Page 41 of A Hunter Cursed
Pressed together, limbs entangled in the aftermath, Keegan asked curiously, “So, do mates marry, or do they just like declare themselves to each other and that’s the end of it?”
Jeremiah, who had been toying with her hair while staring up at the ceiling, turned his head to look down at her with a pleased grin on his face. “Why, Miss Bishop, are you asking me to marry you?”
Propping herself up on her elbow, she returned that bright smile of his with one of her own. “And if I am?”
Unable to resist, Jeremiah kissed that smiling mouth. “I’d say hell yes!” And wasn’t that the truth. Before her, Jeremiah had been in a rut, repeating the same thing over and over again. Work, eat, sleep, with the occasional problem to solve that added a small bit of excitement for the five or so minutes it lasted. Keegan, beautiful, smart, powerful, and infinitely intriguing, had lit a fire within him. There were so many things he wanted to do with her, places he wanted to show her, new adventures to be had with her. She’d opened up a world of possibilities to him, had made life exciting again. Even something as simple as watching a movie on his couch had become so much more meaningful because she was beside him.
Bringing her fingers to his lips, he kissed each one of them. “Now, the question is,” he said, lifting his shoulders off the mattress and pulling her onto his lap as he sat up. “Will you say yes?” And then opening the drawer to his nightstand, he pulled out the little black velvet box he’d stashed there.
Keegan gasped. The hand that she raised to her lips was trembling slightly as tears welled in her eyes. “When did you do this?” she whispered in awe, looking from the ring box to him and then back again.
Opening it, so she could see what was inside, she gasped again at the sight of the glittering cushion cut solitaire set in rose gold. A tear leaked from her eye and Jeremiah caught it with his thumb.
“I got this a while ago actually,” he admitted, emotion making his voice gruff. Clearing his throat, he continued, “I knew almost immediately that you were my mate. The wolf knows these things. But I also knew that you needed time. Time to get to know me better, see how great we’d be together, time to realize that you weren’t cursed and that I wasn’t going to leave you.”
Keegan let out a little inarticulate sound as her hand come up to stroke over his jaw. Nuzzling into her palm, he kissed the sensitive skin of her wrist. “It may have been presumptuous, but when I saw this, I knew I needed to get it for you. I knew that someday when the time was right, I’d ask you to marry me with this, and maybe, if I was really lucky, you’d say yes.”
Letting out a little sniffle, she swiped at the tears that were now streaming from her eyes and nodded. “Yes,” she told him with a watery laugh. “I say yes.”
Pulling the ring from the box, he slid it onto her finger and then hugged her to him. “I love you, Keegan. More than anything.”
“I love you, too,” she said against his neck and then chuckled once more. “It looks like luck is finally smiling on both of us.”
Epilogue
Several weeks later, with the first signs of what passed for fall in Louisiana in the air, the Hunter training facility was open, and the recruits, thirty of them, were milling around waiting to be addressed by the faculty. Keegan and Jeremiah stood close together. They resisted holding hands as they didn’t want to seem unprofessional, but they were close enough where their arms or fingers would occasionally brush and each accidental – or not so accidental – touch brought a smile to Keegan’s lips.
Her life, a life she had once thought cursed, was now amazing. She and Jeremiah spent as much time as they could together, for now, rotating between her place in the Quarter and his cabin in the bayou. His pack was also amazing. They were so welcoming and she’d made so many new friends. Jamie, a vampire, and Hunter, who would also be instructing the recruits at the new facility, had confided good-naturedly that she was jealous of how quickly Keegan had been accepted into the fold.
“When Archer and I first got together,” the blond vampire had told Keegan with a comical wide-eyed expression. “There was practically an uprising. I half expected them to come at me with torches and pitchforks.”
Keegan had considered that for a moment before offering, “I think the truce made a big difference in everyone’s eyes.” Glancing to where Jeremiah was sitting, having a beer with his alpha, and laughing, she had felt a familiar warmth suffuse her blood. Without that truce, she would have never been brought on board for the training facility, and never would have met Jeremiah. “I, for one, am glad it happened.”
The vampire had snorted and rolled her eyes. “Don’t let Kane hear you say that,” she said, referring to the Born vampire that now ruled this territory and had been instrumental in uniting them all. “His head is already so big I’m amazed it hasn’t exploded.”
The memory of that conversation brought a smile to her face. Looking over the faces of the students she would soon be teaching, that smile faltered. These men and women were from all over the east coast, yet despite them all being pretty much strangers, they’d still segregated themselves into groups, refusing to, or perhaps just leery of, mingling. Kane Fletcher, Destin Jourdain, and Archer Langley, the three leaders, alphas – whatever they chose to call themselves – of the supernaturals here in Louisiana may have established a truce, but that obviously wasn’t the case in other territories.
Vampires, the largest group, congregated together, as did the seven witches that Keegan recognized from their file photos. The shifters, however, went even further, separating themselves by species. The wolves stayed together, well away from the vampires and the witches, but those five individuals also kept their distance from the two feline shifters Jeremiah had pointed out to her. One lone student, the bear shifter, kept to the back, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He looked gruff, surly, his expression practically screaming ‘back off’ and Keegan couldn’t help but wonder if that wasn’t simply a defense mechanism. Lord knows she had used just such a defense a time or two. Her heart immediately went out to him. It was tough being the odd one out and she would have dragged Jeremiah over with her to chat with the guy so he wouldn’t feel quite so alone, but Morgan called for everyone’s attention.
As the Born Hunter began explaining the training that these students were about to begin, the angel, Cam stepped up beside Keegan and offered her one of his lopsided grins.
Surprised to see him, she whispered, “I thought you left.”
Leaning to the side so he was closer to her ear, he kept his voice low as well as he told her with a shrug, “I like it here. Thought I’d stick around.”
A thought occurred to her that had her heart rate speeding up. “There weren’t more possessions were there? Other people…”
“None we’ve discovered so far.”
“But you’re staying just in case,” she stated with a thoughtful nod of her head.
His agreement was just a tiny dip of his chin before he added, “I’ve been offered a job here.” His expression was comically befuddled as he added, “I’ve never had a job that didn’t require decapitating an enemy so it should be interesting.”
Keegan stared at him wide-eyed, wondering if he was joking, but if he was, his face gave nothing away. He tilted his head slightly toward the recruits. “She’s introducing you.”
Jerking her head around, Keegan plastered a smile on her face and tried to pay attention as Morgan extended an arm to indicate to whom she was referring, and said, “Miss Bishop will be working with the witches on spells useful to a Hunter team as well as combat magic.”
Jeremiah’s fingers brushed hers, and she glanced up at him with a fond smile as Morgan continued her speech. “Over the next several weeks, you will be trained, you will be tested, you will be pushed to the edge of your endurance.” The vampire paused for effect, her eyes meeting those of several of the recruits. “Not all of you will make it, this life isn’t for everyone, but those who do,” she stated pointedly, “will be part of a team unshakeable in their loyalty to you and to each other. They will become your family and they willalwayshave your back.”
Unable to resist any longer, Keegan laced her fingers with Jeremiah’s and, looking up into his handsome face, mouthed the words, ‘I love you’. His eyes, warm with love and admiration, spoke his reply and he raised their joined hands to kiss her knuckles as Morgan ended her speech with, “Welcome to Hunter training.”
The End
