Rather amused by now, I began wandering through the forest, keeping my eyes on the ground for the next direction. Every few yards, there was an arrow pointing ahead, reassuring me that I had not lost this mysterious trail.
I soon realized that I was heading toward the mountains. The trees began to thin, and I neared the edge of the forest. Soon I had arrived in the large clearing in front of the main entrance to the Black Heights. My ever-conscientious sign-drawer had left more arrows, leading me diagonally across the clearing to the stone steps that led up the mountainside. I mounted them and climbed swiftly. By the time I reached the top of the stairs and staggered forward onto a grassy plain, the muscles in my legs were aching. It was times like this when I became aware that half of me was still very much human.
The view up here was out of this world. But I did not linger long on the stunning landscape or the glistening waves surrounding it. I looked back down at the ground, searching for my next instruction. I found it to my left, pointing to yet another flight of stairs that would lead me to an even higher plateau. Arriving at the top, I stopped short as I laid eyes on the plateau. Smack-bang in the center of it was… a sauna?
What the heck is Ben playing at?
A smile was already splitting my face as I approached the wooden structure, but when I noticed Ben through the glass, I burst out laughing.
His hair slicked back, his upper chest exposed, he was wearing a virgin-white bathrobe. He was leaning back casually, one arm resting over the backrest of the bench. Noticing me, he raised one brow, holding a glass of what looked like pineapple juice and raising it, as if to say “cheers”.
With the heavenly view sprawled out all around us, it felt like I’d just walked onto the set of a sauna commercial. The fact that Ben literally emitted a golden-yellow aura didn’t help either.
“Ben!” I gasped, almost crying with laughter. “What the heck?”
Setting aside his glass, he stood up and opened the glass door to let me in.
I stared at him, still laughing. “What is all this?”
He just smiled. Wordlessly, he closed the door behind us before taking my hands and seating me on the bench.
Wow, it was warm in here. I felt my cheeks flushing already.
Ben sat down beside me, retaking his glass of juice and sipping before saying in a light, pleasant voice, “We first met in one of these. Don’t you remember?”
Finally managing to stop giggling, I thought back to the first time I had ever met my now-fiancé. Indeed, it had been in a sauna. Back in The Oasis. At that time, I had known him only as Joseph. Jeramiah had wanted him to half-turn me, but he’d refused. He’d darted out of that sauna the moment he saw me. How long ago that seemed now…
“Yes,” I said. “Of course I remember.”
“Then,” he said, “don’t you think that this is all… rather appropriate?”
“Appropriate for what?” I half laughed, half frowned.
He set down his pineapple juice again. Then he stood up, tightening the rope of his bathrobe around his waist before lowering himself to the floor… on one knee. His right hand delved into the pocket of his bathrobe, and when he withdrew it, he was holding a round box the color and texture of pearl. My breath hitched as he opened it to reveal an even more beautiful object. A delicate silver ring, crowned with a gemstone the color of brilliant turquoise. The color of my eyes.
His face had gone serious now. He cleared his throat and said in a low voice, “Will you marry me, River Giovanni?”
Even as I felt breathless, I couldn’t help but grin. “Again?” I whispered.
His lips curved in a smile. “Again.”
Sliding off the bench, I sank down to his level and flung my arms around his neck. “I’ll marry you a hundred times, Ben,” I said, before pushing my lips to his.
His smile split our kiss. His hands slid up my shoulders and pushed me backward. “Wait, River,” he said, his face deadpan as he reached for my ring finger. “You’re doing it the wrong way round. I’m supposed to put my ring on you first.”
“Says the man who proposed before he had a ring.” I smirked. “I think we should just admit we’ve botched this whole engagement thing. I’m simply happy I’m not betrothed to a ghost.”
Ben took my hand and placed the ring on my finger all the same. I gazed down at it, admiring the way it shimmered against the aura of Ben’s body. Then he pulled me up and we stood side by side. He leaned down, allowing us to lock lips again in a long, tender kiss.
“Mmm,” I murmured, as we surfaced for breath. “You taste like pineapple juice.”
Ben raised a brow. “And what’s more sexy than that?”
“A hunky fairy in a virgin-white bathrobe.”
Ben snorted. “Then I couldn’t have pulled this off better, could I?”
We moved to sit down on the bench again, but I pushed open the door first to let in the breeze. Then I sat next to him, taking his hand and twining my fingers through his.
“Thank you, Ben,” I whispered, glancing again at my sparkling ring.
He brushed his lips against the top of my head and I nestled closer against him. Then we both gazed out at the beauty of the island and sank into comfortable silence. The redwoods swayed gently in the breeze, and the lakes sparkled. Rolling meadows of flowers flowed into fields of vegetables and grain. I could lose myself forever in this view.
“So,” I murmured, “will we get married in this sauna too?”
“That wouldn’t be very creative of me,” Ben said. “I actually had a different idea for the location of our wedding. But it kind of depends on when you want to get married.”
I looked up at him. “When? Well, when would you want to get married?”
“As soon as you want to,” he replied.
“What if I said I wanted to marry you right here, right now?”
