Epilogue
Colt
Six months have passed since the curse broke, and I still catch myself staring at her like she’s about to disappear.
You’d think I’d be over it by now.
I’m not.
Every morning I wake up next to the same woman, every night I fall asleep with her in my arms, and somehow my brain still reacts like I’ve won the lottery.
Maybe I have.
Amara sits across from me at our kitchen table, reading through a stack of medical files Damien dropped off yesterday.
Apparently, six centuries of healing people with herbs, roots, and remedies nobody bothered to write down makes you a surprisingly valuable asset to an organization full of idiots who keep getting themselves stabbed, shot, blown up, or all three before lunch.
She insisted she wasn’t qualified, but Damien laughed for a solid minute. Turns out modern medicine and ancient knowledge work exceptionally well together.
Who would’ve guessed?
“You are staring again.”
“I know.”
She doesn’t even look up from the papers.
“You have accomplished very little else during the last five minutes.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Admiring my girlfriend.”
She finally raises her eyes, wearing the exact expression that tells me she finds me mildly exhausting.
“I fail to understand how you remain this… enthusiastic.”
“I waited six hundred years to meet you.”
“You most certainly did not.”
“Fine. I waited thirty-three. Still worth it.”
The corner of her mouth twitches before she remembers she’s trying not to encourage me.
Too late. I’ve already seen it.
That’s another thing I’ve learned about Amara. Most people would tell you she’s difficult to read. They’re wrong.
I know exactly what every tiny expression means because I spent months falling so hopelessly in love with this woman that noticing the smallest changes became second nature.
The little twitch at the corner of her lips means she’s trying not to smile.
The slight tilt of her head means she’s curious.
The soft crease between her brows means she’s worried about someone else while pretending she isn’t. And whenever she reaches for my hand without saying a word… That’s her version of an entire love letter.
The familiar vibration of my phone cuts through the comfortable silence filling our kitchen. Damien’s name flashes across the screen, and I answer without bothering to let go of Amara’s hand.
“Please tell me nobody’s dying.”
“I’d love to,” Damien replies, sounding far less concerned than someone delivering bad news probably should, “but Ryan decided removing a bullet with a screwdriver was a reasonable medical procedure.”
Amara slowly closes her eyes, the kind of slow, deliberate movement that tells me she’s counting to ten in six different languages.
“…Why?”
“He claims he saw it in a movie.”
“I see.” She nods once, looking genuinely thoughtful. “Humanity continues to exceed my expectations.”
“In a good way?” Damien asks.
“No.”
A brief silence follows.
“I continue to question my decision to accept employment within your organization.”
“You’ve said that every week,” Damien points out.
“And every week one of your operatives presents me with increasingly compelling evidence.”
I can’t stop myself from laughing.
“They’re growing on you.” I tell her.
“They are infecting my life.”
“You love us.”
“I tolerate you.”
“You definitely love me.”
She turns her head just enough to meet my eyes.
“I do.”
There it is again.
Those two words.
No hesitation. No awkwardness. No dramatic declarations. Just the simplest truth she’s ever spoken.
I swear my heart still forgets how to function every single time.
Damien clears his throat through the speaker.
“…Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes,” Amara and I answer at the exact same time.
Another pause.
“…Right. I’ll just—”
I end the call before he can finish, making Amara look at me.
“…Was that necessary?”
“He was about to ruin the moment.”
“I believe you interrupted him.”
“I saved us both.”
“I see.”
She says it with that tiny hint of amusement she pretends isn’t there.
I lean down, kiss her forehead, then steal the mug she’d been drinking from.
“You know,” I say after taking one sip and immediately regretting every decision that led me here, “I still don’t understand how you drink coffee this strong.”
“It is coffee,” she replies, watching me with entirely too much patience.
I take another cautious sip and immediately regret it. “It tastes like death.”
“It tastes efficient.”
I grin, setting the mug back on the table before it has a chance to finish dissolving my soul. “There is something deeply unsettling about that sentence.”
“For you, perhaps.”
I shake my head. “It feels like my ancestors are apologizing to me.”
For the first time all morning, she actually laughs, and it’s still my favorite sound in the world.
If somebody had told me a few months ago that I’d ride my motorcycle into the most haunted forest in Romania, fall in love with the woman everyone feared, and somehow convince her to build an ordinary life with me, I’d have laughed in their face.
Turns out I didn’t rescue Amara from the forest.
She rescued me from a life that never felt like home.
Now, every morning I wake up beside the woman I love, every evening I come back to her, and every ordinary day somehow feels like the greatest adventure I’ve ever had.
I’d say I got pretty damn lucky. Even if she’d never admit she did too.