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We weren’t finished here.
“What in the deepest pits of Hell are we doing?” Vi asked, breaking the tension of the moment.
I straightened my spine. “I’m trying to resurrect my greatest enemy as a child so she can have a chance to be a different person. Isn’t it obvious?”
Vi waved a hand in the air as she rolled her eyes. “Oh, you’re so right. It’s painfully obvious now that you point it out.”
I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Vi and Addie came to kneel beside me. Vi pressed her hand to the earth and let light pour out of her in a myriad of colors. When Addie pulled her hand out of her pocket, I held my breath.
Indecision turned heavy inside me.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked.
Rhoan took my hand. Together, our hope swelled. I could feel it in the way he squeezed me. We wanted this. I wanted to see that little black-haired girl again. She would grow up alongside Ness’s little dragon shifter, and they would be best friends the same way that she and I were.
“You should have seen her,” I whispered to Rhoan. “She was such a pretty child.”
He wiped his thumb over my cheek to sweep away a tear I hadn’t even noticed.
Was this the effects of the curse she’d put on me? Had she somehow warped me so that I would bring her back? The fear lingered for a moment. Beryl didn’t seem like the type to make me feel so much love and hope. It never would have occurred to her to try something like that.
I realized what this curse was now. Like I’d suspected at the very beginning, it was prophetic somehow. Beryl must have wanted to hear me admit defeat. That must have been her grand plan, but it’d backfired. Instead, I’d given away something else.
I’d told her that I would bring her back and give her a second chance.
Addie pulled out the leaf from the tree of the world and placed it above the seedling. She took my hand and had me press the leaf into the earth. Rhoan joined us so that he and I were the only ones holding this massive power in the ground.
Arcana erupted in all directions. A massive pink flower unfurled from beneath our hands and opened to reveal a small bassinet. The baby on the silk cushions cried and clenched her delicate little fists.
I stared in awe and fear and hope.
We’d become parents, just like that.
CHAPTER 24
RHOAN
I had far more than I’d ever expected.
Before the fall of the Seelie court, I’d been a knight working my way up through the ranks so that I could serve my king and queen to the best of my ability. I’d thought that would be all I would ever hope to achieve.
Now, I stood over a crib and let the little baby inside play with my scarred hand. She giggled and kicked her feet. Just the sight of her made my heart swell with more love than I’d expected. When the Sluagh beast sleeping beneath her crib started to purr, the baby paused and twisted to see where the sound was coming from.
“Not exactly the way I thought I’d have a child,” Cerri said from beside me.
She wound an arm around my lower back and pushed a warm bottle into my open hand. I bent and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.
Life sure had taken a wild turn, but I wasn’t going to question it. I’d found a loving queen, a beautiful baby girl, and a domain of my own. That’s where we were. We’d retreated to the hunting lodge where the domain quickly prepared to receive a baby. When we’d arrived, there was already a new set of rooms decked out with everything a baby could need.
“I wonder how Tal and Ostara are faring,” Cerri asked.
Though she was on a kind of maternity leave, she couldn’t stop thinking about her court.
“Princess, you need to loosen up.”
She laughed and looked up at me from beneath her lashes. “Isn’t that what we were doing last night?”
My core clenched. The need to fill her again overwhelmed me. She was the only woman I’d ever slept with, and I could not imagine ever wanting anything else. I knew that she would be the only person I ever craved for the rest of my life, no matter how long that would be.
