Page 27
Chapter 27
Die With A Smile
brIAR - ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER
“Y ou look beautiful, Miss Briar,” Flint says, nuzzling his nose against my leg.
“You don’t need to call me Miss, Flint. It’s been an entire century.”
He chuffs, but I know he won’t stop. We have this conversation almost daily.
I spin away from the mirror, watching my black lace dress fall around me in waves. My lavender hair is pinned up in curls, and I’ve rubbed a little rouge on my cheeks and lips and lined my eyes in kohl.
He’s not wrong. I do look beautiful.
Gerrit pokes his head in. “Holy shit, Briar.” His voice is breathy. “You look so beautiful. So fucking beautiful.”
My face heats, and I throw myself into the arms of my big man. He’s dressed up in an ivory shirt of rich silk and a pair of black trousers. “So do you! I could eat you up.”
He exposes his neck to me where the small bites from this morning’s feeding haven’t faded yet. “I think it’s a little late for that.”
I follow him out of the bedroom and into the courtyard around our home.
Over the past few decades, the woods have been trimmed down, and the town of Greenbell has expanded closer and closer to our little haven. We have never kept secrets about who we are or what I am, but now that the town is more aware, we have visitors often.
They don’t know our whole story, nor that Gerrit and Hans have conditional immortality that comes at the cost of living in the fairy circle. We fear that if they did we’d end up with a lot of squatters.
Of course, there have been situations where some have called us and our lifestyle unnatural and tried to eradicate us, but we have squashed that swiftly.
Today, there is a wedding. Two of the townspeople are swearing themselves to one another and have asked to have it done magically.
A magical binding is not something to enter into lightly, and I require that the lovers undergo a lot of questioning and examinations to ensure it’s the right thing to do.
But these two?
Oh, they deserve to be together through life and death.
The men stand beneath a flowering tree, hands clasped together. They don’t look away from each other as I walk up, which is how it should be.
They only have eyes for one another.
Hans stands beside the tree in olive trousers and a rich brown shirt. When he sees me, his face breaks into a massive grin. He peels himself from the bark and wraps me in a hug before giving me a soft, sweet kiss on the lips.
“You look incredible,” he whispers. “I can’t wait to see what is under that dress.”
I swat him playfully and step back. Flint is at my feet, a red ribbon in his mouth. I take it from him, giving him a little ruffle and a peck on the snout.
He may be Hans’s familiar, but he loves me best.
“I don’t pick favorites.”
“Get out of my head, mutt,” I grumble, tickling his chest. I stand and walk towards the happy couple.
Townspeople are all around us, chattering away, but they quiet down when they see me standing beside the men of the hour.
“Good afternoon, citizens of Greenbell,” I say softly. “We are here together to bind Killian and Redrick in life and death.”
I take the men’s clasped hands in my own, wrapping the red ribbon tightly around their wrists, tying them together. “This red ribbon represents the life that we lead. It is one thing to pledge your life to someone, but another to offer them your death as well. While none of us know what happens when we leave, Killian and Redrick wanted to ensure that whatever it is, they embark upon it together.”
My magic rises within me, purple strands dancing around the two men. The gathered crowd gasps, as they always do, at the sight of the magic. I’ve figured out how to make the strands visible during the ceremony. I don’t care that it drains me - I think it’s important for everyone to see it during the moment two become one.
The strands weave between the two lovers, twisting and turning and binding itself to their life essences.
When the purple fades and the ribbon around their wrist glows, I know it took.
“Where one goes, the other will follow,” I say loudly to the cheering crowd.
They echo me, “Where one goes, the other will follow!”
“Where you go, I will follow,” Hans whispers in my ear.
“Where you go, I will follow,” Gerrit says in the other.
“I love you both so much,” I tell them as I step away from the happy couple. “You too, Flint.”
The familiar doesn’t have to project his thoughts to tell me he feels the same way. I can practically feel it radiating off of him.
Hans takes my left hand, and Gerrit takes my right, and we walk away from the celebration of love, life, and death and onto our forever.