaters got tucked into the dresser amid his.
Our toothbrushes sat in the same glass on the bathroom sink, and I had my own mug for coffee.
Oh, and an electric coffee pot! Both of our lives had changed drastically. And both for the better.
Most mornings I woke to find áedán already awake, standing at the window with a steaming mug of tea in hand, watching the loch. The water moved differently when he watched it. Calmer. Like it recognized its guardian.
I had video conferences with the Velasca twice a month, sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop angled so I could look up from the screen and see the view through the front window.
Afterward, Julian and I would talk a little, his warm brown eyes assessing me with the psychological precision he'd perfected over eighty-seven years.
Yes, he was eighty-seven. He had known my grandmother.
“You look well,” Julian said after our twelfth conference had finished.
“I am well.”
“áedán?”
“Also well.” I glanced toward the dock where áedán stood talking to a group of university students about water pollution. His voice carried through the open window, patient and authoritative. “He's teaching today.”
Julian smiled. “Good. We'll be assigning you a new myth soon. Is he still set on accompanying you?”
“Yes. I was wondering when you'd get around to that. It's been over six months. I feel like I'm being paid for nothing.”
“You worked hard for áedán. You deserve the time off to settle into your new life.” He paused to grin at me. “The Velasca has changed because of you, Ethan. Every Velasca house is having unprecedented success with our new procedures. And you're inspiring others.”
I thought about the last meeting I'd attended via video call.
Hassan had presented a proposal to help a fading stone spirit in Germany adapt to urban expansion.
Mei Lin had organized a festival in Wales to celebrate a local water myth, inviting the community to share their own stories instead of preserving a single canonical version.
Agnes had started a new section in the Archive: New Traditions.
“I'm glad,” I said.
“We all are.” Julian leaned back in his chair. Behind him, I could see the familiar walls of his office at the estate. “Though you're not the only one who's become an inspiration.”
I beamed at him, so damn proud of my eco-warrior. áedán had become something the Velasca hadn't anticipated. My kelpie had forged a path for others to follow.
The social media accounts the Outreach Team created for him during the campaign to restore his myth were supposed to be temporary tools.
They were a way to spread the true and also new story of kelpies as water guardians rather than monsters.
But áedán had taken them over completely, transforming them into a tool for much more than his survival.
He posted daily now. Photographs of the loch at dawn, videos explaining the importance of clean water, threads about the history of water guardianship across cultures. His follower count had grown to over sixty million. Sixty. Million. He wasn't just a trend. The Bonnie Loch Beast was here to stay.
“The Thames is dying,” he'd written last week, his words appearing on screens across the world. “Not because people don't care, but because they've forgotten how to listen. Water speaks. It tells you when it's sick. You just have to remember how to hear it. Or, with the Thames, how to smell it.”
That post had over 140 million views.
He'd started an organization. Guardians of the Water, he'd called it, and I'd watched him build it from our kitchen table with the same fierce determination he'd once used to protect his loch and the people who lived there.
He held protests, filed legal challenges against corporations dumping waste into rivers, and spoke at conferences about environmental protection.
But he also fought in ways that human activists couldn't.
I'd woken one night to find him gone, the bed cold beside me.
I'd found him standing waist-deep in the loch, his magic visible beneath his skin like ribbons of light, his hands moving in patterns I didn't understand.
The water had responded, currents shifting, something ancient and powerful moving through the depths.
“What are you doing?” I'd asked from the dock.
“There's a river in India.” His voice had been distant, his attention focused somewhere else. “Someone's poisoning it. I'm cleaning the water.”
Magic that crossed oceans. Power that connected all water everywhere.
He'd had it in him the entire time, but never knew what he could do with it.
Not until he tried. áedán was becoming the myth he'd been born to be.
He was the guardian from the oldest tales, but that guardian had gone global. He was the damn Lorac of the water.
“He's remarkable,” Julian said, pulling me back to the present.
