Epilogue
Stepping back into her normal life took Lizzie a lot more effort than she expected.
It had only been six months since she lived the adventure of a lifetime, but it felt like it had happened years before, and while she definitely did not want to deal with another soul-sucking bitch like Fayla, part of her missed the adventure.
They did not even get to explore the Otherworld!
The last days of August passed fast and September arrived in a blink together with her placement in the Foundation Programme – which had been shockingly changed from the Peninsula School to Perth, as luck would have it. Although she suspected that Brun had something magical to do with her getting re-allocated so close to Glennloch, he had sworn innocence.
The first four months of her placement had been exhausting: restraining the urge to use healing magic to treat her patients became a daily struggle.
On occasion she had not resisted, but having to choose when to cast healing spell did take its toll on her. Choosing which patients to save was never an easy decision…
“A penny for your thoughts?” Brun’s deep voice snapped her from her reverie.
He was sitting by her side on the sofa dressed in a gray suit, though his jacket lay discarded over an armchair together with his tie. His black shirt had the first two buttons open and he was holding a cocktail glass.
A gorgeous well-dressed man offering me a drink. Pretty much option number one in possible paradise settings.
Lizzie smiled, taking the glass from his hand. It had a beautiful wine colour.
“Thank you,” she took a sip, savouring the sweet taste, “Hmmm! This is delicious! What is it?”
“Blueberry martini,” he replied smugly.
She offered him a lopsided grin, “Are you trying to get me drunk to take advantage of me?”
Brun chuckled, even as a shadow passed over his eyes.
“Oh no, I much rather have you with all your five senses in full alert, Your Ladyship,” he tried to make light of it, but she sensed the strain in his voice, nonetheless.
Months before he had revealed to her how the late and well-beheaded Finn confessed to have used magic to take her to bed. He had sounded mortified then and obviously he was still mortified by it.
Lizzie had been horrified too, of course. She was not okay to have been magically abused but was choosing not to dwell on that.
“Brun, you really must let this go…”
He sighed, “If only I have been there earlier to protect you–”
She placed her fingers gently on his lips, cutting his words.
“I’ll stand by the words I said to you then: the past does not matter. The only important people are today-Brun and today-Lizzie and what we are going to do with our future,” she took another sip of the cocktail, “Speaking of future and taking advantage of me – with my full permission – are the Clishams back tomorrow?”
He dipped his head in his old-fashioned way, “Aye, Your Ladyship. And your family will arrive in Edinburgh tomorrow too.”
She smiled satisfied. It would be her first Christmas in Glennloch as Lady Lochellen and she was truly looking forward to spending it with her family – the one from Cornwall and the new one from Scotland.
After their adventure in the Otherworld, she had gone to visit her parents and had a long overdue conversation with them. It had been hard and soul-wrenching for the most part, but since then her family relationship had improved dramatically. Her mother had stopped trying to fix her, her father had intervened a bit more often when she did, and Lizzie was a little more prone to stand up for herself.
Or to listen to her mother’s advice, after all, she was the Ninth Viscountess Lochellen: every now and then she had to look the part!
“Thank you,” she placed a loving hand on his face, “And I am sorry for not helping much in organising everything, but the rotations…”
He reached for her hand and placed a kiss on her palm, his eyes never leaving hers and a shiver ran down her spine. Thanks to the Coupling Rune, she was very much aware of where his thoughts were going right now.
“That is my job, Your Ladyship, I still manage your estate, if you recall.”
Lizzie blushed at that, but he only laughed at her embarrassment.
“Which I do with pleasure,” he added quickly, “The last thing this country needs is for you to become some lousy doctor and start butchering people…”
Feigning offense, she slapped him lightly on the shoulder. He chuckled and then took the glass from her hand, placing both cocktails on the coffee table.
“There is however, one thing you could do to help this Christmas be perfect,” he said seriously.
Her face lit up, “Of course! I’m off now until January, anything you need–”
Her words were cut when he dropped on one knee and reached for something inside his pocket.
“Brun…” her voice was strangled.
“Lady Elizabeth Endellys, Ninth Viscountess Lochellen, would you accept me as your husband?” he popped a small jewellery box open, displaying an emerald ring. The gem was as big as her thumb’s nail.
“I… Brun…”
“If it helps, I already asked your father for permission…”
“You did what?”
The irritating man laughed to her face!
He laughed!
“I know it’s not done anymore, but that was the way of things in my time… I’m not trying to live in the past, I just…”
Her gaze softened.
“You just want to feel the thrill of things you missed in your own time…”
Brun nodded, lowering his gaze like a shy school boy and her heart melted.
“But I thought we were already married?” she teased, “You know, the Coupling Rune…”
His eyes darkened into a deep blue and her breath hitched, “I never told you the meaning of the words did I?”
Frowning, she shook her head, puzzled by his tone, “Actually no, you didn’t, but in fairness we were in the middle of a life or death situation…”
He brought her hand to his chest and she was shocked at how fast his heart was beating.
