And smiled.
~*~
His face was the first thing she saw when she woke up. It didn’t matter that her eyes were gritty and hurt when she opened them, or that the room was dark. She saw his face. The straight line of the nose. The corner of his stubbled jaw. The full lips. The eyes. Blue, full of love.
He brushed her hair off her forehead. “Welcome back, sweetheart.”
“Are we dead?”
“We can’t really die, but I get what you’re saying. So, nope. Very much not.”
She let those words dance in her brain. It was all so slow and muted that it took her a second to find the implication of his words. Another good one to formulate her next question. “We won?”
“You did. All the nightmares kind of imploded, and Dorian is securing a very clean Dreamscape as we speak.”
“I did.” She closed her eyes. A memory fluttered in, out. But then...
I love you, he said through their connection.
And I love you. She opened her eyes–it cost, but she really wanted to see him–and touched her fingers to his cheek. “I love you,” she repeated.
He took her hand, kissed it. “How are you feeling?”
“Groggy.”
“Melisandre said you would. Here,” he said, reaching for a glass of water and giving it to her. “Drink. She said it would help. She, or the elves, or someone else, spiked it.”
She pushed to sit–that cost her, too–and drank, and yeah. Whatever they did with that water worked fast, because she felt her mind coming back to her at the speed at which she gulped down the glass. “This is amazing.” And with that, his words came back. Rather fast. “Wait. Did you say we can’t die?”
He scratched his head. “Technically, no. There might be some magic somewhere able to end us, but mostly, no, we can’t.”
“By us, you mean you and Dorian?”
“And you, and Amelia.” An idea landed on him, one he liked a lot, judging by the smile. “We can totally double date.”
“What do you mean I can’t die?”
“I mean that you’re my fated mate. Magic grants you my life expectancy, which doesn’t have an expiration date.” He looked at her, confused. “How did you not know this?”
“Mostly because I’d never met a damned demon before.”
“Are you freaking out? After all you’ve done, all you’ve gone through,thatis what freaks you out?”
“Yes, Hunter. Yes.”
“Oh, okay. Maybe talk to Amelia? She may have, you know, a few pointers for dealing with that.”
Her brain simply ignored what he said. “We’re together forever. Literally.”
“Yes.”
“Then we have to get married.”
He looked at her, frowned. “I’m struggling to see the logic, but if that’s what you want, then yes. Let’s get married.” He sat on the bed, pulled her into his lap. “Let’s get married and live a long and happy life together.” He kissed her, andit felt like both the most reckless joy in the world and the first moment she’d ever truly been home. “One condition,” he said on her lips.
She would have said yes to literally whatever, but she also remembered who she was dealing with. She loved this demon. But she knew better than skipping the fine print of his requests. “Which is?”
“I’ll have to take your last name. I’ve gone without one for so long, it’s time you make an honest demon out of me.”
