Not pulling. Not demanding. Just offering.
He swallowed hard. “Wren, I choose you. Yesterday, today, and for whatever comes. I would choose you a thousand times.”
She lunged into his arms then—warm, soft, trembling—and the mate bond snapped into place with a roar deep inside him. The pain vanished. The rage evaporated. The madness receded like a wave pulled back into the sea.
He crushed her against him, lifting her clear off the rock, burying his face against her neck with a ragged sound that wasn’t quite a sob.
Ketill cleared his throat. “I think the crisis has passed.”
Andrea swatted him. “Let them have their moment.”
Gryla sniffled loudly. “My son! My tiny daughter-in-law! My future grandbabies!”
Wren’s laugh was teary and breathless against Gunnar’s shoulder. He pulled back just enough to cradle her face in both hands.
“You saved me,” he said softly.
Wren shook her head. “No. You saved me first.”
They were still standing in the shadow of Eirik’s stone form, but the rising sun lit the world around them, shining on the black basalt. Hope warmed Gunnar’s chest, steady, solid, unshakeable.
“Come home with me,” he murmured.
Wren nodded, eyes shining. “Always.”
And Gunnar, with his fated mate nestled against his heart and his family watching proudly, finally stepped away from the stones, not toward the sun, but toward a future he had almost lost.
Wren figured, if she was writing her Guide to Emotional Catastrophes, this would be the lesson learned:If the Universe Gives You a Troll, Don’t Run—Kiss Him, Then Run Back When You Realize You’re an Idiot.
Wren wasn’t sure she’d ever been this tired and this alive at the same time.
The climb back toward Gunnar’s cave blurred into a mix of adrenaline, relief, and the heat of his hand wrapped around hers. Every time she glanced at him, her chest tightened with the terrifying memory of how close she’d come to losing him—of how easily he’d stepped toward that lethal sunrise.
But now they were climbing the winding basalt path, wind at their backs, the sky pale with early morning glow. They reached the rock face where Gunnar brushed his fingers over a barely-visible rune, and the cave entrance shimmered into being.
Home.
She hadn’t realized until she left how much the word now pointed to this place.
Once inside, Gunnar let the curtain fall behind them and quickly stoked the fire and lit a few lamps, transforming the cave from a gloomy space into a warm, inviting home. When he was done, he turned to her, his expression raw and open in the firelight. Her feet were rooted to the spot, heart hammering in her chest. This was the moment everything had been driving towards. She had stopped him from walking into the sun, but they had more to discuss.
She broke first. “I was scared.”
His jaw tightened ever so slightly. “Of me?”
“Never.” She swallowed. “Only of losing you. Of not being what you needed. Gryla said all those things about me being too small, too fragile, that I had to toughen up, and it felt like beingback in foster homes all over again. Like I needed to change myself to be loved.”
His eyes softened into something devastating. “Wren, you don’t have to be anything other than yourself.” He stepped closer and cupped her cheek. “I love you as you are, exactly as you are.”
The words cracked something wide open inside her. She grabbed his wrist, grounding herself. “And I love you. I just panicked. I thought walking away would protect me.”
His thumb stroked her cheekbone. “And coming back?”
She placed her free hand over his heart, feeling its steady, powerful beat. “Because I realized that losing you would hurt far worse than staying. I want a life with you. Here. In this cave. In your world.”
He drew a slow breath, almost pained. “Can you truly be happy here, little bird?”
She smiled—small, but sure. “Wherever you are, I can be happy.”
