Chapter 35
Despite Death’s final warning to Eloise, the Blacke twins’ tearful reunion lasted untold minutes, and Gwen was glad for every extra second as she sat nearby and watched over them.
At long last, though, the bespectacled Fate appeared again on the dais and tapped a watch that hadn’t existed a moment earlier. The message was clear: Eloise needed to return to her afterlife assignment. Even if she might never meet her brother face-to-face again.
His face crumpling, Hugh wrapped his arms around his weeping sister, rubbed her back, and rocked her gently back and forth.
“You always worried that I was ashamed of you. You never said it aloud, but I could feel it.” His final words to her tumbled over one another, choked and desperate and heartfelt.
“I’ve worried about you. Been aggravated and confused by you.
I’ve grieved for you. Missed you with every heartbeat.
But I’ve never, ever been ashamed of you, El.
I am so incredibly proud of the demon you were and the guardian demon you’ve become. ”
“Thank y-you, Hugh,” she whispered brokenly.
His lips rested on the dark crown of his sister’s head. “You have the biggest heart of any demon I’ve ever known, and I will always love you. Even if I never see you again after this moment.”
He pulled back an inch. “Will I?”
“Not in the Realm Below.” Eloise slanted a crafty look at the Fate, who was feigning profound hearing loss as she stared into the distance.
“Aboveground, though…maybe someday. In the meantime, you’ll feel how much I love you”—she laid her palm over the center of his chest—“here. Forever, if I have anything to say about it.”
After one last, fierce embrace, Eloise stepped back. The siblings exchanged a look of mutual affection and understanding, matching trails of tears shining on their cheeks.
And then Eloise was gone, along with the Fate.
Gwen took Hugh into her own arms. Held him as he grappled with the joy and pain of encountering his beloved twin once more, finally getting his chance to express his abiding love for her—and then saying goodbye again.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered at one point, shudders racking his frame, and Gwen gently shushed him.
She was more than willing to stand there in the courtroom as long as he needed.
Besides, she was still struggling with her own overwhelming emotions.
Somehow, she and Hugh—not to mention the other oracles—had avoided seemingly inevitable deaths.
She could scarcely even allow herself to believe it, and only the heat of Hugh’s smooth skin, the wiry strength in his arms, made anything about this moment feel real to her.
“Gwen…” Once they’d both regathered their composure, he eased her back far enough to meet her eyes. “I don’t know if this is the right moment, but…”
She gazed warily up at him, unsure of what he intended to say.
“You know what? Fuck it.” His amber eyes flared with heat and resolve, and he grasped both her hands in his. “I don’t want to wait, and only the gods and goddesses know what lies ahead of us. I’m seizing this moment.”
Based on her history with human men, including her unborn child’s biological father, she had two main guesses as to what was happening: Hugh either wanted to break up or have sex right there in the courtroom.
The first option would break her heart. The second would probably break her spine…
and also get them sent directly to their afterlives. No lines, no waiting.
That said, if he was raring to go, she supposed—
“I meant what I said in that capsule. I love you like…” Hugh’s mouth worked as he searched for the right words. “Like parched summer fields love the rain. Like honeybees love flowers. Like…um…” He unexpectedly snorted. “Like you love cheese.”
She stood stock-still, trying to make sense of his words.
He wasn’t…he wasn’t abandoning her? Now that the adrenaline of imminent danger had passed, now that they were fully clothed and entirely vertical…he still loved her? Every bit as much as she still loved him?
The blink of her blurry eyes sent a tear slipping down her cheek. Then another.
He bent his head to kiss them away and continued speaking. Continued asking for her heart, even though it was already his.
“I want you by my side for the rest of my life, no matter how few or many years that might entail.” His grip on her hands tightened. “Stay with me, Gwen. Marry me. Be my wife and my love until the moment I draw my final breath on this earth.”
The raw ache in his tone, the rough plea, the unguarded affection, arrowed straight to her own parched summer field of a soul. And she wanted so much to say yes, to leap into his arms and rejoice in what they’d so unexpectedly found in each other.
But…had he truly thought any of this through?
It wasn’t a question she’d normally ask of a demon as controlled and detail oriented as Hugh, but here she was. Asking that question. To herself, if not to him.
His lips rested against her temple as he waited for her answer, his hands still clasping hers tightly. When she didn’t respond right away, though, his hold gradually loosened. Then dropped away entirely, leaving her bereft. He straightened, clearing his throat.
“It’s okay if you aren’t ready to say yes, Gwen.” The new caution in his words, his expression, felt like a kick to her gut. “Truly.”
To his credit, he sounded sincere. And despite the embarrassed flush of his ear tips, he maintained steady eye contact as he let her off the hook with his customary thoughtfulness.
And with that, all her concerns about the haste of his commitment to her were whisked away like leaves in a breeze.
Because, for goodness’ sake, did she truly think this male—the demon very carefully ensuring her comfort in this conversation, even as he thought she was rejecting his proposal—hadn’t considered the implications of being with her?
Was she truly doubting the resolve of Councilor Hugh Blacke, Esquire, the most contemplative, deliberate being she’d ever met?
Or was she doubting herself instead?
