Page 70 of Knocked up By the Minotaur

“I love you,” I whisper, and he smiles and kisses my forehead.

“Then marry me. Right now.”

“Okay…”

I lean into his chest, and Lucas laughs and squishes himself between our knees. As Oli’s arms settle around me, I feel a warmth build in my chest—and build, and build, until suddenly I gasp and stand straight again, both hands fisted in his jacket as I look around me.

The air has changed color, glowing warm and golden in a circle around us.

“Oli,” I breath. “Oli, what…?”

He bends to pick up Lucas again, before threading his fingers into my hair and pressing his forehead against mine. “It’s alright, love. Everything’s going to be okay.”

The glow around us suddenly whirls to a head and shoots into the sky in a dazzling beam of light, spreading wide like a fountain before swirling down again in ribbons to dive into every tree around us, making the whole world a blinding, beautiful gold.

“Oh my god…”

Lucas laughs and reaches out, trying to touch the light, and the trees pulse with energy around us. Then the light shoots down into their roots, and for a moment I feel intimately connected with the earth, watching as the entire, massive network of roots underground lights up, showing the interconnected system underneath the entire town. They pulse for a few more moments, and then gently fade.

I turn tear-filled eyes back up to Oli, who smiles softly back at me.

“I don’t understand,” I choke, as he gently runs his thumb over my cheek. “Isn’t this what happened at Ella’s wedding? Isn’t this only for Fated… For Fated Mates…” My brain finally starts working again as the thought clicks into place, and I snatch my arm out to grab his hand, spinning his wrist towards me as I push back his jacket.

He said his father had a Fated Mark, he said minotaurs got a mark on their wrist when they…

There, right where I had once thought I’d scratched the fur off his skin, is a perfect circle filled with what looks like a delicate, beautiful maze. Or a labyrinth, I suppose, given that he’s a minotaur.

“I’ve loved you right from the start,” he tells me quietly. “Right from the moment you first threw yourself into my arms and gave me a taste of what true joy could be. Only I was too blind to see it.”

“Olistaire,” I whisper, and I don’t even try to hold back my tears anymore. I let them stream down my face. The weight I’d been carrying all these years, the fear of being hurt again, all of it disappears as I look into his eyes. “Stop being so sweet, you’re going to kill me.”

He snorts. “I hope not. Not now that I finally have you.”

“Does this mean I’mgonna get a good daddy, like the little boys in the stories on TV?”

My heart twists with a pang in my chest as I look at my boy, and guilt once again washes over me, as if Brad’s shitty behavior was somehow my fault. But when I see the way Lucas is looking up at Oli, and the way Oli is looking back at him, I close my mouth and decide not to say a word.

“I hope so, little lamb,” Oli says, and I don’t miss how hoarse his voice has suddenly gotten. “I’m going to do my best.”

“I already told you, silly!” Lucas snuggles into Oli’s chest, resting his head on his shoulder. “You’re waymore better than Brad.”

Oli looks dumbstruck as he stares at Lucas’s blonde head, and I smile, hooking my arm into his elbow and beginning us on our slow walk through the fall leaves again.

“He’s right, you know,” I murmur. “Look at the way he acts around you, my boy loves you.”

“Yeah!” Lucas chimes in happily.

“You’ve been a better father to him than anyone else already, without even trying. You have it in you, Oli. You just have to trust yourself.”

Oli swallows thickly and doesn’t seem to know what to say.

He just looks at me with a confused, hopeful expression. When he stops walking and leans down to kiss me, Lucas cradled in his arms between us, it’s like I can feel every hurt in his heart bleed away. His lips are soft against mine, his kiss gentle and sure and calmly fierce, somehow, just like the man himself. I pour all my heart and all my love back into him and hope it’s enough to fill the both of us.

“Alright, so where are we meeting Ismelda?” I ask, as we start walking again. “I think I’m ready for my happily ever after, now.”

Epilogue

Olistaire

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