Page 71 of She is the Darke

That’s what Stacia was. Home.

He canted his head and watched the pretty girl in her white nightgown with her arms out, spinning in slow circles. She wasn’t Iris, but his heart and his wolf loved her just the same.

All his life, he’d wondered why. Why had it all happened? What could he have done to change it?

The answer was that there was no answer.

He’d just had to live longer to get to Stacia. She turned and grinned at him. Pretty girl. She’d adjusted so well to the wolf inside of her over the past couple of months. She didn’t know it yet, but he had a ring in his back pocket, because she’d said she’d always been ready, and so had he. She deserved to know exactly how important she was to him. She deserved to know she was his queen. He was going to ask her after the pack meeting tonight, after they all Changed into their wolves and ran together.Everyone knew but her. He wanted his people there. They were her people now too, and she didn’t realize it yet, but she had the loyalty of the oldest and most powerful pack in the world.

She’d fit in so well here, taking her place right beside him, and brought a lightness his people had been missing all these years. They smiled now. Laughed more. Lived life like they all had expiration dates, and there was beauty in that. Their time was limited now, so they had to appreciate each moment, each up and down, each triumph.

He looked down at his arm for the hundredth time today. He had a scratch. A small, straight line from a loose nail that had been on one of his barns. When the blood had welled up, he had fallen to his knees. He hadn’t bled since the curse had been placed on him. It had turned his skin to stone. This scratch meant everything.

Stacia had hugged him from behind as he’d broken down from the relief. He had one lifetime with the woman he loved, and they were going to make the best of this. This is the life he’d dreamed of.

He was mortal.

Stacia had really done it.

She’d been strong enough to give him back the life he’d lost.

He held an arm out, and she padded across the grass with her bare feet. She fit perfectly against his ribs as he looked up at the full moon above.

“Thank you,” she murmured, but he was confused.

He should be thanking her.

For freeing him.

For loving him.

For staying with him.

For being a light in a dark life that had felt hopeless some days.

“For what?” he asked.

Stacia shrugged, and her gorgeous smile turned soft. “For letting me in.”

Her eyes were beautiful—hazel and ice blue. Sometimes he had a hard time looking anywhere but her.

Callum leaned down just to taste her lips. He kissed her until she melted against him, and then he pulled the ring from his pocket because the plan wouldn’t work anymore. This right here was the moment.

He slipped the ring onto her finger, and then eased out of the kiss. Stunned, she looked down at her graceful fingers, now adorned with a diamond. “Callum,” she whispered, and then hugged him tightly. She was crying, he could tell, but that was okay. Even with that gorgeous dark gray wolf inside of her, she had kept her softness. Kept her humor. Kept her humanity.

Stacia had broken the Ashbrock Curse, and in the process, she’d kept all the parts of herself he loved.

Softly, he whispered, “Thank you for being mine.”

*BONUS BOOK*

KING OF THE ASHEVILLE COVEN

(Winterset Coven, Book 1)

By T. S. JOYCE

King of the Asheville Coven

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