Chapter 45 Once in Two Lifetimes
ONCE IN TWO LIFETIMES
Mira stood in front of him, broken open by grief. Her eyes were wide—not the frightened woman who had fled when he'd told her the truth about Agnes and Bastien, about himself, less than two years ago. Back then, it had taken her clairvoyance to accept what logic could not.
This was different.
This was the woman who had learned to live with the unexplainable, who had stepped into it—with courage and choice.
And still, this—this dawning truth that the magic she'd chased since finding the Mother's Book was not a gift but a family curse, one that had claimed generations of Garvies, including her parents, including him—was going to gut her before she ever made it to the other side.
Baird pulled her into his arms and simply held her, his fingers sliding into her hair to cup the back of her head, cradling it against his chest. He bent into the soft spill of her hair and whispered in Gaelic, a message meant to soothe her.
“Thoir dhomh do phian, Mira,” he murmured the translation. “Give me your pain.”
She drew back and looked up at him through tear-stained lashes, her eyes filled with soft wonder, shot through with agony. Through their bond, he felt her surprise echo—anchored by something he rarely sensed from her. Guilt.
“What about your pain?” she cried. “This thing—this blackness that's haunted my family.” Mira shook her head, anguish spinning into anger. “What about your pain?” she cried again. “It took your life, Baird. And Agnes's. It took my great-grandparents. My parents.”
Her voice broke, then hardened again. “This thing that brought us together—it's nothing more than the Garvie curse. And I unknowingly dragged you back into this.”
She wrenched herself from his arms, sobbing. “I did this to you, Baird. I'm the reason—“
Baird reached for her, already moving. He would not let her spiral. He caught her by the shoulder and spun her back to him—harder than he meant to, urgency snapping through his restraint. The vampire in him didn't care how he'd been made. He had no anger left to spend on fate or circumstance.
“Where do ye think you're going, Mira Campbell?” he demanded. “I won't have ye walking away—not when I need ye to hear this. Not when I need ye to ken it.” His gaze dropped, and only then did he notice the blood smeared across her palms—fresh, vivid.
The realization startled him. He had been so consumed by her that he hadn't felt it.
The hunger that had ruled him for over two centuries.
The pull of sweet, honeyed blood—her blood—so close to his lips.
Nothing had ever mattered more to him than that need.
His teeth ached in response, instinct snapping awake. He forced it down.
“Hear me when I say this,” Baird said, his gaze never leaving hers as he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, his saliva sealing the wounds he could see—hoping his words might mend the ones he couldn't. “I would live this life—and the last— a thousand times over. I would endure every loss, every shadow, just to stand here with you. Right here. Right now.” He held her face in his hands, his thumb settling into the dimple on her chin, refusing to let her turn away—done with secrets that festered in the name of protection.
“What if I am the next name on the list, Baird?” Mira asked softly.
Baird thought of the goddess's visit—the night she'd spoken through Mira in their bedroom. He couldn't pinpoint it exactly: her meanings were always veiled, but somewhere deep in his soul he knew that the goddess wasn't going to take Mira like that.
“Brigid said to me that night, ‘Trust me—what you fear will take Mira from you'—meaning her and this damned purpose she won't reveal—‘…is the very thing that will give you more than you ever dreamed to ask for.”
Mira's brow furrowed. “What does that even mean?” Her voice wavered, caught between confusion and a hope that ached to believe.
“I dinnae ken exactly,” Baird admitted. “But in that moment, something settled in me. Something real. It changed me.”
His thumb brushed her skin, steady, grounding. “I stopped mourning a future that might never come—and started living in what we have. Here. Now.”
Beneath the words, the vampire in him stirred—not in defiance of his will, but alongside it.
What had once felt like a fracture eased into a quieter balance, almost companionable.
A coexistence that had taken root that night with the goddess, leaving him steadier than he had ever known himself to be.
“What if you are wrong?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I may well be,” Baird said softly. “But it dinnae matter, Mira. I love ye—and I was made to love ye. And if I'm wrong, if the goddess takes ye…she'll take me too.”
He sighed, the truth of it resisting language, irrational and absolute all at once. “I cannae live a moment on this earth without ye.” He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, savoring the warmth, the desire threaded through with tenderness that met him every time.
“I didnae ken true joy until ye came into my life,” he murmured, his mouth hovering over hers. “And if it was the Garvie curse that brought ye to me, then I'll turn it on its head and call it my blessing—because that's what ye are.”
At the word blessing, Mira's engagement ring flared to life. Brigid's Sun spun in a wash of molten gold and prismatic light, scattering rainbows through the cottage's midnight dark.
Mira let out a skeptical huff as she looked down at the living glow. “Blessings,” she said. “That's what she told me the one who wore this ring would receive—her blessing.” She lifted her gaze back to him, uncertainty threading her voice. “Whatever that means.”
Despite the bite of the night and the painful truths unearthed by the Mother's Book, something warm took root inside him. Not an answer—only a knowing. A certainty he couldn't yet name, couldn't yet give to Mira in any way she might accept.
But it didn't matter.
He would carry it for them both—this faith, this stubborn hope—until she believed, or until fate proved him wrong.
And if that was the shape of their destiny, then he would fill her life with a love so steadfast, so undeniable, that she would never question the cost. Never doubt that whatever curse bound them had been worth bearing, if it meant choosing each other.
He swept her up into his arms, earning a startled gasp and a look of pure disbelief.
“Where are you taking me?” Mira asked, her brows knitting as she searched his face for answers.
Baird didn't give her one immediately—not with words, anyway.
Instead, he reached for his favorite unfair advantage.
The one he wielded with wicked precision.
His smirk unfurled slowly, deliberately—just exaggerated enough to be theatrical.
One eyebrow arched. One corner of his mouth tugged upward, all promise and trouble, the look that had undone her a thousand times before.
It was the same one that always made her laugh, or blush, or forget whatever weight she'd been carrying. Usually all three.
“To bed, lass. Where we belong.”