Page 80 of Manticores and Macarons

Max groaned. “Will the jokes ever stop?”

“Probably not,” Poppy said truthfully.

“In breaking news,” said a voice on the TV, “fugitive CEO Lucy Montagna was arrested today –”

“What?!” shrieked Poppy, knocking her empty dinner bowl to the floor in her attempt to grab the remote control and turn the volume up.

“– attempted to escape the country,” said the news anchor, as footage of Poppy’s former boss flashed up on the screen, hands cuffed behind her back as she was led away by police.

“Oh my God,” Poppy said, trying to process everything she was seeing.

“Are you all right?” Max asked cautiously.

“More than all right,” Poppy said, unable to tear her eyes from the screen. So okay, she wasn’t one hundred percent all right – the anger that she’d managed to put out of her mind for the past six months had come flooding back – but the relief was much stronger, and now, at least, she knew that she’d be able to put that chapter of her life to bed for good. Really, she should probably be thanking Lucy – after all, without herdubious antics, Poppy never would’ve booked that fateful trip to Girdwood Springs.

“Here.” Max topped up her wine glass and held it out to her, and she raised it, clinking it against Max’s.

“To happy endings,” she said, before draining the glass. The renewed anger was already dissipating, leaving her with a warm, happy glow. Although some of that was probably the wine.

“To happy endings,” said Max.

She pulled him in for a kiss, slow and deep, deliriously happy to be here with him. The mate bond pulsed through her, its radiance lighting her up from the inside out.

Eventually, she pulled back just slightly, regretting every fraction of an inch between their skin.

“Do you know what I would love to do right now?” she whispered.

“What?” Max murmured back.

“I would love… to go flying.”

Max looked startled for a moment, clearly having expected her to say something else… but then he nodded, and she knew that he understood.

There was something wonderfully freeing about riding on the back of a manticore, with the wind in her hair, and knowing that Max would never, ever let her fall. And that was what she felt right now – freedom. She wanted to experience it in its purest form.

They practically ran to the back door, laughing breathlessly as they stumbled through the garden in their pajamas. It was a pure, black night, the moon not yet risen, and they ran through the woods until they found a clearing.

Without delaying for conversation, Max shifted, and the magnificent manticore loomed up out of the darkness, its eyes glowing with only the faintest blue.

Poppy had one dizzy moment to wonder why Max’s glasses disappeared during the shift – she was sure that the manticore would look very dapper and erudite with them – before she dismissed the ridiculous thought and jumped onto its back.

Max leaped into the air, the enormous wings producing a welcome breeze on this hot, still night, and she laughed in ecstasy as, together, they flew through the endless sky. The stars seemed to shine all around them, enveloping them, and Poppy thought that maybe no one had ever been happier in the history of the world.

My mate,she thought, as she felt Max’s warmth beneath her, felt the soft pulse of the mate bond throughout her entire body.

I’m home.