She started to shake.
Fergus took Jeane in his arms, crushing her to his chest, uncaring that he was dirty and sweaty and bloody from battle.
“Are ye all right?” he asked softly, stroking her cheekbone with his thumb as he cupped her face. He looked down at her with deep brown eyes.
“Aye, thanks to ye and Aiden.” She paused, looking around. “Is Aiden all right?”
Aiden stood, a cut above his eyebrow leaking blood. He gave Jeane a slight smile. “I’m all right.”
“Ye’re hurt.”
Fergus watched grimly as she rushed to Aiden, fussing over his minor wound.
He held up his arms and then dropped them in frustration. “I could be injured for all ye ken,” he said sourly.
Jeane was rubbing dirt and herbs into Aiden’s cut when she glanced over at Fergus, her brown eyes bright.
“Ye’re nae hurt. That isnae yer blood.”
Fergus huffed out a breath. “Still, I’m the one who saved ye.”
“Aiden helped,” she said, turning to Fergus with a smile, and then, when Aiden was taken care of, she rushed back into his arms, jumping up into them.
Fergus barked out a laugh, stumbling backward as he caught her around the arse and thighs.
“I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused ye,” she said with a pout, and Fergus could not help but kiss her, right there in front of Aiden and the dead bodies littering the forest floor.
She whimpered into his mouth when he stuck his tongue past her lips, pulling away, her face flushed as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her forehead to his.
“For ye, I’d happily go to war, little mouse. Will ye marry me now?”
Jeane froze, pulling away slightly to look at him as he continued to hold her in his arms.
“What did ye ask me?”
Fergus groaned. “I asked ye would marry me. If ye daenae still think I’m cruel.”
“Of course, I daenae think ye’re cruel. Ye saved me life.”
“And I’d do it again. And again. So tell me, mouse. Will ye do me the kindness of makin’ me yer husband?”
“Aye,” she breathed. “I will marry ye.”
Fergus’s heart flipped over in his chest. It suddenly felt hard to breathe as he crushed Jeane into his arms, whirling her around in a circle before slowly lowering her to the ground.
She squealed like the little mouse she was, and he chuckled, kissing her cheekbones one after the other before kissing the tip of her nose.
“I love ye, Jeane,” he murmured.
“I love ye, too, Fergus,” she answered, and this time, wonder of wonders, she kissedhim, her small tongue tracing his lips.
He kissed her back, and then Aiden cleared his throat.
“Do ye think maybe we should get back to the castle?” he asked awkwardly, and Jeane started to giggle.
Jeane rode with Fergus, just like she had when he had first found her, and this time he kept an arm tight around her waist as he rode. She leaned back against him, comfortable where before it had been awkward, and she felt like she would come full circle.
This forest she had escaped to had led her to another world, one in which Fergus and Lottie existed, where she had friends, a lover, a family.
