Bron stood silently watching, his black coat soaked in vampire blood, his head bowed.
Dane knelt beside his sister and gently closed Connell's eyes. "Good night, my brother," he whispered, the jagged tattoos covering his back, arms and chest seeming more stark and savage against the snow. With no words of anger or fury, he lifted his brother in his arms and walked away toward the heart of the forest. Bron followed. Then Allora, stifling another sob before shifting into her white wolf form to escort her brothers, one living and one fallen, to their clan's home somewhere in these woodlands.
Sienna swiped a tear from her cheek and hiccoughed on a sob. "We should go with them." She stepped forward.
Nikolai stopped her with a gentle tug. "No, sweetheart. They need privacy now." He swept her up into his arms. "Close your eyes." He pressed her head into the crook of his neck to ground her as best he could before speeding her home. He needed to get her there. Safe.
After depositing her on the sofa and dragging out into the woods the body and decapitated head of the vampire he recognized as Boris on her living room floor, he returned and bolted the door. After a quick check on Riker, who remained unconscious, he started a fire, then pulled her into his lap on the sofa.
They said nothing at all for a long time, the night's events sinking in with pain, regret, victory, and sorrow. He sifted his hand through her hair, watching the fire. She kept her head against his shoulder until finally, she lifted up and cupped his face with one hand, the world held in her sage-green eyes.
"Tell me we will be all right."
"We will be more than all right." He knew the despair breaking her expression into grief was not only about what they'd lost, about who they'd lost, but about who they might still lose in the future. "Listen to me." Now he cupped her cheeks, sliding his fingers into her hair. "We will win this war. Despite losing Connell, and what they did to Riker"-he swallowed hard against his own pain-"we won this battle." He swiped the tear rolling down her cheek with his thumb. "You won, sweetheart."
He couldn't begin to explain to her what the sight of her full to the brim with the fire-power of the hartstone had done to him. The hartstone remade humans into beings with a power befitting their souls. Nikolai's love was made of fire and light. He'd always known this, but now she did, too.
She pressed her forehead to his as he'd done before. "I love you, Nikolai."
His heart tripped, recognizing the truth and good in her words, which settled the beast within him so that he could tuck it away until he needed the monster again.
"As I love you, sweet Sienna."
He tucked her close, her face nuzzled against his neck, and washed away the pain with soothing strokes and gentle caresses, just as the falling snow outside thickened and covered the bloody carnage in the woods. Time and compassion and comforting words would soften the battle scars of this night. Nikolai needed this to be so, for he knew the war was not yet over.
For now, he would hold this precious woman and her tender love close to his heart. He would let her heal his own long-suffering wounds, like jagged shards in his soul. He would cherish his beloved Sienna and strengthen for another day.
Epilogue
Sienna set the bucket of feed on the ground to latch the gate. Mildred baaed at her. "Oh hush. Go finish your breakfast."
She'd been wondering how much longer Nikolai would be gone to Hiddleston and barely finished notching the hook in the latch when she was swept off her feet and into his arms. She squealed and kicked her legs.
"Put me down!" She laughed.
"No." He lowered her slowly, sliding her body against his, keeping her feet off the ground.
Hooking her arms around his neck, she caught her breath. Or tried to. It was a difficult thing to manage, breathing in and out calm and steady, when your lover was Nikolai. When all he had to do was look at her a certain way with those blue-fire eyes, that heavy, dark gaze he'd give her which said everything he wanted and planned to do to her behind closed doors. And sometimes not behind closed doors as she'd learned last week while she was in the barn tending to Willow. That very look he was giving her now, his piercing blues fixed on her mouth.
She licked her lips, and his eyes darkened further still.
"Kiss me, Sienna."
She did, always ready to comply. She opened her mouth sweetly over his, giving him a gentle nip. He cupped the nape of her neck and slanted his mouth to go deeper, showing her the kind of kiss he wanted. She laughed. He growled. He didn't pull away until she'd softened against him and moaned in his mouth.