Epilogue
Stray was aware of the light changing, although he had to admit he was confused about how he and Cara were sprawled naked in front of a fireplace they didn’t own, in a warm, cozy cottage full of dark brown wood and leather that he’d only seen once.
“Are we dreaming together?” Cara asked.
She was twined with him under a woolly blanket, bodies fused like interlocking puzzle pieces.
“We must be. But this can be a dream come true.”
Cara looked at him. “I want to wake up. Make sure you’re still here. What’ll happen if I open my eyes?”
“We’ll have to go furniture shopping and plan a wedding,” he said, smiling.
The next thing he felt was her hand on his shoulder, shaking insistently.
“How? How? And did you mean it? Was it a dream?” Cara demanded, her eyes full, her lower lip almost bitten in half with sudden worry.
Stray sat up and pulled her to his chest as they lay in bed.
“It’s morning. You dreamed—but I was there.
We were there together, in the waking world and the sleeping one.
That’s part of who I am and what I can do.
I’ll tell you everything you could ever want to know—as long as you promise you’ll love me for who I am now, not who I used to be,” he vowed.
“I can do that,” Cara nodded eagerly. “If you can tell me what you said we’d have to do when I opened my eyes.”
Only for the merest fraction of a second did he consider teasing her by pretending to forget or name something ludicrous.
But that’s not how you treat the woman you love. Your soulmate.
“Well, we have to get dressed first,” he watched her shoulder tense, “before we shop for furniture and plan a wedding,” he concluded.
“Oh, Stray! Really?”
Cara flung her arms around him and held him close. Her lips peppered his face with kisses, and her scent was changing by the second, into not just one or two sweet notes, but a symphony.
A garden and an orchard, everything summer, spring, and fall, a bouquet and a banquet.
“I make you happy,” he breathed out, the realization too plain to pretend otherwise.
“You do. You could make me even happier,” Cara sighed.
“I could?” he almost shouted, leaping at the chance.
“You could. You know all those fuzzy blankets in the dream?”
“Mm-hmm. We can buy those, too?”
“I have a bunch in the closet.”
“Ah, I could snuggle you under blankets?”
“We could go spread them on the floor later this afternoon—after furniture shopping, and after we put one of those fireplace screensavers on the television...” Cara arched one eyebrow.
“Uh-huh...” That was his elegant reply. Centuries of power, and one little seductive raise of a single eyebrow was making him all tongue-tied and love-drunk?
“And we could relive that fireplace and snuggly sex dream when we’re more awake to enjoy it,” Cara said, running her hands covetously over his hard muscles, leaning her soft breasts into his arm as she looked up at him, excited and expectant.
And in love.
“I like the sound of that, beautiful.” Stray kissed her smiling mouth. Like the taste of it, too.
If you enjoyed Pine Ridge, come back and visit us again with any of these monster and paranormal romances!