“You’ve earned your immortality, girl. More than that, you have the strength to endure it. Pippin.” He clapped his hands.
The old man in the robe removed several stones from his tablet and handed them to Hades. She thought...she thought she saw a gorgeous young man under the wrinkles. Perhaps she’d had a screw knocked loose in the fight.
Each stone burst into flames, the ashes floating, floating toward Katarina, and then they were there, in her face, and all she could do was breathe them in.
A wave of dizziness hit her, stronger than all the others combined. It nearly swept her off her feet, but Baden tightened his hold, preventing her from falling. She moaned, and the hounds moaned with her, each of them toppling over as if drunk. Were they becoming immortal, too, through the link?
And was she immortal right now? Had the inhalation of ashes truly changed the makeup of her DNA?
“William will hate me for this,” Hades said. “But you, Katarina Joelle, are worth the trouble. And yes. This means I’ll allow you to keep Baden. You’re welcome.”
“You don’t control me, kretén, and you never will. But I appreciate the vote of confidence.” For once!
“She is Katarina Lord now,” Baden proclaimed. “I claim her as my wife.”
Maybe that would have been enough to make her immortal, the way Ashlyn’s bond to Maddox had made her immortal, but probably not. Maddox hadn’t been a spirit bound to wreaths.
And neither was Baden. Not now.
He peered deep into her eyes. “If you’ll have me.”
Her love for him was a wild thing, and yet as pure as newly fallen snow. Denying him would have been tantamount to denying her body food. “I will.”
He blessed her with a radiant smile, one so bright it made her eyes water.
Would the waterworks ever stop?
Hades cleared his throat. “You, Katarina Lord, will help heal the breach I created with the hounds all those centuries ago.”
—Never.—
Roar ran his paws across the floor.
“The things you did to them—” she began.
“Are hardly worth mentioning.” Hades waved a hand through the air. “I merely put all of their ancestors down—or thought I did—after they killed my—well. It doesn’t matter now. The past is the past. We march on toward the future.”
A growl rose from her. So dismissive. I will—
Baden stepped in front of her, meeting the gaze of his...father. Drawing attention away from her. “I want the seed of Corruption removed.”
Hades protested, but Baden shook his head, adamant.
“Very well.” Hades gripped his arms, and the shadows slithered from Baden’s arms to coil on Hades’s wrists.
“Thank you.” Baden faced Katarina. “Let’s go check on your brother, krásavica.”
She sighed. She knew what he was doing, and she was going to let him do it. There would be no more fighting. At least, not today. “Yes. Let’s.”
“Afterward, we’ll go home.”
“To the Realm of the Forgotten?” Where the slaughter of Alek and his army had taken place. Where...someone else lived. What was his—her?—name?
“No. To my—our—friends. I want to share our happiness with them. You are happy, yes?”
She wound her arms around him. “More than I ever thought possible, pekný.” He was the start of her story, and he would be the end of it. A happy tale.
Once upon a time...and forever after.
Epilogue
BADEN RECLINED NEXT to the fireplace, a glass of whiskey in hand, watching as his beautiful Katarina taught Maddox’s children how to properly play with hellhounds. The entire group had moved into a new fortress—one located in Budapest, like the other, but higher in the mountains, hidden by a wealth of trees.
Torin had paid the former owners a fortune to leave in a hurry.
The Lords were already making memories here.
Just last night, Katarina had given the entire hellhound pack a bath. The animals had protested, loudly, but she’d told them they weren’t allowed inside the new home until they were clean and flea-free. She’d stood in the backyard with a water hose and one by one the hounds had allowed her to do her thing.
A funnier sight Baden had never beheld. Hounds feared the worlds over for their strength, prowess and desire to eat their enemies—as well as their friends—had trembled while a slip of a female lathered them with shampoo.
His life was more than he’d ever dreamed possible, even though not everything had worked out the way he would have liked. The war in the underworld still raged, and it was only heating. No one had heard from Cameo. William hadn’t returned to the fortress, but word on the street was he had followed Puck to his homeland.