Red, p.27
Red, page 27
Together.
"I FELT IT," HE SAYS softly some time later. He’d taken me three more times since that first frenzied encounter and we were both beyond sated and exhausted. We're wrapped up in each other and my head is resting on his chest, just above the new scar he now bears in between his others. He lightly plays with my hair as I draw shapes across his torso with my finger tip, smiling when this spot or that makes him shiver or his muscles clench.
"Hmm?"
"When the curse was lifted. I jolted upright from a dead sleep and it was if an icy hand was reaching within my chest and pulling—well, ripping really. I didnae understand what was happening, not until it was done and I collapsed backwards. Then I felt...free. Like a darkness had been cleaned away from my very soul. When I'd recovered my wits enough tae move, I'd sought you out but you were nowhere tae be found. I just had this feeling that you’d gone and done something stupid.” His nostrils flare, his anger and anxiety and fear of those moments coming back to the forefront of his mind. I press my hand firmly against his heart, letting him know that I'm here, that everything is ok.
"I'm sorry. Well, not really.” He pokes my side where I’m intensely ticklish and I gasp and giggle. “I am sorry that you were worried, but I’m not sorry for going to her. For any of it. I had to do something, Garrett. I had to end this. You don't understand what seeing you after the full moon did to me."
“I still cannae believe it.”
“Which part?”
He huffs out a laugh. “Any of it really. I cannae believe I’m free. I cannae believe that you risked your life and own freedom tae save me. I cannae believe that you have...magic now? Can you explain that tae me, by the way?”
“Not really because I don’t understand it myself. Apparently there was a chance that I would inherit her magic, but I never showed any signs—it’s why she stopped visiting me in the village. She’d given up hope that I was like her, so I wasn’t worth her time anymore. I felt something strange when I went to her to end your curse, but I just thought she was trying to work her magics on me. I never would have imagined it was my own rising up in response to being near her, to protect me from her I think. Then, when you...when she...” I take a moment, breathing in deeply to settle myself. “When you were lying there, something just snapped inside of me, and I guess all that rage was just the catalyst that brought the magic out fully.”
“Well, I’d say it made its debut at a fine time.” He squeezes me and I can feel his soft chuckle.
"What’s...what's it feel like now?” I ask nervously, biting on my lower lip. I peek up and he frowns in confusion. “The magic upon you. You said her curse felt dark and sinister..." If I put that darkness back on him...I couldn't stand the thought. He tugs me upward so that I'm sitting and he can meet my gaze.
"It's no' like that now, Sloane. I promise you. Now it feels like...warmth and happiness. It feels like that magical moment down at the cove every night just as the sun goes down. Her curse was placed with malice, your magic was placed with love. It makes all the difference. You are nothing like her. You have tae know that."
I let out a long, relieved breath. I can understand how he could easily paint every witch with that same brush now, automatically cast them all off as evil creatures, but he hasn't. He sees me just as he always has. I lean in and give him a soft kiss.
"Thank you. I needed to hear that."
"I'll tell you as often as you need. As often as that thick skull of yours needs tae hear it until it sinks in, Red," he adds with a smirk. Then his eyes go wide with terror. I glance behind me, afraid that something is there. When I turn back he has his hands held up in surrender. “I saw how the last person tae call you Red fared. I dinnae wish to tangle with your Beast. I think she’s more of a menace than even mine was.”
I grab a pillow and whack him in the face with it, punctuating each word.
“You. Are. A. Horse’s. Ass!” His laughter fills our room and warms me down to my core. I finally stop my assault and he gets that wicked gleam in his eye. He growls and lunges at me, pinning me beneath him quicker than should be possible. The Beast within him is gone but apparently some of the gifts from it remain. I smirk and flip him to his back once more—without touching him. I climb atop him, straddling his hips.
"Well now, that's a handy trick...I wonder what other uses we can find for that magic of yours." He grins wickedly and I shiver at the possibilities.
LATER, AS I WATCH THE firelight dance across his sleeping face, lost in the utter beauty of him, I think back on everything that brought me here. Every hard day, ever tear, every night that I went to bed hungry and cold. It was all worth it. Every single second. It led me to becoming the person I was meant to be. It led me to the family I was meant to find. I brush the hair back from his eyes and he grabs my hand, pulling me to him and wrapping me tightly in his arms. I smile and sigh.
Perhaps the woods weren’t so bad after all.
Epilogue
It’s been almost six months since everything with Fiona, and things look quite different within the woods now. We’d gone to the village shortly thereafter, and after explaining that the Beast was no longer a threat, we offered employment, lodging, and homesites within Garrett’s vast lands to any from Silverwood who were interested. Most declined, the fear of the woods too ingrained in them to change their thinking now, but many came, the promise of a new start too tempting. The mill and distillery are now fully operational once more, lumber has been cleared and used for new homes as well as trading with Silverwood and other villages farther south, and Edwin Coldwell and his six sons have become quite the fishermen.