“Yes, he is.”
“And you're happy.”
It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway. “Very.”
After the call ended, I closed my laptop and walked to the window.
The university students were leaving, notebooks full of information about water testing and pollution indicators.
But more than that, áedán had given them a sense of the water.
Hopefully, they would pass it on to their children and so forth.
He stood on the dock watching them go, his dark hair moving in the breeze, his posture relaxed in ways it hadn't been when I'd first met him.
áedán turned and saw me watching him, then smiled.
I grabbed my jacket and went to join him.
We walked along the shore, our hands linked, comfortable in the silence.
The afternoon sun had turned the loch gold, and it felt as if we were walking through a dream.
áedán pointed out a gray heron fishing in the shallows.
Then he squeezed my hand. “I never thought I'd have this.”
“What?”
“A future.” áedán stopped walking and turned to face me. “With a man I love. You havenae just saved my life, Ethan. You changed me. You made me better. Stronger.”
“No, I only helped you see what was possible. You made yourself better. You took the tools the Velasca gave you and used them not only to carve a place for yourself in this time, but also to make an impact. You're changing the world, áedán. And it's only been six months.”
He laughed and pulled me into his arms. “You make it possible. But let's not argue aboot it.”
We returned to the cottage as the sun began its descent toward the mountains.
I breathed in deeply as we went inside. Now, the cottage smelled of more than áedán.
It smelled of us. It smelled of home. I made dinner while he answered emails from activists in seven different countries.
We ate at the small table, our knees touching underneath, talking about everything and nothing.
After we washed the dishes and put them away, he banked the fire while I closed my laptop. Then áedán took my hand and led me back outside, snagging a blanket along the way. He took me down to the dock and laid the blanket down.
There, under the silver moonlight, we shed our clothes and went into each other's arms. áedán's skin and the night air were cool, but his touch brought heat to my skin.
Every slide of his palm, every flick of his tongue, every brush of his body added fuel to the fire inside me.
We kissed, rolling together on the blanket, for eternity.
Then I rolled onto my back and stared up at áedán.
He was literally a self-made man. Born a horse, he'd learned to shapeshift to hide among the people who forgot about him.
I didn't care what he'd been born. He was formed of magic, and magic is neutral.
When he shifted into a horse, he was not a normal horse.
Just as when he shifted into a man, he was not a normal man.
He was magic taken form, and it showed beneath his skin, lighting the dark in response to me.
What better compliment was there?
áedán pulled the tube of lubricant out of his pants pocket, and I laughed. He loved the stuff so much that he carried it with him, just in case he felt the urge to take me. Grinning back, he coated himself, then stroked his slick cock as he watched me lift my legs for him.
“Och, you're bonnie. Look at you.” He rubbed the remainder of the lube on my opening. “So pink and pretty.” He bent over me, setting one hand on the dock while using the other to position himself. As he pumped slowly against me, going in a little at a time, he held my gaze. “I love you, my Ethan.”
I hooked my legs around him and pulled him down into a kiss. With our lips only a breath apart, I said, “I love you, my áedán.”
“I want you to take my name.”
I went still. “What?”
“Marry me. It's legal now, and I want you to be mine in every way, as I want to be yours.”
I gaped at him. “This is how you propose?”
He frowned. “What did I do wrong?”
Chuckling, I pulled his head to me and kissed him, then let him ease back. “Nothing. It's the perfect proposal. And yes, I'll marry you.”
áedán smiled brighter than the moon. “You'll be my husband?”
“Yes.”
“We can have a ceremony?”
“Of course.”
He let out a whoop and jerked forward. The motion took him deep into me, and we both groaned. Then I met his gaze, and we laughed.
“Och, stop!” áedán eased out until only his tip was in me. “Your channel is rippling around me. You'll make me spurt.”
“Spurt, eh?” I grabbed his ass and pulled. “That sounds so naughty.”
