Page 85 of The Howling
“You’ve been out for three days,” Wynter says, her face wet with tears. “I didn’t know if I’d done the right thing or not. I was so worried.”
I press my lips to hers. It’s all I can think of doing. It’s probably all I’m capable of doing in this instant and it’s what I want to do.
She tastes like the whole world. The fields and moors, the forests and fells. Wynter is my everything.
When I release her, the Bluecap and the Hedley Kow have beaten a retreat, and we are entirely alone.
I always want to be alone with her.
I inhale deeply, dragging her scent deep into my lungs. It is the very elixir of life.
“Soulis!” I exclaim.
“He won’t bother us,” Wynter says, and she holds up the sparkling jewel before lifting the chain it hangs on over her head and handing it to me.
I’m not entirely sure, but in the palm of my hand, it appears to lose some of its sparkle.
“What happened?”
“The Reaper happened.” She says, stroking my face and it feels so good. “And the magic your mother gifted me. It made Soulis’s magic rebound on him, then it brought us home.”
“My home.”
“And mine,” Wynter says.
I gaze at her. “You mean it? You don’t want to go back beyond the veil?”
“I never did. There was nothing there for me. Now everything is here.”
“But my curse…” I rasp. “I drew you in. You do not have to stay for me.”
“Your curse is broken, Reavely. You’re the only reason I want to stay,” she says, her eyes dipping away from mine and her hand resting on her stomach. “You and one or two other little things.”
I follow where she’s looking, but for a second or two the fog in my head makes it difficult to work out what she means.
“You are…in pup?” I ask, my voice rising as I stare at her hand.
“I was able to get the apothecary to confirm it. Pregnancy tests in the Yeavering are weird.”
“The apothecary? Not the healer.”
Wynter shakes her head. “Not the healer. He was working for Lord Soulis. He’s gone now.”
I tentatively slide my hand over hers. While there’s nothing to feel, not yet, I let my imagination run riot as to what it will be like, soon.
“And as for the curse, we broke it when we defeated Lord Soulis,” Wynter says.
“Not by marriage?” My brow creases and it’s a little painful.
“I don’t know how curses work, but your pack is back, and that’s all that matters.”
“The Reaper,” I murmur, thinking about how the room was dark and now is light. “He was the last one I expected to help me.”
“Perhaps he was helping all along.” Wynter smiles at me, and I snatch a kiss from her lips once again, my heart filling with joy. The snatched conversations of the past few days return to me. The deep-seated knowledge my pack is back in the castle, where they belong, save for my mother.
I lost her once before and as much as I mourn her, I know she wanted me and Wynter to be together and the fact we are is the best way of honouring her memory.
“Tell him about the Faerie!” a voice, one which has to be Linton’s, shouts from outside the door.