“I would ask if you could wait a day or two, when we could join The Shade’s dragons and their mates in a grand wedding ceremony in The Hearthlands.”
I wondered if this was another joke. “The Hearthlands? Are you serious?”
“Yes,” he said. He stood up and gazed down at me, touching my cheek. “I’m quite serious.”
Oh, my. Is that even a question? “Yes!” I exclaimed, jumping up in excitement. The little girl inside of me was squealing.
He smiled broadly as he braced my shoulders. “Then we should start getting ready, future princess of The Shade.”
Derek
Sofia and I had very little time for preparations once we’d received confirmation from Jeriad that Ben and River were welcome to accompany them, and Ben confirmed they were both happy to take part in a joint wedding.
We made a trip around the island inviting people personally; it was something we wanted to do, given that it was our son’s wedding. Two other couples also decided to join the bandwagon and tie the knot at the same time: Helena and Matteo, and Micah and Kira.
And then there remained only one person I had left to speak to.
My brother.
I still hadn’t had much time to speak to him—and absolutely no time alone. Even though we’d gone together to The Dunes and then Hortencia’s cave, Lucas hadn’t been around much since, being a fae, he’d been helping Ben and the jinn much of the time.
It was time that I talked to him man to man. Brother to brother. Although I was dreading it, there would be no better moment than now.
I told Sofia where I was going before heading off to look for him. I spotted him eventually on the beach near the Port. He was sitting with Jeramiah and talking, their feet submerged in the water.
I felt hesitant to approach, but forced myself to interrupt by arriving at their side and clearing my throat.
Lucas’s eyes widened in surprise as he looked up to see that it was me.
I turned my focus to Jeramiah. “If you don’t mind, I would like a few words with your father.”
Jeramiah nodded curtly. Lucas stood up, his height just less than mine. I f
ound it hard to hold his gaze for long and, it seemed, so did he. We both looked away in opposite directions even as we began to walk together along the beach, away from Jeramiah.
When he made no move to say anything after about a minute, I attempted to break the ice. “Thank you for helping my son.”
Still looking at the sand, Lucas murmured with a dismissive shrug, “I owed him.”
I swallowed. What do I talk about with him? I had decided to invite him to the wedding, but that wasn’t what I’d really come here for.
Trying to converse with Lucas felt more uncomfortable than attempting to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. At least a stranger shared no past with you. No hateful, envious past.
To my relief, Lucas took his turn in saying something. “You should, uh,” he began, wetting his lower lip. “You should be proud of your son.”
I stopped walking, causing him to stop too. I felt the urge to look him in the eyes. His cold blue irises that matched my own locked with mine.
“I am very proud of him,” I said, steadily holding his gaze. And I wish I could return the compliment to your son. Jeramiah was not inherently bad, but he still had a lot of work to do on his character, a lot of strength to build up if he wanted to be anywhere near the man my son had become.
Though now that Lucas was back, hopefully a changed man, maybe he would become the role model Jeramiah had always hoped for.
I hesitated before speaking again. “Did you really never tell a soul about Jeramiah?” I asked. “Not even Father?”
He swallowed, and I lost his eye contact again. He grimaced as he gazed out toward the ocean. He shook his head.
“Why?” I prodded.
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“I can’t say that anything about you is obvious to me anymore.”
Lucas paused, his eyes darting toward me again. From the look on his face, he took that as a compliment. And I guessed it was.
“I wasn’t proud of what I did, Derek,” he said darkly.
“You did a lot of things that you weren’t proud of—or at least, shouldn’t have been proud of—but that never usually stopped you from boasting.” I wondered if I might have pushed the boundary a little too far with this remark as his jaw tensed. I was expecting the old, prickly Lucas to rise to the surface. But then his jaw loosened.
He heaved a sigh. “Yes. But some more than others.”
“What other secrets have you been keeping?” I forged on.
At this, he looked at me curiously, almost half amused. His lips curled. “What business is that of yours?”
“Uh, well, after what your son attempted to do to us, it would be good to know if there are any other skeletons in your closet who might come back to haunt us.”
His eyes darkened, then he shook his head again. “You’ve seen the worst of it.” We fell into silence as we continued to walk. Then he murmured, “So you finally got your little twig in the end.”
Little twig. It took me a few moments to remember that was what he used to call Sofia. “Yeah…” I said. “You don’t need to call her that anymore. She’s no longer the wide-eyed seventeen-year-old you swept up from a beach, I assure you that much.”
“Oh, I can see that she’s not,” he said, a little quickly. He almost seemed… worried that he might’ve offended me. I realized that he’d spoken with tongue in cheek. I was once again struck by how in tune he seemed to those around him, no longer in his little narcissistic bubble he used to float around in day and night.
“I would like to apologize to her,” he said, after yet another pause. His voice sounded a little unsteady as he added, “Properly.”
“I’m sure there will be ample opportunity for that,” I said.
Sofia was a forgiving person. It just was not in her nature to hold a grudge. No matter what atrocities a person might have committed in the past, if she saw genuine repentance in a person’s eyes, she was the first to give them a second chance. I found myself wondering whether Lucas had feelings for her. I had thought at the time that his pull to her was just lust, as it was with all the other young women who had the misfortune of crossing paths with him. Now that I thought back over my brother’s life, I could not summon a single instance when he’d had an actual girlfriend. Claudia was probably the closest he’d come to one, though theirs was anything but an actual relationship. They had been on and off for centuries, but it had been no secret to anyone on the island that they met only for one thing.
