Epilogue
Vireth
One year later
Sweat drips down his back, slowing briefly as it tracks over the puckered skin of his scar.
I love watching him work like this—the axe making satisfying cracks as he splits firewood for the pile outside the kitchen.
He does it shirtless to entice me—I know he does—because the sight of his broad shoulders and battle-scarred skin lights a fire in my blood that dwarfs whatever that wood will burn.
I’m content briefly just to watch him from the kitchen window, the dough beneath my fingertips momentarily forgotten.
Nibblebones emerges from the kitchen garden we’ve plotted out, though the planting will have to wait for next spring.
She’s covered in mud from the beds we’ve set down, and because I couldn’t wait to grow something, tidy rows of little brown mushrooms have pushed up through the otherwise bare dirt.
They’ll go nicely with the rabbit stew we’re having tonight to celebrate our first month together in the cottage.
After the events in Valehar, Renard and I stayed on to help try to get things back to some sense of order.
Most of the people were absolutely terrified of me, but many of them remembered Renard kindly enough to listen and follow his lead.
I suspect it was false modesty when he told me he had no head for politics, because though he grumbled a fair bit, he had quite the knack for inspiring reform.
Perhaps some of that was down to my subtle terrorizing of the council members who’d thrown their lot in with Arden, but I won’t take too much credit for it.
The first few months were brutal in Valehar. Granted, they were made somewhat easier with trade routes opened up between fae kingdoms and humans, but even with Arden’s corruption ended, we had a treacherous winter—though we lost fewer souls than Valehar had in the last several winters prior.
Spring may have had a helping hand, thanks to Sephia’s visit.
I pleaded for her to come—and bring Bronwyn, if she must—to help the soil along and give some of the new plantings a fresh start.
She came happily, and rather smugly, I might add.
Something about her villainous husband being brought to heel, I gather.
She wouldn’t share much more than that, but waved me away when I offered to rot his body inside out.
Bronwyn came some time later, right around midsummer, and helped us further restore some of the hope and good feelings that took root along with our first batch of edible spring crops in years.
For once, she didn’t have a harsh word for me, simply looked at my antlers—much smaller now, thank the gods—and said they suit me better than wyrm silk ever did.
Folks around Valehar say that our midsummer bonfire this year was the best they’ve ever had.
With the yields filling up the granaries and cellars after harvest time, Renard and I finally felt like we could take some time for ourselves.
With our new, trustworthy council in charge, a city less hollowed out from hunger, the Blight Mother’s temple restoration planned, and strengthening alliances among our neighbors, there would never be a better time for us to make good on a promise that had been postponed—yet not forgotten.
Even though the waves crash against the gray rocks below in a constant rhythm, I don’t think I’ll ever take the sound for granted.
A breeze drifts through the open windows, heavy with brine, and flutters the emerald green curtains with gentle fingers.
Magnar whinnies outside, eager to let us know he approves of his new stable, and Renard looks up to smile at him from the stump where he chops firewood with the relentless energy of a man who no longer needs to shoulder the burden of feeding a kingdom alone.
Chiding myself, I return to my dough, kneading it just the way Millie showed me—the way Renard likes it. It’s different from how I learned to bake in the Hollowmire kitchens, but I suppose Renard is only human, after all.
Nibblebones whistles as soon as I dump the dough into a basket to rise, and I wipe my hands on my skirts to see what horrid treasure she’s managed to unearth in our fledgling garden of mushrooms.
In her mouth, she clutches a small, gold ring studded with a glittering oxblood-colored stone. My heart thunders painfully in my chest, and my breath catches.
“If you’d prefer something grander, you’ve only to say so,” Renard murmurs, leaning against the doorframe in a terribly attractive way.
“Renard…”
He has to duck to step inside the kitchen, crossing to me in three measured steps.
“I realize you may have misgivings, considering you’ve suffered several broken betrothals,” he begins, dimples flashing beneath his silvering beard.
