“We do,” she said, as if it was a revelation, and Turner grinned ruefully.
“Honey, you are never just gonna be the things you do for other people, all right? And hell, even if they were expecting the cookies and you couldn’t deliver? Even if you promised them up one side and down the other that they’d have them? I want you to imagine what those people, who you love and respect, would say when you told themI couldn’t finish the cookies because I was assisting in the first unicorn birth in the United States in this century.”
Ilona stared at Turner, and his face gentled to something achingly sweet.
“You’re loved, and if there’s forgiveness you need, it’ll be there. But darling, you’ve done nothing wrong, and I will tell you so every day of our lives together if you—”
She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand to let another moment go by without kissing him. She needed to kiss him again. she needed to put her arms around him and feel him do the same for her. She needed all of him, and she was beginning to see, finally, that here and every day ahead, she could have him.
The kiss started out sweet, and then it was like they had struck a spark on a dry bale of hay. It took her breath away how hot it was, and then Turner simply lifted her up to sit on the edge of the sink, coming to stand between her legs as he pressed ever closer.
“You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he murmured, his face pressed to the crook of her throat. “You’re all I need, I love you. I love you. I love you.”
The words were a sweet pain lodged directly in her chest, but Ilona realized that she knew this pain. It was coming out of the dark into the light, it was the first bite of food after having been hungry for years. It was love, it had always been love, and this love had been waiting for Turner all along. She pulled back so she could see his face, so handsome with the wolf lurking behind his eyes.
“I love you,” she said, and she knew that she meant that to include every part of him, just like she knew he meant it to include every part of her.
They were going to love each other so well, and she brought him close again, because she could not for the life of her imagine how they had ever been so far apart.
Epilogue
∞∞∞
Exactly one year and one day later, Northern Wisconsin
“This is silly,” Ilona said as they made their way through the woods. The thin winter sunlight struck the snow and turned it into diamonds, and Turner, walking ahead, threw her a grin over his shoulder.
“You feeling sorry for all the work you put into the cake?”
“I’m not,” she retorted. “No matter which way this one goes, I win. Either you end up eating an oat and salami cake, or—”
“Ilona. Look there.”
Holding her breath, Ilona turned slowly and smoothly to look up to the top of the ridge. At first she wasn’t sure she saw anything, and then there was movement, two pale shapes sliding between the trees, making their way down to meet them.
“Oh,” she whispered in awe.
It was Maisey, and lingering behind her, still babyish with the fuzzy patches on his coat and his absurdly slim legs, was her son. They weren’t tame animals like cats or dogs, butIlona would always believe that they cared for the humans in their lives, the ones who loved them so fiercely. It was either that or they could smell her oat and salami cake, and she was fine with either.
Maisey, as the matriarch of this very small herd, pushed officiously to the front, demanding pets from Ilona, then Turner, and then Ilona again. Her son, whom the cryptid conservationist community had started calling Petey for some reason, lingered in the back, making small, hopeful bleating noises when Maisey struck her nose into the paper box that Ilona had so carefully tied that morning. The moment the unicorn realized what was in it, the box was yanked straight out of Turner’s hands and thrown on the ground where she could strip aside the paper to reach the food inside.
“That’s for you to share,” Turner said with amusement as he moved back to give her space.
“Go on and try to convince her of that,” Ilona retorted, coming to lean against his side. Together, they watched the two unicorns eat the treat she had put together for them. It was a bit like a mini-casserole with layers of things she knew they would adore, and she had promised the Canadian researchers the recipe if it went over well. She had a part-time job at the bakery in Clearwater, but she seemed to be spending more and more time devising interesting treats for the various cryptids her shifter friends were watching over.
“They both look so healthy,” she whispered. “I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since Petey was born.”
“I can,” Turner said dryly, draping his arm over her shoulders. “I sure didn’t hallucinate all that work we had to do to get these two established in the United States.”
It had taken them most of the year working out of the house in Clearwater to make this happen. It took close surveys of land and foliage to find something that would both suit the unicorns’ needs and was isolated enough that random humans wouldn’t see them and start up a craze for unicorn hunting. There was land to buy. There were experts to consult. Even now, Turner was talking with the bear shifter who oversaw the herd in Scotland, looking to see if one of the males might be introduced to Maisey in the US to give her a genetically unrelated partner.
“How’s it going with McCulloch?” Ilona asked snuggling under Turner’s arm. “Think you’ll have this put to bed by February?”
“Actually I do think it’s going well. There’s some genetic testing she wants done, which will be difficult but doable. After that, we can fly out and meet some males for Maisey. Depending on how McCulloch feels, we might have to make do with artificial insemination, but there’s a chance, a pretty good one I’d say, that Maisey might get a boy to keep.
“That’s good,” Ilona mused. “Petey’s still so small, and I wonder if she’s lonely. I hope she finds a mate she can keep. Everyone should have one.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Turner said, and she started to ask what he meant when he suddenly dropped to one knee. It was a fast, fluid motion, so startling that Maisey andPetey looked up from their meal to see what the silly humans were doing.