As we reached the end of this stretch of beach and turned around, I glanced at my brother thoughtfully while he looked straight ahead. For the first time, it really hit me in a way that it never had before: Has he really never fallen in love? The only person I’d ever known him to be in love with was himself. Maybe Vivienne shared a piece of his heart… though not a large piece, since Lucas had gone along with my father’s plan to bundle her off to Borys Maslen. Lucas couldn’t have loved Jeramiah or his mother much either, or he would not have abandoned them so callously. Both of these incidents had taken place even before he became a vampire—he had been a mere human then. It was as if he’d been born with these cold, harsh traits. Could I really blame all of this on my father?
It had been my very own Sofia who had drilled into my mindset that we could control ourselves, that we were all responsible. Even those infected with the dark disease of vampirism. That was how she’d gotten me to change. The thought brought me full circle and made me recall Claudia’s original point: Lucas had never gotten any good loving, like I had. He had never met a woman who could change him the way I had met Sofia. Maybe one of the reasons he’d been so drawn to her was because he sensed her goodness, but he hadn’t known how to control his nature around her for him to even have a fighting chance of winning her over.
I pulled myself out of my reverie, wondering if I really ought to say what I was tempted to say next.
“You know, I, uh…” I paused as he glanced up at me. I thought to phrase it a different way. “There are a lot of new folks on the island. New since you left, that is… You might be able to find a little twig of your own some day.”
I was relieved when Lucas’ lips curved. He narrowed his eyes on me slightly. “Whatever might happen,” he said in a low voice, “I won’t need the assistance of a little brother.”
Little brother. That was when it struck me. A sly smile spread across my face at the realization. “You do realize that I am no longer your younger brother. I’m your older brother now.”
Lucas blinked as it sank in. “How old are you?” he shot back, rather aggressively compared to the way he’d spoken his previous sentence.
“In terms of physical age, I’m pushing twenty-five.”
He looked wounded.
“Well, then,” he muttered, “it looks like I’ll have to spend the next few years as a human…”
“That’s a war that could get dangerous,” I remarked. “Before we knew it, we’d both be old men.”
Lucas smirked. Then, running a hand through his hair, he heaved a sigh. “But seriously, Derek. Hooking up with a girl is really, really the last thing on my mind. I’ve missed out on my son’s whole life. I suspect that he will occupy much of my time in the foreseeable future. In fact, he would like us to make a trip to his mother’s grave, as soon as I feel ready.”
That was fair enough. Though I was sure that with time, some female on this island would catch Lucas’ eye—he was only a man, after all. And when it did happen, he had better end up treating her right… or he’d have his older brother to answer to.
Something told me, however, that he would. Something had changed in him, seemingly permanently.
Those ghouls really should charge for their service. Ghoul rehab. Guaranteed results for the assholes in your family.
As Lucas and I began to near Jeramiah, who was still sitting on the same patch of sand, I remembered what had triggered me to seek out my brother in the first place.
“Lucas,” I said, stopping. He stoppe
d and looked at me. “I actually came to ask whether you would like to attend Ben’s wedding. Your son is invited too.”
Lucas’ eyes widened a little. He hesitated, then said, “I… I would be honored to.”
A smile spread across my lips. For the first time in my entire life, I actually almost felt like hugging my brother… almost. We sufficed with a handshake instead, but it was the steadiest, firmest handshake we’d ever shared.
Ben
I was pleased that River had enjoyed my second proposal so much. The idea had occurred to me while I’d been on my way to the Sanctuary to request Corrine’s help in preparing a suitable ring. But as Corrine had been halfway through making it, Yuri had come rushing in with Claudia, yelling that she was going into labor. Corrine had hurried to attend to her, and I’d barely managed to wish Claudia good luck before the door closed on me.
That had left me with a half-finished ring. In the end I’d sought out the witch Shayla to help me finish it, and she’d also helped me with the whole sauna setup… including the fluffy white bath robe.
After I’d proposed to River and seen that she was thrilled with the idea of a wedding in The Hearthlands, we didn’t spend much longer in the sauna. We had to start getting ready. I carried her down the mountain where we parted ways. She returned to her family, while I returned to my parents to inform them of River’s enthusiasm.
Then I had to figure out what clothing I needed to take with me while my parents busied themselves with other arrangements. Shayla knocked on my door, saying she’d been sent by my mom to take my measurements for a custom tuxedo. Apparently she’d already been to see River about a dress.
After Shayla left, I just had to pack a few casual clothes and toiletries. Then my parents returned, accompanied by River, who was carrying a bulging backpack. They informed me that the dragons wanted to leave already.
We headed for the Port, where a large crowd had gathered of countless friends and well-wishers. Even Lucas was among them… and Jeramiah, whom I was not quite so thrilled to see. Brett and Bella were notably absent, though I could hardly blame them for not wanting to attend a wedding with dragons present.