CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO THE DOOR, NOT THE CURSE #2
Marion looked down at their joined hands. His were larger, scarred and rough. Hers were streaked with blood, silver light still faint beneath the skin. A healer’s hand and a wolf’s hand. A widow’s hand. A queen’s, if people insisted on being dramatic.
“Your bite hurt me,” she said.
His hand went still.
She looked up quickly. “Do not retreat. I am not finished.”
He did not breathe for a second. Then he nodded once.
“It hurt me,” she continued. “It frightened me. It changed everything. And after, your silence hurt too. Your guilt hurt. Your leaving hurt. Your willingness to die hurt more than I have words for, and I am famously not lacking in words.”
His mouth moved faintly.
“But,” she said, and her voice softened despite herself, “the bite was not the whole story.”
Euan’s eyes searched hers.
She pressed his hand against her chest, where her heart beat steady beneath torn cloth and bruised skin.
“This is not a curse.”
His eyes lowered to where his hand rested.
Her heart beat against his palm.
Alive.
“Marion.”
“No. Hear me.” Her own voice shook now. “You did not make me less myself. The world wanted me small long before you came. Duncan did. The village did. Even I did, some days, because small women survive longer when men with papers are near.”
His hand trembled over her heart.
“You were not the curse,” she said. “Your bite was not gentle. It was not right in the clean way stories prefer. But it opened a door that fear had kept shut.”
His eyes lifted sharply.
She smiled, though her own tears finally spilled. “Your love was a door, Euan McFarland. I was the one who chose to walk through it.”
He made a sound then.
A broken one.
His free hand came to her face, careful as if she were still something he feared hurting. Then less careful, when she leaned into it. His thumb swept a tear from her cheek and he looked at it as if it were another oath he did not deserve.
“I love you,” he said.
No grandeur.
No wolf vow.
No ancient words.
Just that.
Marion’s heart twisted so hard she almost snapped at him for it.
Instead she whispered, “I know.”
His eyes warmed.
“Do you?”
“I should hope so. I died, woke up silver, ran through half the Highlands, stopped your execution, bit you in front of your clan, turned poison into not soup, and became queen. If I had not noticed somewhere in there, Morna would have concerns about my intelligence.”
Euan stared at her.
Then he laughed.
Properly this time.
It was rough, pained, surprised out of him, and so beautiful that Marion nearly cried harder. The sound went through her like sun after a month of rain. He bent forward as if the laugh itself hurt his ribs, which it probably did, and she caught his shoulder.
“Do not injure yourself with joy,” she said.
“I have little practice.”
“Clearly.”
His laughter faded slowly, leaving something softer behind. He looked younger for one fragile second. Not young. Never that. But less haunted.
It made her want to be terribly tender with him.
Naturally, she said, “You are still in trouble.”
His brows rose. “Aye?”
“Yes. Georgie is very angry with you.”
“I know.”
“Morna is worse.”
“I know that too.”
“I am deciding how angry I am.”
His eyes darkened with a heat that felt entirely inappropriate and entirely welcome. “And what have you decided?”
“That I am too tired to finish being angry tonight.”
“Only tonight?”
“Do not become hopeful.”
“I would not dare.”
“You absolutely would.”
His hand slid to the back of her neck, fingers brushing the hair there. Her body noticed. The bond noticed. The wolf noticed and was far too interested in the idea after a battle, which suggested wolves had little sense of timing.
Marion’s breath caught.
Euan noticed that too.
Of course.
His gaze dropped to her mouth.
“May I kiss you?” he asked.
The question undid her more thoroughly than if he had simply taken.
After all of this, after the bite and the blood and the claiming and the bond, he asked.
Marion swallowed.
“If you do not,” she said, “I may become difficult.”
“More?”
“Careful.”
His mouth curved.
Then he kissed her.
Gently at first.
Too gently for what lived between them, and yet exactly right for the wounds they had brought to the moment. His lips brushed hers as if asking again. Marion answered by lifting both hands to his face and pulling him closer.
The kiss changed.
Not rough. Not desperate like before. Not fever, not farewell, not grief trying to take a mouthful of what death might steal.
This was life.
Tired, bloody, shaking life.
Euan’s arms came around her, careful of her bruises until she made a small impatient sound and leaned into him. He groaned softly against her mouth, and heat moved through the bond, deep and golden, threaded with silver. It did not burn. It did not take.
It warmed.
