Page 19 of Knotting Sleeping Beauty

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Later. Much later. I’m on my back, Rose on my chest, both of us boneless, when claws scrape on stone. We hear a galloping thud getting closer.

I sigh. “Brace yourself.”

The door crashes open, and a hundred pounds of gray fur launches onto the bed. Brutus takes one look at Rose and loses his entire fucking mind. Licking her face, her hands, shoving his head under her arm, wriggling, whimpering, making sounds that no dignified wolfhound should ever make. Rose is laughing so hard she can’t breathe. Tears running down her face, my dog in her lap.

I watch them. My mate. My dog. In my home.

“That’s my girl, Brutus,” I tell the giant rascal.

He ignores me and keeps licking her chin.

“Traitor,” I mutter, my lips twitching.

Thirteen

ROSE

We return to Thornhaven for our wedding. My mother’s been planning it since the second Kael walked out of that tower holding my hand. And she has gone… wild.

“Nine courses, Kael.” I’m reading from a scroll. “The sixth is a palate cleanser shaped like a swan.”

He chuckles.

“Made of lemon ice.”

More amused male rumbling. “She loves you.”

I shake my head. “She’s insane.”

Kael’s eyes twinkle. “Both things can be true.”

I throw the scroll at him, and he catches it, smirking.

* * *

Miriel arrives the morning of the wedding. Small, silver-haired, and wearing a moth-eaten cardigan over her formal robes. She walks in like she’s seen every kind of bullshit this world has to offer and is no longer impressed.

She looks at me. At Kael. At our marks.

“Took you long enough.”

I laugh. “I was asleep!”

“Not you, girl. Him.” She jabs a finger at Kael. “The thorns were thinning for years. Could have come sooner if he wasn’t so busy raging wars and being single.”

Kael opens his mouth. Closes it. And just shakes his head.

“The curse?” I ask, still a bit worried.

Miriel’s face softens. “It’s broken, sweetie. Completely. The moment you bonded. Isadora tied it to her own life force. So when the curse shattered, she did too. There’s nothing left.”

I’m quiet, relieved, barely believing it’s over.

Miriel straightens her cardigan. “Now. Where’s the food? I didn’t ride a donkey for three days to be fucking hungry at a royal wedding.”

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