Page 54 of Just Crumbs

I’ve never thought about immortality. I’ve always known I was going to die. Mages like Hans tend to live an extra twenty or twenty-five years, but I’m a human. I expected to die well before him.

Neither of us expected to fall in love with an immortal being, that’s for sure.

The idea of leaving her behind to mourn us makes my chest ache. I can’t do that to her.

“Okay,” I say gently, taking her face in my hand. “We’ll live here. But we will still visit the village and be with the people when possible.”

Her face lights up, and she smacks my lips with a kiss. “You mean it?”

Hans comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Do you think we’d leave you? You’re everything to us, Briar.”

Tears rim her beautiful red eyes. “I love you both so much,” she whispers. “What was once my prison has become my favorite place in the world.”

Chapter27

Die With A Smile

BRIAR - ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER

“You look beautiful, Miss Briar,”Flint says, nuzzling his nose against my leg.

“You don’t need to call me Miss, Flint. It’s been an entire century.”

He chuffs, but I know he won’t stop. We have this conversation almost daily.

I spin away from the mirror, watching my black lace dress fall around me in waves. My lavender hair is pinned up in curls, and I’ve rubbed a little rouge on my cheeks and lips and lined my eyes in kohl.

He’s not wrong. I do look beautiful.

Gerrit pokes his head in. “Holy shit, Briar.” His voice is breathy. “You look so beautiful. So fucking beautiful.”

My face heats, and I throw myself into the arms of my big man. He’s dressed up in an ivory shirt of rich silk and a pair of black trousers. “So do you! I could eat you up.”

He exposes his neck to me where the small bites from this morning’s feeding haven’t faded yet. “I think it’s a little late for that.”

I follow him out of the bedroom and into the courtyard around our home.

Over the past few decades, the woods have been trimmed down, and the town of Greenbell has expanded closer and closer to our little haven. We have never kept secrets about who we are or what I am, but now that the town is more aware, we have visitors often.

They don’t know our whole story, nor that Gerrit and Hans have conditional immortality that comes at the cost of living in the fairy circle. We fear that if they did we’d end up with a lot of squatters.

Of course, there have been situations where some have called us and our lifestyle unnatural and tried to eradicate us, but we have squashed that swiftly.

Today, there is a wedding. Two of the townspeople are swearing themselves to one another and have asked to have it done magically.

A magical binding is not something to enter into lightly, and I require that the lovers undergo a lot of questioning and examinations to ensure it’s the right thing to do.

But these two?

Oh, they deserve to be together through life and death.

The men stand beneath a flowering tree, hands clasped together. They don’t look away from each other as I walk up, which is how it should be.

They only have eyes for one another.

Hans stands beside the tree in olive trousers and a rich brown shirt. When he sees me, his face breaks into a massive grin. He peels himself from the bark and wraps me in a hug before giving me a soft, sweet kiss on the lips.

“You look incredible,” he whispers. “I can’t wait to see what is under that dress.”

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