She was a little surprised to feel a harmless tug of envy—look at that, maybe she had a bio-clock, after all. Down girl, she told herself with a grin, tamping down on her link with Rabbit so he wouldn’t catch the direction where her thoughts were going and do a deer-in-headlights impression.
At the moment, he was over with Dez, Sven and Michael, stacking wood for the bonfire, their efforts overseen by two adult coyotes and their perpetual-motion puppy pack.
Even that tugged, making her laugh at herself. Really, it wasn’t like she wanted to do the home-and-baby thing any time soon. For one, she and Rabbit had a few things to knock off the to-do list between now and then. Like finishing up their degrees—something environmental for her, engineering and physics for him, along with some business courses and international relations, with the plan of heading up the emerging Nightkeeper Foundation’s interests in the Mayan highlands. They both loved it down there, and wanted to help the locals recover from the outbreak. At least that was their current game plan.
And that was the awesome thing. They didn’t need to know for sure right now. They could explore for a bit. Or, heck, for the rest of their lives. Because, hey, howdy, they had a future now. A beautiful and totally blank-slate future. The only thing they needed to know for sure was that they were going to be spending it together. Period. Full stop. She didn’t care if the gods had meant for them to be together, or that they hadn’t ever gotten their mated marks. Okay, she cared a little, but only because it had once been important to him. Now, though, he seemed content for them to go on as they were, living together and loving each other while they started really figuring out what their lives were going to look like for the next few years.
And after that? Marriage, she hoped. Kids. The family neither of them had gotten when they were growing up, but could give to the next generation.
“Gather round!” Dez called, tossing a last few sticks on the huge mound of pallets, kindling and other flammables he and the others had built. “It’s time.”
The former residents of Skywatch formed a horseshoe, with the open end facing south, the direction the wind was blowing, leaving room for the gods to join them, at least in spirit if not in practice.
What do you say? Ready for some action? The words formed in her mind, accompanied by a phantom brush of warmth across her lips, stirring her blood.
She looked up to find Rabbit standing at the center point of the horseshoe, with an open spot beside him. Her spot. With her head up and her eyes on him, she swaggered over, feeling good in black jeans and a tight black top, with high black boots that had a glint of silver at the edges. When she reached him, she leaned in and kissed him with a little nip of his lower lip that had him sucking in a breath.
Then, as the magic gathered in her head and heart, making her feel like she could do almost anything, she took her place beside him, and grinned around the horseshoe at the others, at her friends and teammates. “Okay. Now I’m ready for some action.”
That got a chuckle, the loudest from Rabbit, as Dez cleared his throat. “Then by all means. Let’s link up!”
She and Rabbit could’ve lit the bonfire on their own, given the magic that was zinging through them, reawakened by the equinox. But the ceremony belonged to all of them, so they joined hands—Nightkeeper, winikin, human—and opened themselves to the magic. Where before the uplink would’ve been a huge, roaring upswell of power, now it was a softer, mellower heat. Still, though, it was magic. And it was beautiful.
He squeezed her hand. “Do you want to do the honors?”
“You do it.” She didn’t need to prove anything, not anymore.
Nodding, he spread his fingers toward the stacked wood and said, “Kaak!”
A soundless shock wave detonated from them both, and red and green fire exploded from his fingers and curled around the beehive-shaped stack. It whirled around once, twice and then a third time—and whoomp!—the bonfire lit with a crackling roar, sending a pillar of red and green flames twenty feet in the air, then thirty.
Heat drove everyone back a couple of steps, but nobody seemed to mind, given the show.
“Whooo!” Reese called, bending back to watch colored sparks swirl up on the breeze, and the others joined in with a chorus of oohs and aahs.
Getting into it, Rabbit made the flames spiral and then curl around themselves. Myr laughed and added a little more blue to the mix, dropping fire bursts that looked like flowers on the curling vines of flame.
“Show-offs!” Dez called, but he was laughing.
“Sorry,” Rabbit said, totally unrepentant.
After another minute, though, they let the pyrotechnics die down, so the heat subsided a little and the bonfire became just a normal bonfire, the magic just a background hum. The teammates were still linked, though, and their power sang a sweet note in the air as Dez led them through the first Cardinal Day prayer of the new age.
There was no bloodletting, no sacrifice, no prophecies or threats of dire retribution. Instead, the teammates thanked the true gods for their help, for the victory, and for their lives. It still seemed impossible that they had all survived, yet they had. Now they would go on to live as they chose. And thank the gods for that.
There was a soft upswing in the magic, as if the gods had heard them. Or maybe it came from the prayer itself; Myr didn’t know. But she knew that she was happy, here and now, standing beside Rabbit in the center of a community that her childhood self never would have dreamed existed, never mind that she would become part of it. These were her people, her friends. And Rabbit was hers, always and forever.
“Before we break for games and food,” Dez said, “I believe someone wanted to say something?”
Myr frowned with the others, looking around. “What the—”
“That’d be me,” Rabbit said, and stepped out of line, then turned to face her.
And got down on one knee.
She caught her breath at the sight of him down there—Rabbit, who wouldn’t willingly get on his knees for anything or anyone. Rabbit, who pulled a ring box out of his pocket and flipped it open to reveal a blaze of ruby and emerald, two perfect stones set atop a diamond-studded ring.
“Oh,” she said, the word barely a breath as all the oxygen suddenly left her body.
His eyes gleamed as he said, “I’ve never loved anyone but you, and I’ll go on loving you forever, with or without this. But this is what I want, and I hope it’s what you want, too.” Then, with him on one knee and everyone they cared about watching, he levitated the ring and sent it floating into the air, so it hovered between them, wreathed in red-gold magic. “What do you say, Myr? Will you marry me?”
Now it was her turn to go deer-in-headlights. Not because she was horrified or steamrollered or anything, but because she hadn’t expected this. Not in a million years—or at least not for a few more years, anyway. Her pulse drummed in her ears and her hands shook. She was overwhelmed, she was shocked, she was—
She was supposed to say something.
Everyone was waiting.
The ring was waiting. The magic was waiting.
Yes, of course, yes! she shouted inside, but even if he heard her through their link, it didn’t count. This was the sort of thing she needed to say out loud to make it real. And she would. In a second, when she remembered how to breathe.
Behind him, the bonfire grew hotter and bigger, going the pure orange-red of his magic now. For a moment, she thought he was letting off some steam into the magic, channeling his hidden nerves. But then the flames rose up from the bonfire, curled in on themselves, and made a perfect heart. It hung there behind him, living, beating in time with her pulse, then dissolved to the words “I love you.”
Suddenly she could breathe again. She could even laugh again, though the sound was breathless and a little wild. “Only you,” she said on a rush. “Only you could propose by writing it across the sky in flames.”
“And?”
“And yes, of course. Of course I’ll marry you. Only you, Rabbit. My one and only.” She held out her hand and watched it tremble as the ring floated onto it and snugged into place.
He exhaled in a rush and bowed his head for a second. “Thank fuck. For a second there, I thought . . .”
“No,” she said, tugging him to his feet. “Don’t ever think it.” Then they kissed, triggering a chorus of whoops and applause, along with shouted suggestions that ranged from cute to borderline obscene, though all in good fun.
Rabbit chuckled against her mouth. “Hope you didn’t want me to do that in private.”
“It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
