Of Wolves and Wardens by Sylvia Mercedes

I’m fairly certain I’m dead.

I must be. That spear pierced right through my heart, skewered me like a piece of meat. I passed through every level of agony imaginable, then on through a veil of light and darkness unlike anything I can describe. So, I must be dead. Right?

And this is . . . heaven?

I breathe in deep, inhaling that bouquet of pine and leather and honey that I always associate with Brielle. Brielle’s arms are around me too, and I can feel her heartbeat thudding in rhythm with mine. But that’s impossible. Because my heart was torn in two. I felt it tear.

I keep my eyes closed, my arms wrapped tightly around her thin, warm body. If this is heaven, I might as well enjoy it. No more curses. No more witches. No more hunts and blood and pain. Gods above, I’d be happy to simply lie here forever!

Eadmund.

I frown. Where did that thought come from?

Eadmund.

There it is again. A name. A strange name. A name I didn’t know I knew until this moment.

My name?

I search deeper into my mind, down under that thought. There’s another name as well, another name I’d thought lost forever—Omylia. The moment I think it, I see her face. That gentle smooth brow, those warm eyes, and that slow, shy smile which had once set my heart dancing.

Omylia. My first love.

I smile. The sorrow of her loss is still there. But it doesn’t hurt like it once did. She’s no longer lost so completely as she had been. I can see her now, not as the beast she became, but as the girl I once knew. And her name is sweet and pure and true. But . . .

She is no longer the one for whom my heart longs. Not now. Not in this time, this place. I may love her still. But it’s a love of memory.

The love of now is here. In my arms.

It’s in that moment that I realize I can’t be dead. In fact, I am unexpectedly very much alive.

I open my eyes and am met by the sight of snarled red hair. There’s a face snuggled up to my neck, tucked under my ear. “Brielle,” I breathe.

She tenses. Then suddenly, she pushes upright, tossing hair back from her eyes, and stares down at me. For a long, long moment, we simply look at each other.

Then, with a little “Oh!” she catches my face with both hands and kisses me. A short, quick little peck, but I’m not ready to leave it at that. I pull her back down for another, deeper kiss. It’s like a collision of hearts, an explosion of tremendous force that could shatter us both to our core. But in the wake of that shattering, we are made new. Whole.

She lifts her face at last, and I’m surprised to see tears spilling through her lashes. Funny . . . I’d never quite been able to imagine that fierce little face of hers with tears on her cheeks. I wipe them away gently with my thumb. She turns into the touch of my palm, and more tears fall on my hand, my face, my chest.

Then she looks down at me again. “I . . . I don’t know . . . What is your name?”

I smile up at her, my heart soaring like a bird up into the clear blue sky. “I’m Eadmund.”

She swallows hard, nods, and blinks out a last few stray tears. “Pleased to meet you, Eadmund,” she says.

Then she kisses me again.

Sadly, we can’t lie there forever. We’re eventually obliged to get up and try to figure out what in the world has happened. Elorata Dorrel’s garden, which was already in shambles, is now blasted beyond recognition. The few remaining trees are flattened, the dead and dying shrubs turned to ash. Even the outer wall has been decimated, as though from an explosion.

An explosion that seems to have come from . . . us.

We stand at the epicenter of dark, scorched earth. Yet we are entirely unharmed.

Of Granny, there is no sign whatsoever. She seems to have been burned up with the rest of this place, evaporated. I remember hearing a final scream, but I’m not sure if it’s a real memory or merely imagination.

“She’s gone,” Brielle says in answer to my unspoken question. She takes my hand and gives it a firm, confident squeeze. “Mother Ulla said Granny tied up too much of her power in your curse. She used her own heartsblood to make it, but when the curse was broken not in the way she intended, it broke her as well.”

I’m not sure I understand this completely. I’m not even sure I want to. All I care about is that the curse is done for. And Brielle is beside me.

I look down at her. It’s hard to see her in this light, for I no longer have my wolf senses to rely on, and the night is deepening fast. All that I can see for certain is that she’s . . . well, naked. As am I. Breaking Granny’s curse did not miraculously generate clothing for either of us.

I reach out and gently brush my fingertip across the scar I can just perceive on her pale chest. “Your blood,” I whisper. “The blood you shared with her . . .”

Brielle nods slowly. “Mingled with yours,” she answers softly.

Then she grips my hand and presses it harder against her beating heart. Her eyes seek mine, full of promise, full of need.

The distance between us closes easily. Our arms are meant to be around each other, our bodies, pressed together. Right there, right in the center of all that destruction. We have nothing anymore save each other. But that’s more than enough for now. For always.

We can’t very well go tromping through Whispering Wood unclothed as we are. When dawn arrives, we pick our way through the castle ruins, searching for anything that might serve as a covering. Brielle manages to scrounge up a ragged chemise and gown. I am less lucky. I find an old tablecloth and wrap it around my midsection. It’ll have to do.

“First, we’ll go back to Phaendar,” I say, offering Brielle my hand as we climb out from among the ruins again. “It’ll be a bit of a hike, but at least there we should be able to find proper clothing.”

“Let’s hope so!” Brielle mutters. She’s somehow unearthed her bow and arrows and wears them slung over her shoulder. Regardless of whatever else she’s wearing, she looks more complete with her weapons on hand. “And after that? What next?”

I smile and pull her toward me, dropping a quick kiss on her lips. “Well, if it’s all the same with you . . . as soon as we’re both decent, I think we ought to make our way back to Gilhorn and find ourselves a priest.”

“A priest?” Brow furrowed, she shoots me a quick look. “Why a priest?”

“Because, to my understanding, when a man feels about a woman the way I feel about you, they get married.”

She stares at me. Then her brow clears and her face breaks into a smile. “Married? After all that’s just happened, I’m not sure a few vows spoken in front of a priest will make us any more, um, bonded.”

“Perhaps not.” I shrug. “But I’m old fashioned like that.”

She tucks her body under my shoulder and wraps an arm around my waist. “You’re very sure of yourself, Eadmund Phaendar. So, tell me, once we’re married, what do you think will happen next?”

“I think,” I say, resting my cheek against the top of her head, “that’s when the real adventure begins.”