She squealed and threw her arms around me.
“Thank you!”
“In the meantime, we should look for a new flat in London. Yers isn’t exactly Werewolf sized.”
She pulled back, eyes wide.
“But I thought…I mean, Scotland is so important to you.”
I cupped her cheek with my hand, the fingers curling far onto the nape of her neck.
“Lass, Scotland is my home, but you are my heart. I can always come back home, but I will not live without my heart. And I won’t ask ya to give up a career you love and all the things that could come out of it for ya. I just ask that ya let me be with ya, wherever ya may go.”
“Fraser…” fresh tears slid down her cheeks and she shook her head. “You’re…I don’t…”
“Ya do and I am.”
She laughed and wiped her cheeks.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Aye, but I could guess.”
A sharp knock on the door dragged us out of the conversation.
“Och, ya two! Enough with the fuckin’, I can smell it all over the house!” Lowell shouted.
“Then go outside!” Daphne shouted back.
I let out a long, low laugh and gave her cheek a lick.
“Oh boy,” Lowell said through the door, “I hope yer up for this one, Fraser. She’s gonna be a handful.”
I looked into her eyes and inhaled deep of her scent of moonlight and heather. Warmth spread through my chest, lightness in my limbs.
“Aye,” I whispered, “she is, and I am.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Daphne-One month later
Thedaywasalreadysweltering, but I barely noticed it. This was the day I’d dreamed of for the past month, the day that Fraser had promised me in that room when I’d feared that I had lost him. This was a promise to one another in front of our friends and family.
“Ready?” Liam asked me with a grin.
“Yes,” I breathed.
He offered me his arm and I slipped my hand onto it just before the doors opened that led out to the gardens of the MacDonald’s Dublin estate. It was four weeks ago that Fraser had told me I was his true mate. Four weeks since I’d completed my first artifact recovery mission. And in all that time, Fraser and I had hardly been separated.
He’d traveled with me to London to secure the Apple and debrief with Director Dearborne, who had been relieved to hear that I wasn’t leaving the Archive. My department had received a shiny new security system, as well as a floor to ceiling magical sprucing that made it feel far less dingy. I’d even gotten an actual office that could accommodate my ever growing book collection.
Fraser and I had just put a down payment on a much larger flat in London that included a lift, and he’d already begun to work with a decorator to make it feel like home for both of us while I put in long hours at the Archive.
But perhaps most surprising of all was that Liam had decided to join the Archive as a field agent in training. The director assured him that, even with his limited mobility, he would be a valued member of the team. Angus wasn’t happy to hear about it, of course, and he still didn’t quite trust me, despite the fact that I’d saved his clan and was marrying his brother. But I would wear him down, I was sure of it.
Now, here I was, walking down a flower strewn path toward an enormous trellis overflowing with the most beautiful array of summer roses I’d ever seen. Gran’s wedding crown had been outfitted with more fresh flowers and was perched on my head, the veil trailing behind me. I wore a white sundress with eyelet lace that skimmed the tops of my bare feet. Simple and perfect for the summer heat.
As I looked to either side, there was a small twinge of disappointment when I saw that my family had indeed refused to attend. They hadn’t seemed all that shocked to discover supernaturals were real in this world. Their problem was that I was marrying one and refusing their generous offer of an internship with a university in the states.