With a groan, áedán slid back into me. “You're the naughty one. My wee devil.” He grabbed my thighs and set an intoxicating rhythm, slow and steady.
His body undulated forward with every thrust. I slid my hands down his arms so he could rise above me and thrust with more power, undulate with more freedom.
What an enthralling sight he made. Rimmed in silver and glowing with magic, my kelpie united us in pleasure and flesh.
The slick slide of him in my channel sent pulses of ecstasy through me, and the rub of his belly against my cock harmonized with that pleasure until I was gripping his arms in need.
“áedán,” I panted.
“Just a wee longer, love.” He began to shine brighter as he bent to suck my nipple into his mouth.
I held him to me, groaning with his hard sucking and jerking with his bites. “I want to feel your cool cum in my channel.”
áedán shuddered and rose to look down at me. “You're growing bolder.”
I licked my lips. “Unless you want to come on my face.”
With wide eyes, he let out a roar and bucked forward, locking his hips into place. Desperately, he grabbed my cock and pumped. áedán hated it when I didn't come before he did. I, however, loved it. Because he'd make up for it by—
“Ethan!” He jerked, his coolness filling me, and then collapsed over me. “Damn you, my wee devil,” he panted. “Now, you'll get the lash.”
He yanked out and lowered himself, pushing my legs down and out to the sides as he sucked my cock into his mouth.
Yes, this was what he did. I groaned and slid my fingers through his long hair, holding him to me.
His cool mouth created a vacuum as he sucked, going down my length.
Then it released, but his lips tightened as he moved back up.
All the while, his hands played with my nipples, tweaking and rubbing.
The man was a master at making me come. I tried to hold out, to enjoy the feel of his tongue on me and the hot look in his ancient eyes, but he soon took me over.
I cried out and clutched at his arms as I bucked up. áedán growled and sucked, taking all I had to give him. Then I collapsed back on the blanket, and he drew off me, my spent shaft slipping out of his mouth to flop on my belly.
With a happy sound, áedán pulled me up and settled me between his legs.
I flopped back against his chest, and he chuckled, so very pleased with himself.
He wrapped the blanket around us and supported me in his arms so we could stare out across the loch together.
The moon hung full overhead, attended by a thousand starry admirers.
The loch reflected them like a mirror, making it feel as if we hovered in the heavens.
We sat there in silence for a while, his head laid over mine, blissful.
Then áedán asked, “What are you thinking?”
“That I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. So much had to happen to bring me to you. But it did because we were meant to be together.”
He smiled and leaned his head on my shoulder. I pulled his arms more snugly around me. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called. The water lapped gently against the dock. áedán's breathing slowed and steadied, matching the rhythm of the waves.
This was what we'd fought for. Not just survival, but this. Our love. A future that stretched out ahead of us as the water stretched toward the horizon—vast and full of possibility.
“Did I imagine it, or did you ask me to marry you?” I whispered.
“You dinnae imagine anything.” áedán kissed my cheek. “I have a name that the world recognizes as mine now, and I want to share it with you.”
“Oh, so I'm taking your name?”
He went still.
I chuckled. “I'm teasing. I'd be proud to bear your name.” I looked over my shoulder at him. “And that of our home.”
áedán smirked. “It's how names began. I am áedán of Loch Lomond. Shortened, it is áedán Lomond.”
“I like it. And I love you.”
“I love you too.” He snuggled closer. “Och, but I never tire of saying it. I love you.”
“Me either. I love you, I love you, I love you!” I shouted the last part, setting the wildlife scurrying and áedán laughing.
We stayed on the dock until we grew weary and then went inside. We'd gotten a bigger bed among all the other upgrades, but we still clung to each other beneath our puffy comforter, his chest against my back. I fell asleep with áedán's breath on my neck and the surety of our love warming me.
I had come to Scotland to save the last kelpie. But we had saved each other. And in doing so, we'd found something neither of us had been looking for.
Home.