“We’ve been together such a short time, and I’m more than happy to court you for as long as you need, until you’re sure. Or if…” He paused. Dropped his gaze, head bowed. “Or if you’ve changed your mind, I won’t importune you or—”
She couldn’t stand another hesitant word. “No. No, of course I haven’t changed my mind.”
“Then…” His amber eyes searched hers, concerned and vulnerable and loving. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Gwen. I can feel that you’re anxious, but I have no idea why.”
The tangle of fear and shame within her had to go, that was clear enough. She couldn’t take it with her into a future with him, and she wanted that future—yearned for it, would work herself to the bone for it—more than anything else in her entire lifetime of struggle.
So she gave that ball of thorny briars to him. Uttered the words that would press it into his hands instead, where he could either carry it for her or toss it aside like the garbage it was.
“I worry I’m not enough for you,” she told him.
There. It was that simple.
“Ah.” After considering her statement for a moment, he lifted his hands to cradle her face. “Do you think you can love me, Gwen? Not just today, but for the rest of our lives?”
“Of course.” That much was a given. “Always and forever. Easy-peasy, melted cheesy.”
“Do you…” He swallowed. “Do you think you can let me be your baby’s father? If I promise to raise that child with all the love and devotion in my heart?”
Her eyes filled. “I think my baby would be the luckiest child on this green earth to have you as their father.”
“Do you think you can stand to live with a demon who organizes his sock drawer by both color and texture?” His lips curved the tiniest bit. “Even though his socks are all black?”
She had to smile back at him. “As long as he can handle an enormous infusion of color into his life and home.”
“One last question.” The earnestness in his gaze melted her knees, and she couldn’t resist leaning against him. “Do you think I can make you happy?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t even begin to imagine the joy of a life spent with Hugh. “Oh, gods and goddesses, yes. Nothing and no one could possibly make me happier.”
“Then the verdict is in: If you agreed to be mine, you would, in fact, be more than enough for me. In fact, you’d make me the most joy-addled demon alive.
” His thumbs brushed the tears from her cheeks.
“Honey, I love you to distraction. Also, my sister said she’d body-snatch someone aboveground, track me down, and kick me in the nuts if I didn’t marry you. Please don’t make her hurt me.”
She bit her lip and looked to the side, lost in thought. “I suppose I am quite a powerful oracle now. As long as I keep taking vitamins even after I give birth, I should keep having those huge visions.”
Hugh’s thumb on her chin urged her eyes back to his.
“I want to be absolutely clear about this: Even if you switched to entirely cheese-based meals after your pregnancy, stopped taking vitamins, and never had another one of those terrible visions again, I’d still think you’re the absolute best oracle I’ve ever known. ”
Okay, now he was patronizing her. “Come on, Hugh. We both know—”
“No, really.” With uncharacteristic rudeness, he spoke over her, his tone firm.
“I mean it. Gwen, most oracles use their talent to earn corporations money or make wealthy people even richer or assist the government in dubious causes. Instead, you’ve spent decades helping people who genuinely need assistance and who deserve easier lives.
I find that remarkable. I find you remarkable. ”
She couldn’t argue against that stern expression.
She kind of wanted to kiss it, though.
“All that said…” His forehead creased in a mild frown. “If you ate an entirely cheese-based diet, I would worry about your gastrointestinal well-being.”
The unexpected laugh hurt her throat in the best possible way.
“You’ve built a community around yourself through your own hard work and caring,” he added, smiling right back at her. “So if you want to continue residing among your human neighbors in Zone C, fine. I’ll move there too.”
“Really?” She tried to imagine him living in her apartment and failed entirely. “Until your penthouse is repaired, you mean?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Permanently.”
The obvious occurred to her. “Are you particularly willing to move because our zombie-free property values in the Zone are about to skyrocket?”
“That doesn’t hurt.” The pad of his thumb glided over her cheek. “But I’d have moved regardless.”
“Are we going to buy a tumbledown old house for basically nothing and renovate it?”
“In the bougiest possible fashion,” he said dryly.
She grinned, imagining the piles of cashmere blankets. “I could live with that.”
After everything they’d gone through together, all the questions they’d posed and answers they’d given, something inside her felt…
settled now. Confident that he wanted her just as she was and just as she always had been.
The world’s okayest oracle, whether or not she ever experienced another apocalyptic vision.
She loved him. Because he loved her too, that was enough to make him happy. And somehow, those simple facts encompassed an entire universe of joy.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Hugh studied her expression carefully—but if he was looking for continued uncertainty there, he wouldn’t find any. “Because I do know it’s very fast, and I don’t want to rush you.”
“I’m sure.” She nuzzled into his hand. Pressed a kiss into the cup of his cradling palm. “And you’re not rushing me.”
His frown smoothed, and he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“As a child, I always heard that demons were able to recognize their other half almost immediately, but I never believed it. Or at least, I didn’t think it would happen that way for me.
” Slowly, a brilliant beam of a smile lit his beloved, angular face.
“Then you arrived in my life twenty years ago, Gwen. And here we are.”
“Here we are indeed,” she agreed cheerfully. “And…Hugh?”
His head bent toward hers, and his stare focused on her mouth. “Mmmm?”
“I don’t need a prophecy to tell me that we’ll be together forever, aboveground and below, happy and in love,” she told him. “Starting right now.”
Then she reached up, grabbed her future by the horns, and greeted it with a kiss.