Page 79 of Wine & Warlocks

“Are you done here, then?” a cheerful female voice asked.

His heart skipped a beat, and he looked down at the dog in shock.

An amused chuckle sounded from behind him. “Tell me you don’t think a puppy is having a conversation with you.”

Fearing he’d lost his mind completely, Ronan shifted his weight to his hip, falling back on his arse when he registered what his brain refused to comprehend and what his heart daren’t hope.

Dubheasa.

Perched on a waist-high headstone, ankles crossed and swinging front to back, she rested her weight on her hands as she leaned slightly forward. Her soft smile held amusement, but the glow in her brilliant green eyes was pure love.

“Have I died and joined you in the Otherworld?” he asked, scarcely able to believe anything else.

She frowned and easily launched herself off her stone seat. “Not that I’m aware of.” Dropping to her knees in front of him, she caressed his face. Her sharp gaze missed nothing as it skimmed his ravaged visage. With a tug, she pulled a chain from beneath her jumper and showed him a ruby pendant. “Apparently I had a charm that allowed me to see all portals to Earth, and no one thought to seal the one Loman used to return, time and time again.” She grinned. “Or maybe the Goddess feared your fierce temper would eventually get the best of you if you didn’t have a mate to keep you in check, and she let me go.”

“You’re really here?”

Her mouth curled up as she brushed a lock of his hair back. “I’m really here.” Her kiss was fast and firm, unsatisfying in its quickness. “Didn’t Sabrina tell you I’d return as soon as you were done?”

Dropping his head back against Dubheasa’s tombstone, he gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “I thought she was talking about my time here on Earth.” After setting a sleepy Buttercup on the grass beside him, Ronan reached for Dubheasa, drawing her down into his lap. “Ya’d think I would know better than to assume when it comes to the wee wild beastie’s predictions.”

“The child tends to be literal.”

“That, she does.”

Ronan cradled Dubheasa’s head in his palms as he drank in her lovely face. “What took you so long, love? I almost made terrible choices in the meantime.”

Her smile was luminescent. “I had faith you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t be Ronan Fucking O’Connor, the man I fecking adore, if you had.”

Wrapping his arms around her, he crushed her to his chest. “I’m still not certain you’re not a figment of my tormented mind, but I’ll never let you go, either way.”

“And I never want to be let go.” She wound her arms around his middle and rested her ear over his heart, and Ronan was positive she could hear the rapid, unsteady rhythm. “All I could think about as I faced down Loman was that I’d missed my chance to tell you how much you truly meant to me. I worried you’d never know the true extent of my feelings.”

“I knew,” he said gruffly.

“I had a lot of time to reflect in the holding room of the Otherworld, and I realized I loved you from that first sip of wine,” she confessed with a soft laugh. “Looking back, it was why I felt so disappointed when you disappeared the next day.”

“And the betrayal was made worse when you were sacked by Nick Lamda, no doubt.” Ronan’s guilt reared its miserable head.

“Yeah. I felt like a woman scorned. I wanted your bollocks mounted and hung on my wall.” She drew back and met his regretful gaze. “But it brought us to this moment, Ronan. Loman is dead, for good this time. The surviving victims are back with their families. And I’m here with you, where I was always meant to be.”

But one of the victims who didn’t make it through Loman’s house of horrors was Dubheasa’s father, and Ronan’s heart ached that she’d never get that relationship back.

“I’m sorry about your da, Dove,” he said gently.

One side of her mouth curled upward in a sad half smile. “It wasn’t your fault. You understand that, right?”

“I wish I’d had the courage to end Loman twenty years ago, before he concocted his plan.”

“If my father had never tried to go after yours alone, he’d have never walked into Loman’s trap. That’s not on you.”

“Did you see him in the Otherworld?” Ronan hoped she’d had a small measure of closure.

“I did, and he was better than I remembered. Happier, somehow.”

A tear escaped down her cheek, and he tenderly brushed it away with his thumb. His guilt was eating a hole in his stomach, and the discomfort was great. “I’m glad you got to talk to him. His last actions were to save you. But his death was my fault, Dove.”

Frowning, Dubheasa shifted and straddled his lap to look him more fully in the face. “I don’t see how it could’ve been.”

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