“But I believe you and I were made for second chances, Vireth. I am already yours in every way, and your answer will not change that in any regard. But I ask you—my heart, my life—to consent to be mine. Marry me, Lady Fae.”
For a heartbeat, I’m speechless. Tears gather in my eyes, but for once, I don’t mind them. For once, they don’t bear my grief, my despair, or my loneliness. Today they bear my joy.
It takes no time at all to slip the ring around my finger—but it takes me three tries to get the words out.
“As you wish.”
We’re in each other’s arms before another sob can stutter out of me, and he’s kissing every inch of my face with frenzied happiness, whispering all the things he loves about me every time he comes up for air.
Joy soon gives way to white-hot lust, crawling through my body like mycelium through soil, and the excited pace eases to slow, incendiary kisses that deck my ears and my neck like jewels.
I lean forward to lick a bead of sweat from the deep valley of his chest muscles, feeling the vibration of his low chuckle all the way through my fangs.
“You tormented me all afternoon with this,” I murmur, loving the way his muscles flex beneath my hands.
“Perhaps I was simply cooling down after all the hard labor,” he smirks, backing me through the kitchen and small dining room to our bedroom overlooking the Moontide sea.
“Poor thing. You must be exhausted.”
“Aye. You’d better take me straight to bed.”
With a wry chuckle and fumbling fingers, I manage to divest him of his pants.
His cock is hot and already hard, and the delicious whimper he makes sends a flood of arousal between my legs.
My breasts feel heavy and my nipples press against the soft lawn of my dress, sending little pulses of brightening pleasure through my body.
Renard kneels before me, lifting the hem of my dress and pressing delicate kisses to the insides of my legs.
“I love much about you,” he rumbles beneath my skirts. “But this might be one of my favorite things.”
Before I can ask what he means, he sets his mouth to my sex, his hot tongue drawing a line of wet pleasure from my core to the peak of my desire, circling that little bud until my knees give out, and I crash backward onto our bed.
Renard’s laughter vibrates against my sex but he does not relent—taking me apart with lips and teeth and tongue.
The force of my pleasure bears down on me like a thunderstorm, crashing through me with a rumble of thunder and electric crack of lightning.
I scream his name and he stands abruptly, wrenching my dress down the middle.
Flushed and panting, I arch a brow at his haste.
“I’ll buy you another,” he growls. “I’ll crawl naked over brambles to the tailor if I must to do so, but my love, if I am not inside you in the next second…”
My smile is answer enough, and I wrap my legs around him and he slides into me, moaning a litany of filthy prayers to gods I’ve never even heard of.
He moves slowly at first, muscles straining with the effort to make this last—to enjoy every moment, every sensation, every shape of bliss as we find it together.
“Lie back,” I murmur to him.
I stifle a laugh as his eyes widen, and he scrambles up onto the bed, kicking blankets and pillows to the floor in his eagerness to obey.
“You have given me such pleasure, Renard,” I moan, climbing on top of him. “I love you, my farmer knight.”
I sink down onto him, adoring the way we fit together like this—the slick, wet sounds of pleasure, the desperate groans we make, the way our pulses seem to find a singular rhythm together. Renard is sweating, his climax closing in hot and fast.
I flash my fangs, picking up the pace in the wild cadence I know he loves.
“Bite me,” he grunts, gripping my hip with one hand and pulling me down to his neck. “Please. It feels so good when you claim me like this.”
Ecstasy screams through us both the minute my fangs pierce his flesh and I feel Renard’s release. I slump and fall atop him, boneless and spent, and in a single elegant twist, Renard tucks me against his side with a kiss to my sweat-slick forehead, careful of my antlers.
For a few precious breaths, we lay together, listening to the distant crash of the ocean against the rocks and the evening crickets come out to sing.
Sea birds keen in the distance, and I think idly that tomorrow, I’ll head down to the cove below to see if I can find some blackfan scallops in the deep pools by the rocks. Renard might like them, I think.
But for now, as sleep begins to wind through his loosening limbs, I listen to the steady thump thump thump of his heart, content that we have nothing more to do, and all the time in the world to do it in.