“I pledge to share my life at your side and my oath to you shall never be broken. I shall be your shelter. I shall carry your heart with me wherever I go and protect it with my life. My heart and soul are yours for all eternity.”
Speechless, Lizzie stared at him for a whole minute, tears swelling up in her eyes.
“This is… beautiful,” she whispered, knowing that the word did not do it justice.
“And I meant every word, Lizzie, even if I did not believe my heart when we sealed the rune, I truly meant every word.”
With her own heart thundering inside her chest, Lizzie dropped to her knees in front of him, took the ring from the box and pushed into her own finger.
“Very well, Mr MacLugh, we will do things half your way, half mine!”
He blinked and looked so adorable she wanted to rip his shirt off his body.
Well, that option is not off the table…
“First, you must marry using your kilt.”
He laughed heartily, “Aye, my lady, it’s tradition!”
“And second, I am not waiting till the wedding to have our wedding night!” with those words, she grabbed him by the shirt’s lapels and pulled him into a kiss.
His hand came to her waist and he pushed her down on the rug. While Lizzie was busy unbuttoning his shirt, he lowered the zipper of her jeans.
Her T-shirt was already on a heap together with his shirt when he lift his lips from her breast.
“Wait, does that mean you say yes?”
Lizzie laughed.
“Yes, Brun, I will allow you to be my husband. By now you should already know the trouble you’re putting yourself into.”
Five years later…
“Ouch!” Lizzie cried after stubbing her toe on the foot of the bed. The stupid thing seemed to be everywhere in her room these days…
Like a magic genie being summoned by his master, Brun appeared out of thin air, wrapping an arm around her waist and steering her to an armchair before she could utter a single word in protest.
True, he had ditched his magic ring back into the Otherworld lake, but the annoying man had discovered he had his own magic, and like his ancestor, Brun Theynore, he too could wield both an Enchanter and a Conjurer’s power. He was not as strong as she was, thank heavens, otherwise he would be even more insufferable, but his extended ability made him more resourceful.
And annoying!
“Are you okay?” he asked anxiously, placing a hand on her prominent belly and she was not entirely sure whether he was asking her or the growing baby.
“I’m fine, I just stubbed my toe… again. I just can’t see where I’m going now that I have a horizontal Mount Everest growing from my body!”
He chuckled and lowered his lips to her belly, kissing it lovingly.
“You’re speaking nonsense, you look ravishing!”
Lizzie glared at him, reckoning that swollen ankles, bad acne and general bloating was the diametral opposite qualities of ravishing.
“I know you for five years, Brun MacLugh, I’m very much aware of all your lies by now!”
He threw his head back and laughed, then he kneeled in front of her and placed her feet over his thighs, gently taking out her slippers and massaging her soles.
She moaned. She had not realised how sore her feet were!
“If you keep making sounds like this, Lady Lizzie, I may need to satisfy my urges inyou…”
A shiver of pleasure ran down her spine.
They were married for three years now, were expecting their first child, and she was feeling herself as far from sexy as a human being could be, but Brun had the uncanny ability of throwing her libido in overdrive just with the sound of his voice.
Knowing her thoughts – another gift from the Coupling Rune – he brought her feet to his shoulder and began to kiss her leg, moving steadily up till his lips found the insides of her thighs.
By then she was perfectly content with allowing him to satisfy his urges in any way he pleased when something extraordinary happened.
A lightning struck.
They peered out of the window, but the sky was almost unrealistically blue, the colour as strong as a painting.
They exchanged wary glances and Lizzie felt her magic stir to life. She closed her eyes, extending her reach and felt a strong wave of power coming from the loch.
One she had only felt once.
“Something is happening at the loch,” he voiced her thoughts.
It had been five years since Brun had feltsuch sense of foreboding. He glanced at Lizzie rushing towards the loch by his side and knew she felt it too.
He clenched his jaws restraining the will to haul her in his arms so that they could move faster, because she would not be impressed by that. He had told her to stay in the house while he investigated the matter, but who in the known universe could convince his wife to be sensible?
They reached the loch’s shore panting. Now that he was aging like a normal human man, he was finally feeling the passage of time. Though he was obviously much older than that, Brun had officially celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday and had even spotted gray hair on his head.
He had celebrated that for weeks, showing the silver threads to Lizzie repeatedly, until she threatened to die his hair pink while he was sleeping.
With a spell. An irreversible one.
With a protective arm wrapped around her waist, he scanned the shore, but not a leaf seemed to be out of place, and yet he could sense something was definitely wrong.
“Something is not right,” she whispered, voicing his words, her fingers squeezing his hand, “The last time I felt this sensation was when–”
“Triarell?” a deep male voice sounded from behind them.
Allowing his magic to fill him, Brun whirled on his heels, pushing Lizzie behind his body, regretting having no weapon on him.
Standing a few yards from them was a very tall man with auburn hair donning a silver armour that clearly did not belong in that century.
Or in the human world for that matter.
The man’s face was vaguely familiar and in his hands, was Brun’s claymore.
The one he had lost in the Otherworld five years before.