Garrett was a little reluctant at first, but has fallen into the role of laird and mentor beautifully. He’s enjoying being a part of something again, no longer forced to forever be outside and alone. I think he feels like he’s making amends for all the lives taken as the Beast by helping others now. And my gods, how everyone adores him! I’m not jealous of his natural magnetism...not at all...truly...
Conrad has a full staff at his disposal now as well, and is enjoying his retirement...more often than not with Widow Ravenwood. It makes me indescribably happy to see him happy after so many years of heartache. He deserves every joy that the world and the Widow have to offer. My heart is so full I can hardly stand it.
I’m staring out the front window now, anxiously awaiting Kieran and a very pregnant Emily to arrive. They’d begun building a home here within the woods in a lovely spot near the river, but were afraid of it not being completed before the baby’s arrival. I was able to speed things along with my still-developing magics, and Garrett and I are surprising them with the finished home today. I’m still exploring the new room within my mind, the one overflowing with knowledge and power, but I’m still very cautious when using it. Though Garrett tries to reassure me that I could never, ever become like my grandmother, I’m still a bit afraid of the magic, of what the thirst for that power can do to a person.
I’m bouncing with excitement as I wait, thinking back to the first time I saw Kieran after all those months. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, completely frozen in place with his mouth agape when he’d opened the door to find me there. We’d hugged and drank and I’d told him (mostly) everything, and when I’d left to find Garrett once more, I finally felt completely whole. I’d missed my friend more than I’d realized.
I was just nearing the Meeting Hall when a familiar high-pitched voice rang through the air.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the town harlot returned.” I’d stopped in my tracks and turned to find Lizzy Denton looking as smug and rotten as ever. “Decide whoring on the Journeyman’s road was too much work? Or did the men there decide you weren’t worth their coin after all?”
I tilted my head to study her. Had she always looked so small and sad? Being away and going through everything I’d gone through had changed the way I saw so many things, Lizzy included. I found that I no longer cared one bit about her or anything she had to say. However, I was still me and I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. I approached her slowly with a smile on my face. She looked slightly apprehensive, her own snake’s grin faltering slightly. I stopped with a few feet between us.
“I’ve changed more than you could imagine, Lizzy, but I see now that you never will—at least not on your own. So, I’m going to help you with that.” I held her gaze, forcing her to give me her full attention before I continued. “You will stop being needlessly cruel to others. You will stop ridiculing and making others feel small in order to make yourself feel bigger. You are going to stop, or you will answer to me.”
She began to protest, but paused when Garrett’s arms wrapped around me from behind. Her eyes flew wide and she looked completely dumbstruck as she took in the man. He looked especially devastating that day in his finery—he’d dressed the part of the Duke he still was for our trip to meet with the Council. He kissed my neck and Lizzy’s eyes narrowed in outrage and suspicion.
“Is this an old friend, lass? Ach, I’m sorry, I keep forgetting—I mean, ‘your grace’.” I couldn’t stop my smirk as Lizzy’s mouth dropped open and her eyes went impossibly wider. Garrett and I had married, and though the titles were mostly jokes to us (neither one of us had any intention of acting like the near-royalty we technically were), I couldn’t deny that a part of me would always jolt a bit when I realized how much my life had truly changed. I’d been a poor, orphaned barmaid with nothing and no one, and now I was a duchess for gods’ sake.
“Yes, we were just catching up and coming to a bit of an understanding about an old disagreement, weren’t we, Lizzy?” She cut her eyes back to me, torn between shock, outrage, and obvious lust for Garrett. It was then that I let the magic and the Beast rise within me. Only slightly, only enough for my eyes to flicker from green to silver to crimson; for my fangs to flash sharp as razors; for a growl to rumble deep in my chest. She screamed and stumbled backwards, landing hard on the cobblestones on her rump.
“And what are you grinning at, then?” a rough brogue rumbles softly against my ear, bringing me back to the present. I shiver and tilt my head so that Garrett can kiss my neck.
“Just thinking,” I respond as he continues placing soft kisses down the side of my throat. I groan and reach back to wind a hand through his hair.
“About the ropes I attached tae the headboard of our bed, I hope?...” My toes curl just thinking about all the things we can do with those ropes...
“That, among other things.” He grins against my skin and turns me to face him. I wind my arms around his neck and he settles his big palms on my hips, drawing me close. “But mostly how happy I am.” I lean in and kiss his left cheek. “And how much I love you.” Another kiss on the right side. “And how lucky you are that I came into the woods all those months ago.” I kiss him softly on the lips, lingering to enjoy the taste of him, the feel of his lips against mine, the soft tickle of his stubble against my skin. I reluctantly pull back eventually and brush a stray lock of hair from his forehead.
“Oh aye. The luckiest damned bastard on this Earth, Sloane. You’ll never truly understand all the ways that you saved me, lass.” He pulls me even closer against him.
“And you saved me right back, Garrett. We save each other, over and over, every day. Forever.”
He kisses me once more, leaving me breathless.
“Forever.”
K. D. Miller, Red
