Page 86 of Scourge of the Shores
“What—” The question barely made it past her lips. “What are ye doin’?” she asked, unsure whether to be mad with rage or sick with joy.
“Captain Lucas Ervin told me the man who wedded you would be worthy, and he would come from the seas,” Robert said. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled a vial of emerald green iridescent liquid. It glimmered in the sunlight. “I’m grieved it took three years to find it.”
Danna’s jaw fell ajar. “Is—is that?” Her heart lifted and swelled, almost bursting in her chest.
“An enchantment to regrow limbs,” he said.
Danna stepped off the rock barrier with a trembling foot and stumbled toward him with water splashing around her ankles as Robert stood up. Tears filled her eyes. “Ye . . . did. . .” Each word fell on her exhale, but the sentence was never completed.
He placed it in her open hand and wrapped her fingers around it. “Take it to her, Danna,” he whispered. His gaze fell to her lips. “And then,”—his eyes met hers—“if I still have your heart, will you come with me?”
She stared at the vial in her hand, at the man before her, at the life she had let slip through her fingers. The walls she had built to keep hope out—the ones that had stood firm against every passing ship, every stray memory of his touch—began to crumble like sand in the tide. She had cursed his name in the dead of night and whispered it with hope at dawn.
Her throat tightened, and she shook her head in disbelief.
The joy in his eyes faded at her headshake.
“How . . . All this . . ." She tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. Her bottom lip quivered, and her knees wobbled.
She squeezed the vial, pressed it against her heart, and let out a shaky breath, a smile blooming on her lips, reigniting the joy in his eyes.
Her heart drummed victory within her chest.
“Aye,” she whispered, the word breaking something loose inside her.
The corners of Robert’s mouth turned up, and his pearly teeth shone in the bright morning sun. He stepped closer.
“Aye,” she said louder.
He laughed—a sound rich and unrestrained that told of relief finally letting loose.
Before Danna could react, he swept her into his arms, lifting her feet off the ground as if she weighed nothing. She gasped, the air catching in her throat, but her fingers instinctively gripped his shoulders, anchoring herself to the man she thought she might never see again.
The world tilted. Whoops and hollers ignited.
He spun her around, the breeze wrapping them together, the distant hum of waves echoing the pounding in her chest. The years apart dissolved in the spin of that moment, years of waiting collapsing into the present.
When he finally stopped, they stood breathless.
The cheers faded into nothing. The island, the people, the distant ships—all blurred.
Only him.
Only her.
His hand slid from her waist to cradle her cheek, his thumb brushing the place where her tears had once fallen.
Their foreheads touched, and they just breathed together—the same air, the same rhythm.
“I’d forgotten,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
“Forgotten what?” he rasped, his breath shaky.
“This,” she said, curling her fingers into his coat. “How it felt to want ye this much.”
His lips parted. His eyes searched hers, asking for permission, asking if he could dare.
She rose on her toes in reply.
