“Make me forgive you,” she challenged him.

“Ah. So now I am to work for your forgiveness?”

“Mmhmm,” she said, a twinkle in her eye.

He smiled for her and kissed the side of her neck. “I wonder how I will ever manage to do that,” he said, his teeth catching her dainty little earlobe and giving it a tug.

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she said invitingly.

“I’m sure I will,” he said right before swooping in and catching her up in a searing kiss.

He made love to her. It wasn’t the blistering, rampant passion they had so often shared with each other. It was gentle and soft and needy, and he realized how starved he was for someone to love him. It had been like that from the beginning. It had been what had allowed her to sweep into his arms and turn his world upside down. He had taken her against all his better judgment, and was now grateful that he had. He would never have earned a place of true acceptance in this house without her.

He would never have known what love truly was without her. She had loved him unconditionally from the very beginning. She had a heart the size of a continent and as he made love to her he told her he was lucky to have found a place in it.

He touched every inch of her skin, treasuring every soft caress. Then, once he had stirred her with his touch, his mouth followed. He sucked on every finger and every toe. He nipped at her behind her knees, inside her elbows, at the small of her back. He was determined that by the time they were through she would feel that every inch of herself had been thoroughly loved.

And she did.

But she was not satisfied simply lying there being catered to. She wanted to make certain he knew he was loved as well so she matched him kiss for kiss, touch for touch. He chuckled at her determination to mirror him. Oh, how she made him laugh. Made him feel light. Took a world of burdens from his shoulders so damn easily. He would never forget the things he had done wrong, always reminding himself never to take that path again, but it would be easy to remember as long as she was with him.

When they came together it brought the heat back into their coupling. There would always be this burning heat, he realized. There was no changing that, no straying from it. He would always make love to her as if it were the very last time, because he never knew when the last time might be. But now that there was less threat hanging over them, he hoped they were safe from the threat of being separated. She was as long-lived as he was, so they had many years ahead of them…together. And the idea of moving through this world with her made it so much easier to bear. There had been a time when he had despised his every day, hated the torment of living life over and over with no end in sight. But now he found he feared losing this life before he was ready. He could not leave her. For selfish reasons and for unselfish ones. He would not leave her to navigate the world unprotected. He would not leave her so soon after finding her.

And in a hundred years, it would still be too soon.

“Are we children, to feel so much love in so little time? Isn’t it the young who are reckless in such ways?” he asked her when they were cuddled up close afterward, the sweat from their rigorous lovemaking cooling on their bodies.

“Don’t do that. Don’t give it less value just because we know so easily.”

“No. Never. I will never give this less value again. I swear to you.”

“Good,” she said, turning her head to kiss him. “I love you. I will love you a hundred years from now. It won’t always be the same love; it will grow and mature and become something deep and steady, but I will still love you.”

“Deep and steady?” He hummed. “I hope that doesn’t mean you think we will not want to make love as often, because I do not want a deep and steady love if that is the case.”

She laughed at him and he chuckled.

“Don’t worry, we have no fears of that. I have not had sex for over fifty years. I have a lot of making up to do for the next fifty…and then some. And one day…maybe we will speak of having children. Not now,” she said quickly when she saw the expression on his face. “I’m not ready either. But one day I would like to have a child. A pretty, perfect, half-breed child.”

“I think…I think I would like that. One day. To see a baby with its mother’s fair skin and maybe its father’s strong countenance.”

“It may look more Wraith than I do,” she thought with a moment of worry. Then she put that worry aside. “Regardless, I will love it. I will not do as my mother did. My child will be raised with love. And a father. A whole and loving family.”

“I wonder that your mother did not abort you,” he said gingerly. “If you were such a disgrace to her. She had to know what her life would be like.”

“Wraiths cannot have abortions. It kills the mother to kill the child.”

“Ah. That makes more sense now. She was preserving her own life, rather than yours. Our child will never be an accident. We will plan very carefully when to bring it into the world. But it is a more peaceful world right now. More peaceful than I’ve known in a long time. I would not be afraid to bring a child into this world. But if there is one thing I have learned in my many generations, it’s that peace never lasts. As long as there are people on this earth, peace will never last. Someone somewhere will take offense to someone somewhere else and then peace will be destroyed.”

“Such a cynical view of the world. I am going to have to rid you of that problem.”

He smiled at her. “Please do,” he invited her.

She kissed him again and began to do just that.

Epilogue

Bella looked down at the page in front of her and finished her inscription with a flourish.

“What are you up to?” her husband asked as he set their son down on the floor, letting him run wild.

“I am writing a prophecy,” she said proudly.

“A prophecy?”

“Well, I am a prognosticator. Why shouldn’t I write a prophecy of my own? My power allows me to see into the future. Maybe what I am compelled to write is something that will come true.”

“I’m not sure it works like that,” he said with a chuckle.

“Says who? Where do all these prophecies come from anyway? I say it’s people like me who write them.”

“All right then. What is your prophecy?” he asked, reaching for the piece of paper. She snatched it back from him.