It’s warm and pleasant, and I feel myself relaxing, everything inside me unwinding, a deep knowing settling over me.
It’s going to be okay. Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay…
A contented sigh floats from my lips.
Then, just as quickly as it touched us, the magic is gone. I wait for an explosion of light, or a scream, or a fucking harpist welcoming us to the afterlife, but no. There’s only silence.
And more silence.
I hold my breath, waiting, not wanting to be the first one to open my eyes.
But then…
“Iknewit,” Westlyn says, and I’m damn near ready to burst.
I finally open my eyes to see that wicked little grin, her arms crossed smugly across her chest, her laughter better than any damn harpist in all the realms.
“Monsters,” she declares. “Every one of you.”
I feel my wings unfurl, my fangs descending, and I look at my brothers and watch the same transformation taking place.
A burst of laughter explodes out of me. Out of all of us.
She did it. She fucking did it.
After fifteen hundred years of living in fear and darkness, the men of shadow and stone are free.
The curse is gone.
We’re still here.
And we’re gargoyles, right down to the very last tail, the very last wing, the very last horn.
But best of all?
We’re hers.
Chapter Thirty-Two
DRAEGAN
Two Weeks Later…
In the top-floor office of the Blackmoor Capital building, with steaming hot lattes from Stella’s in hand, Westlyn and I sit in front of the massive windows and watch the sunrise set Manhattan ablaze.
In the weeks since our curse was destroyed, I’ve seen over a dozen of them now. As many sunsets, too, and I never tire of them. Precious gifts I never expected, but have embraced nevertheless.
It seems that the desires of our hearts also included freedom from the limitations of our gargoyle forms, allowing us to turn to stone at will, enjoying the sunshine on our faces for the first time in fifteen hundred long years.
I’m seated in my leather executive chair, Westlyn curled up in my lap, no words exchanged between us. This has become our morning ritual—a predawn flight to the city, followed by this silent show of light and beauty.
In its quiet perfection, we’re still saying our goodbyes.
Westlyn, to Brian Avery, the man she’ll always call Dad. The man she’ll always love, despite his mistakes and her complicated feelings. To her mother, whose loving embrace she never got to feel. To the childhood she was never allowed to live.
Me, to Moira and Anastasia, the wife and daughter I couldn’t save and never before mourned. To the guilt and grief that festered inside me for so long. To the men who fought bravely by my side during the original dark-fae wars, their souls finally set free by the shattering of our curse, the stone gargoyles of Manhattan remaining as memorials to their great sacrifice.
Jude and Rook and Augustine have said their goodbyes as well. To the friends and family we lost. To the innocence and hopes and dreams that ended the day Verrick of Wintermoon declared war on our homeland.
