Page 160 of The Other Side

Osian couldn’t quite hide his smile.

Drum’s voice softened. “It isn’t like we’d be doing this every day. Only when it mattered.” He intertwined their fingers again. “And you’d be with me.”

“Always.”

“We’d do it together. Like we always do. Watching each other’s backs.”

Osian looked ahead, but Drum saw his jaw tighten.

“And maybe…” Drum said carefully. “Maybe with a little demon power, I won’t always be the one you have to save.”

Osian stopped walking. “You’ve never been a burden.”

“I know.”

“You don’t.”

Drum met his eyes. “I just… I want to protect you too.”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Snow drifted lazily between them, settling on their coats and hair.

Then Osian reached up and brushed a snowflake from Drum’s eyebrow.

“You already do,” he said softly. “Every single day.”

Drum smiled. It wasn’t the answer he’d expected. It was better.

Hand in hand, they continued through the snow toward the lights gathering in the centre of Sparlow, where the village was already beginning to glow against the winter dusk.

THE END