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“Fleur?” I leap out of the casket. “Fleur, can you hear me?”
“What’s going on?” El’jah asks from the door.
“Her eyelashes fluttered,” I tell him.
“Maybe she’s dreaming.”
Damn it! No. I press my lips to hers again and pray as if that will wake her up. I feel stupid and childish and helpless and humbled against this magic called love that’s brought us together and keeps us believing in its power as if it’s a cure. As if it can perform miracles.
Her eyelashes flutter again, and I smell the ocean, hear the siren call to me. I lower all my shields and let her inside my mind.
I’m sitting on the shore, feet stretched out before me, the sea washing up and wetting my military uniform. I watch the horizon, a place where the night sky meets the sea, and I can feel that Fleur is near.
“Fleur!” I shout.
She pops her head out of the water. This is not a memory. This is her now.
“Fleur.” I stand on the shore. “Come with me.” I stretch out my hand, fully aware that sirens are the summoners and not the other way around.
Fleur swims toward the shore. Blue seashells cover her breasts, and she rubs her pregnant belly. As she rises out of the water, her golden tail re-forms into legs, and when she reaches me, I snap open my eyes.
Blue eyes meet mine, and they crinkle at the corners when Fleur, fully awake, smiles and cups my face. “You saved me, my Nightbound King.”
EPILOGUE
Fleur
It’s been a cycle since I woke from the deep sleep Augusta prophesized. She’d said I wouldn’t be able to awake from it, but I think she meant I wouldn’t wake on my own. I needed Nottuza.
He reached out and rescued me from the world I’d created in my own mind, the world the siren part of me has lived in ever since I was a little girl.
Near dawn, alone in the common area, I perch at the edge of the pool, swinging my fin in the blue water, watching the long, dense filaments that make up my siren tail thread through the water while the golden scales across the length of my fin reflect the subtle lighting in the room. I stroke my belly as I sing a Br’ar song, this one, a lullaby about a drunken sailor named Hor, whom Br’ar entrapped and used for her pleasure.
The flapping of leathery bat wings and the refined thud tell me Nottuza has landed on the terrace behind me. The silver stag that’s been hanging out with me for the past few nights huffs in annoyance. The stag keeps threatening to stab Nottuza with his horns, but Nottuza insists on trying to pat the animal. He can be persistent that way.
I love his persistence.
I love all of him.
In the way a night predator comes upon his prey, Nottuza creeps up and crouches behind me, then places a hand over my big belly.
“How are my people today?” he asks in his deep, raspy voice.
“We’re active. I think the baby is ready.” My pregnancy progressed much faster than a normal fae pregnancy, and we aren’t sure when the baby will come. Augusta foresaw the fate who sees all that happens in the present arriving right before I go into labor, so I will take her arrival as a sign of impending delivery.
Nottuza nudges the crook of my neck, the coolness of the tip of his nose making me shiver. He brushes his lips over the pulse on my neck. Hopelessly addicted to the pleasure of his bite, I lean back and tilt my head to give him better access.
Before he feeds, his glorious leather wings, wings a male fairy receives once he finds his fae-ted mate, wrap around us, enclosing us in darkness.
* * *
The next evening, I deliver a healthy baby boy with blue eyes, a patch of black hair at the top of his head, and a strong, steady heartbeat. We name him Aiske. It means miracle.
***
Hi, Milana here :)
Six times.
