“You’ll have to tell me about them,” Buffy says and when she holds out her arms to me, I don’t think, I hug her. I hug her tight and I cry. Buffy smooths a hand over my hair and rubs my back. “I should have been here. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have been alone.”
I ignore that. There’s no way she could have been here with the way it all went down.
“I wasn’t alone. You would have liked him.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me about him.”
“His name was Jaakobah, but I called him Jaak. He was sweet and smart. He was the kindest soul I ever met.The best one.He was gentle and good to me.”
Buffy hugs me tight. “Did Jaak have a whole tall, dark and handsome vibe going? Like very tall?”
I nod, face still on her shoulder. “Yeah, he did. He was beautiful.”
“I can see that. Also horned. Oh man, what’s the word for it?”
I freeze. “What? What are you talking about?”
Buffy snaps her fingers with a grin. “A minotaur! That’s what the word is! I saw it in a docuseries on ancient art Elijah made me watch. Gotta say, your husband looks way cooler than the one Theseus fought, though. Big axe, really great hair. Real horns and hooves vibe.”
I pull back from Buffy to look at her. “How do you know that?”
She jerks her chin behind me with a smile. “Because he’s walking towards us.”
Chapter Forty Four
This time I don’t think I black out, I do. Like, literally, honest to hells, black out. Buffy grabs me by my arm and holds me up which is good, but I really do only pass out for a half second because I hear Jaak shouting.
“My heart! Meadow!”
Those two words revive me like a shot and I take off running across the town square for him. I think that even if I wasn’t super powered, I would have still closed the space between Jaak and I in the same amount of time. As it is, it’s only seconds before I’m close enough to touch my husband.
“Jaak!” I scream and throw myself into his arms so hard that Jaak rocks back on his heels from the force of it when he catches me. I wrap my arms around him and hold him as tight as I can manage. All around us I can feel our bond coming back to life. It wraps and winds itself around us, warm and bright, the feel of it reassuring.
“You came back to me.”
“Meadow. Oh my Meadow. I did not intend to break my promise.” His voice breaks and I can’t take hearing it sound like that. My tears turn to sobs.
I shake my head. “No.No, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t.” I cling to him and pepper his face with kisses. Jaak shifts me so I’m sitting in the crook of his arm and lifts me higher. I’m just a bit taller than he is now and take advantage of my new vantage point by touching his horns. I want to touch him everywhere. I need to.
“I never meant to leave you.”
“You didn’t. You’re here now. You didn’t leave me.” I laugh through my tears and lean forward to hold him close. I can feel the beat of his heart. It’s strong, so strong.Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.This is my new favorite sound, my new favorite song. I will never get tired of hearing his heart.
I lean back to look down at him. “I don’t understand. I-you were gone. I felt it. The bond was gone, you were gone.” I’m crying, of course I’m crying, so is Jaak. There’s tears in his eyes. I reach down to touch his face and I freeze.
His eyes.
They’re brown. Rich amber, tawny with gold mixed in them. They’re not silver. I touch his face, cup it in my hands and stare into the eyes I’ve fallen in love with. Jaak’s tears wet my fingertips and I laugh. Happiness bubbles up in me, effervescent and uncontainable. I’m like an over poured bottle of spirits. I couldn’t keep my joy silent if I tried. There’s no keeping it inside.
“You’re eyes. They changed.”
“When Mort revived me, Eri's curse was finally broken. She no longer has any hold on me. My will is my own.”
“Mort? Mort brought you back? How?” I look around for the Oculus and see him standing a few feet away with Charlie. The pair of them are smiling at us. Mort gives me an awkward wave, and Dina is beside them, crying in the arms of Clyde. Behind them, I see dazed looking mages slowly leaving the building. Some of them sit on the ground and cry, a few lay down to do their crying properly but there’s more than one that standsand watches us at a distance. I see the Sheriff's backup has finally arrived in the form of a dozen officers getting off honest to goodness horses and there’s even a wagon. It’s a blessing that they go straight for the robed cult members and start rounding them up. Good. They can be the authorities' problem now. Maybe they’ll have better luck dealing with people like my parents than I did.
“You did this? You brought him back?” I ask Mort and he nods.
“My line has rejuvenation powers. It’s easy enough if the spirit is strong. Jaak’s was exceptionally so, I hardly had to do anything at all to bring him back to his body.”
