by Nora Roberts
“Love was enough.”
“Works for me. Where are we? What did you do?”
“We’re in yet another dimension. Rhee the sorceress . . . my mother, brought us. She healed us.”
“And what, exorcised the demon?”
“That was for me. A kiss waked you, and brought you back whole.”
“Like Sleeping Beauty? You’re kidding.”
She leaned back. “You look displeased.”
“Well, Jesus, it’s embarrassing.” He scooped his hair back, slid off the bed.
“You would rather die, with pride?” Though part of her understood the sentiment perfectly well, it still rankled. She who had never believed in romance had found the event desperately romantic. The kind of moment the bards write of. “You are ungrateful and stupid.”
“Stupid, maybe. Ungrateful, definitely not. But if it’s all the same to you, let’s just keep this one portion of the experience completely to ourselves.”
She jerked a shoulder, lifted her chin. And made him smile. “You saved my life, and you made me a man. Thank you.”
Now she sniffed. “You are a brave warrior and did not deserve the fate Sorak intended for you.”
“There you go. My ego’s nearly back to normal now. And can I just say you look gorgeous. Incredible. In fact, there’s an expression in my world about how you look right now. It goes something like, wow.”
“Ritual foolishness,” she replied, flipping a hand at the robe.
“I love the way you look. I love you, Kadra.”
She sighed. “I know. If the love between us was not strong and true, you would not have waked so I could be annoyed with you.” She looked away from him, deliberately, when he came to her, when he wrapped his arms tight around her.
So he kissed her cheek, kissed her temple where a bullet had grazed. “I thought I had lost you, and that was worse than thinking I’d lost myself.”
Yielding, she turned her lips to his. “Harper Doyle.”
“Kadra, Slayer of Demons.”
She eased back, her eyes solemn despite the humor in his. “Do you wish me to be your lifemate and bear your young?”
“You bet I do.”
“This is what I wish as well. This is not a traditional path for a slayer.”
He lifted a hand to skim a finger over her circlet of rank. “We’ll make new traditions. Stay with me, Kadra. Be with me. We’ll stay here, wherever this is. It doesn’t matter.”
“This is not our place.” She stepped back, gestured to the two globes. “The one on the emerald stand opens to my world. The ruby to yours. I believed that to keep the balance we must each go back, must each remain in the world where we came from. But, I have vision.”
She looked back at him. “My mother is a sorceress, and her blood is my blood. I see what I once refused to see. I have magic inside me. I must practice with this as I once practiced with a sword. Until I am skilled.”
“Slayer and sorceress. I get a two-for-one.”
“There can be no balance when love is denied and refused. We are meant, so we will be.”
“Choose,” he told her. “I’ll live in any world, as long as it’s with you.”
She picked up the bag that held their things, tossed it to him. She lifted her sword. And, crossing to the table, she lifted the globe that rested on a ruby stand.
“The Bok have lost their king, and the slayers who are my sisters will rout them, and continue the fight against all demons. But there are battles to be fought in your world, demons of a different kind to be vanquished. I wish to fight with you there.”
“Partners, then.” He took her hand, kissed it. “We make a hell of a team.”
“And I like the pie called pizza, and the beer. And even more than these, the kissing.”
“Baby, we were made for each other.”
He swung her into his arms, crushed his lips to hers. When the portal opened, and the light washed in, they leaped into it together.
And went home.