Beyond the Highland Myst(662)

He told her what had become of Darroc. He told her how time moved differently between the realms, and that he'd never meant to leave her alone for so long.

Speaking quietly, holding her close, he told her how he'd realized that there was no way he would be able to stand living with her and watching her die, as he'd done with Morganna.

The moment those words left his lips, Gabrielle tensed in his arms, jerked from his embrace, and shot straight up in bed. "Oh!" she hissed, eyes flashing furiously. "Then, what did you come back for? Are you telling me you're leaving me again?"

He shook his head hastily, and explained that— although he'd believed he was human— he'd never been. That the queen had only made him think he was mortal to punish him. He told her what the queen had said about such a transformation being irreversible for a Tuatha Dé.

And he told her that he'd finally realized that, since he couldn't bear to live without her, yet he couldn't bear to watch her die, there was only one choice left to him.

"The reason you can feel my heartbeat, ka-lyrra, is because now I really am human. It's for real this time."

Gabby's eyes widened and she stared at him, her lower lip trembling. "But you just said it's irreversible."

He nodded.

"You mean, you're going to die?" she whispered.

Cupping her head in his hands. Adam pulled her down for a deep, possessive kiss. "No, ka-lyrra, I mean, I'm finally going to live. Here. Now. With you." He drew a breath. "Marry me, Gabrielle. I'll give you the life you've always wanted. I can now. I'm human, just like you. Let me be your husband and give you babies. Let me spend the rest of my life with you."

"Oh, God," Gabby breathed, tears welling up in her eyes, "you gave up your immortality for me?"

He caught her tears with his tongue as they slipped down her cheeks, kissing them away. "No tears, Gabrielle. I have no regrets. Not one."

"How can you say that? You gave up everything! Immortality. Invincibility. All that it is to be a Tuatha Dé!"

He shook his head. "I gained everything. Or at least I'll think so," he growled, suddenly impatient, anxious, "when you give me a bloody answer to my bloody question. How many times are you going to make me ask you? Will you marry me, Gabrielle O'Callaghan? Yes or yes? And in case you're still managing to miss the point, the correct answer is 'yes.' And, by the way, anytime you'd like to tell me you love me, I wouldn't mind hearing it."

She pounced on him delightedly, straddling him, slipped her hands into his hair, and kissed him. He luxuriated in the bliss of her sweet body, closing his arms around her, his tongue gliding deep, tangling with hers.

"I'm going to take this as a yes," he purred, catching her lower lip, tugging playfully at it.

"I love you, Adam Black," Gabby breathed. "And, yes. Oh, abso-freaking-lutely yes!"





EPILOGUE





Five years later





Gabby finished unloading the dishwasher and cocked her head, listening. The house was quiet; their two-year-old son Connor was already down for the night. Soon she would go upstairs, kiss their daughter, Tessa, good night, and lead her husband off to bed.

Professor Black.

She shook her head, smiling. Adam couldn't look less like a professor, with his chiseled face and those sexy dark eyes and that long black hair, not to mention that rippling, powerful body. He looked more like... well, a Fae prince masquerading as a professor, and doing a rather shoddy job of it at that.

When he'd first told her that he intended to teach history at the university, she'd laughed

Too everyday, too plebeian, she'd thought. He'll never do it.

He'd surprised her. But then, he often did.

He'd planned everything out so carefully. Before he'd petitioned the queen to make him human, he'd established a detailed human identity for himself as an extremely wealthy man with vast bank accounts and a thousand acres of prime land in the Highlands. A human identity complete with all the necessary paperwork and credentials to permit him to live a normal life in the human realm.

And when she'd gently scoffed at his announcement of his choice of career, he'd waved those credentials at her— transcripts from the top universities in the nation, no less (of course, he'd made himself brilliant)— and gone off and gotten himself a job.

He'd developed a reputation as a renegade in the field, with all kinds of controversial theories about things like who had built Newgrange and Stonehenge and the true origin of the Proto-Indo-European tongue.

Students had to register for his classes a year in advance.

And she, well, she had her dream job. She and Jay and Elizabeth had opened up their own law firm and just this year had finally begun pulling in the kinds of cases she'd always hoped to represent. Cases that mattered, that made a difference.