When they broke apart, Marion’s forehead rested against his.
Neither spoke at first.
Then Euan said, voice low, “I still would have brought flowers.”
She laughed then. She could not help it. It came out wet and cracked, but real.
“You remember saying that?”
“I remember everything I should have done better.”
“Well,” she said, brushing her thumb over his cheek, “flowers would have been welcome. Chains were inconvenient.”
His mouth curved. “I shall remember that for courtship.”
“Courtship?”
“Aye.”
“You think to court me now?”
His expression turned solemn in the way that still made her want to bite him occasionally. “If you will allow it.”
“We are soul-bound.”
“Aye.”
“I bit you in public.”
“I recall.”
“I may be queen.”
“You howled convincingly.”
“And now you wish to court me?”
His eyes softened. “More than ever.”
Marion stared at him.
Then she shook her head. “You are the strangest man I have ever dragged from an auction.”
“I am the only man you have dragged from an auction.”
“That is fortunate. I could not afford another.”
The smile that crossed his face this time was small, tired, and hers.
For a while they sat like that, touching because they could.
The Grove shifted behind them into aftermath.
Not peace. Not yet. Peace would take work.
Burial. Healing. Trial. Truth. New laws.
Old records dug from hidden places. Children reassured.
Wolves fed. Bandages redone properly before Morna killed someone out of spite.
But for these few breaths, Marion let herself sit with the man she loved while snow settled in his hair.
Eventually, she sighed.
Euan’s arms tightened. “What?”
“There is one place I must go before I can truly come home.”
He did not ask if she meant Castle McFarland.
He knew her too well now.
“The cottage,” he said.
Marion nodded.
The word itself pulled something deep in her. Smoke-dark rafters. Dried herbs. Georgie’s little stool. The bed where she had lain awake fearing knocks at the door. The table where she had first pressed her hands to Euan’s poisoned flesh and changed every future she had known.
“I do not want to live there again,” she said. “But I cannot leave it behind like a grave.”
His hand covered hers.
“Then we go.”
She looked at him. “You are wounded.”
“I am healing.”
“You were nearly dead twice before breakfast.”
“Three times, if we count the axe.”
“We do not count the axe. It annoys me.”
“Aye.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You will ride.”
“I can walk.”
“You will ride.”
His mouth opened.
Marion lifted one finger. “This is not a negotiation. I am queen now, apparently.”
His eyes warmed with dangerous amusement.
“As my queen commands.”
The words should have sounded teasing.
They did not.
Not entirely.
Marion felt heat rise in her face and hated him a little for surviving beautifully enough to do that to her when she was covered in blood.
“Do not use that voice,” she said.
“What voice?”
“That one.”
He looked too innocent for a man who had spent the morning half wolf and murderous.
Before she could accuse him further, Georgie’s voice came from behind them.
“Are you finished being tragic?”
Marion closed her eyes.
Euan bowed his head.
“I was trying.”
Georgie marched toward them through the snow, Rhona behind her looking like she had absolutely allowed the child to escape because stopping her seemed too tiring.
Georgie planted herself in front of Euan.
“You are not good at it.”
“No,” he said gravely. “I am learning.”
She studied him, then Marion, then their joined hands. “Are we going home?”
Marion reached for her.
Georgie came into her arms without hesitation, though she looked carefully at Euan over Marion’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Marion said. “But first we are going to the cottage.”
Georgie’s face changed.
Not fear.
Something softer and sadder.
“To get our things?”
“To choose them.”
The child seemed to understand.
Children did, sometimes, before adults found the courage to.
She nodded, then looked at Euan. “You may come.”
His eyes softened. “Thank you.”
“But you have to ride because Mama said so.”
Marion smiled into Georgie’s hair.
Euan sighed.
“I see my authority has ended.”
Georgie gave him a patient look. “No. It just has supervision now.”
From the Grove, Tavish called weakly, “I support this new structure.”
Morna shouted, “You support lying down.”
Georgie giggled.
Marion held the sound like a small lamp in both hands.
Euan looked at them both, and this time when guilt touched the bond, it did not take root. Love met it first. Warm, stubborn, living.
Marion stood with Georgie’s hand in hers and Euan rising slowly beside them.
The Grove waited behind.
The cottage waited ahead.
And for the first time since a chained beast had opened his gold eyes in her poor back room, Marion was not walking toward fear.
She was walking toward what she chose to bring with her.