Page 128 of Heartsong
“In case—”
“No,” she said. “It’ll work.”
She knew when the sun fully rose by Frey’s shudder. For one horrible moment, he went stiff, and she almost yelped in despair. Then he went slack in her arms, buckling. He caught himself with a hand on the door, and Anna hurried around to get her shoulder under his arm.
He looked out onto the courtyard garden with wonder.
Anna’s face dripped happy tears before she even knew she cried.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” she whispered.
Frey pulled his gaze away to look at her, the sweetest, most heart-wrenching smile breaking across his face. His eyes widened, the gray gone almost blue in the sunlight, and he touched her face with a trembling hand.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “Fy enaid hoff cytûn prydferth.”
Frey’s soul filled with sunshine as he beheld his Anna for the first time in daylight.Goddesses, she is beautiful.Strands of gold and red flickered in her hair, and freckles he’d never noticed before dotted her nose and cheeks.
He knew his Anna, had touched and tasted and explored every bit of her, and yet there was a whole new part now to discover—Anna in the sunlight. The artificial lights of her dwelling, although bright, didn’t do her justice. His heart ached to see just what a vision she made, tears spilling down her beautiful smiling face.
He held her close, not quite believing yet that the sun warmed his skin. Any moment now, the stone sleep would creep across his body, stealing him away from his heartsong. And yet…and yet…
Anna reached for the door and slid the glass aside. “C’mon,” she said, pulling him out into the morning.
The day shocked his senses. His eyes stung with how bright the sky glowed, and the chitter of birds and distant sounds of other houses of humans waking filled his ears. The grass beneath his feet was cool and dewy, the air perfumed with late-season blooms, lemon trees, and a salty tang from the nearby sea.
Tears slid down his own face, and for a long while, he stood there with his mate quietly, taking in the day. The garden grew busy with the activities of birds, butterflies, and bees, all flitting from the trees to the flowers. The air grew a little warmer as the sun climbed higher in the azure sky, and a breeze carried scents across the garden.
Heart so full it overran, Frey pulled his Anna close. He dropped his nose into her hair; she somehow smelled even warmer, even sweeter in the day, the sun bringing everything about her to vivid life.
Holding his whole world in his arms, hefeltthe bond. Oh, he’d always had the knowing, the surety that Anna was for him and he for her—but this was different. The same color but a different tone, perhaps. Lodged between his ribs, he felt exactly where he was bound to her. She filled up all the empty places inside him, claimed all that he was and would be, the good, the vulnerable, the ugly.
He may not have been able to wield magick like a fae or druid, but he sensed how his very soul reached out and tied itself to Anna’s. Whatever the incantation did, however it coaxed the magick that gave him life from the Underhill and moored it to Anna, it worked.
I’m free.
The thought shocked him, and it came with an aftertaste of grief. He wouldn’t rejoin his kin in the stone sleep, in the safe collective they kept for comfort. His mind was now separate from theirs, and he’d no longer feel their companionship.
It wouldn’t be forever, he vowed. He would see to that.
He was blessed with his Anna, and he’d work to ensure his kin had that chance. They all deserved their freedom.
“How does it feel?” Anna asked, smiling up at him.
Jubilance surged through him, rousing his limbs from their stupor. He caught her up in his arms, spinning as he laughed and whooped. Anna laughed and yelped right back, throwing her arms around his neck as he jumped and howled and bounded through the garden.
With a running leap, he pumped his wings and threw them into the sky. He remained within the cover of the house and garden, but his soul roared with pleasure to feel the wind in his wings and have his arms full of his heartsong.
For a moment, it was just him and Anna, the wind catching their hair and sun warming their faces. Her smile was wide and just for him, and Frey couldn’t help murmuring, “Fy heulwen.”
The sun in his sky, the warmth in his blood. She was his life, his sunshine, his heartsong.
“My Anna,” he said, and he claimed her lips in a kiss, letting them float breezily to the ground. “It feels like home.”
Epilogue
Four Months Later
Anna popped her siren-red lips in front of the mirror and gave herself a once over.
