“How can you watch them with their father,” Jenna said slowly, “when you would be their father?”
Kane gaped at her. “What?”
“Heavens above, Kane, what did you think I meant when I asked if you would take the name Hawk?”
“I thought . . . I know you . . . the clan, they’re grateful, and—”
“Gratitude?” Jenna leapt to her feet. “There is nothing of gratitude in this! I offer you my name—not the clan’s but mine, the name given to me by the wizard who promised my blood would live for eternity—and you believe it is gratitude? Then you do not know me at all, warrior. Did you learn nothing during my time on the mountain? Do you truly believe I am a woman who would offer herself forever out of gratitude?”
Kane’s head was reeling, and for a moment he thought he would not be able to speak at all.
“Jenna, I . . . please, I cannot think clearly. I know you can’t mean you . . . want me, but what do you—”
“Oh, Kane,” she said, her voice suddenly full of remorse as she sat on the bed beside him and grabbed his hands. “I’m sorry. You truly did not understand, did you? Of course I meant for you to join with me, to become Kane Hawk, not merely Kane of the clan Hawk. Our holy man is lost to the war, but Evelin can perform the ceremony, she has the right to accept our pledges to each other.”
Kane closed his eyes, then opened them and struggled to draw in a breath that was somehow very hard in coming. “You want to pledge yourself . . . to me?” he asked in astonishment.
Jenna looked stricken. “I just . . . assumed you knew. When you woke up, you looked at me with such love, I thought . . .” She broke off, paling slightly. “But perhaps I was wrong? Is that what makes you hesitate? If you do not love me as I love you, then that I must accept. ’Tis the only reason I could accept.”
“I . . .”
He stared up at her, unable to quite believe that it was all before him, all he’d never dared hope for, never even dared think of, waiting for him to simply reach out and take it. But then he remembered that moment in the stronghold, when Jenna would have died rather than let him hand himself over for his father’s torture.
“Are you . . . sure I am alive?” he asked, hearing the wonderment in his voice even as he saw Jenna react to it, saw the tears begin anew.
“I have done this all backwards, haven’t I?” she said softly. “And I have assumed too much. I love you, Kane. I loved you before I ever left your mountain, before you came here and handed your life to fate for my sake. But if you do not love me in the same way, I—”
She broke off when he moved suddenly, turning his hands beneath hers to grasp her slender fingers.
“I . . .”
He had to suck in a breath and try again.
“I do not think I know . . . what love is, Jenna. I don’t know if I . . . am even capable of it. But if it means anything to you . . .” He hesitated, and the rest came out in a rushing spate of words. “I admire and honor you above anyone I’ve ever known, your heart, your kindness, your courage, I like nothing more than to watch you at the simplest of tasks, I hunger for the taste of you more than my next breath, and it ripped my heart out to watch you leave that day on the mountain, and all that mattered to me during the battle was that you would be safe . . .”
He swallowed tightly, thinking what he had to offer her a pitiful substitute for the real love she deserved. But she held his hands so tightly, was looking at him so steadily, so lovingly, that he knew he had to give it all, however poor it might be.
“I hate the thought of you with another man even more than I hate the thought of living on without you, and I want, more than I’ve ever wanted anything, even the peace I’ve searched for for so long, for those children to be mine, when I’ve never even dared think of such a thing . . . if those things can make up for the love I cannot give you, they are yours.”
“Oh, Kane, you big, witless idiot!”
Kane blinked. Tears were streaming down her face now, but she was smiling in a way that made the tightness in his chest ease, and her tone was so full of joy and delight that it belied the words she spoke.
“In heaven’s name,” she said, “what do you think love is?”
KANE PUT HIS sword down next to the small Hawk dagger they had retrieved from the stronghold. He looked at the shelf which also held the book and the golden Hawk. He no longer felt the need to bury the sword again; it was a reminder now, but no longer a goad.
He fingered the spine of the book, feeling as he always did when he picked it up, the same odd sense of warmth and welcome Jenna said she felt every time she touched it. Whatever spell or incantation Tal had used, it was a powerful one.
“You still miss him, don’t you?” Jenna said from behind Kane as she slipped her arms around his waist.
“I do,” he admitted.
“So do I. I hope he finds what he searches for and comes back to us someday.”
“You still believe he is looking for whoever . . . bewitched him?”
Jenna stepped around to stand beside him. “ ’Tis the only thing that makes sense. He said the spell would last until he found the one who cast it. I think he seeks out places of powerful magic, such as Hawk Glade, in the hopes it will lead him to the one who made him what he is.”
Kane nodded slowly. Then he opened the book he held, to look once more at the exquisite drawing that had emerged on the first page, which had been empty when it had first appeared. It was as clear a portrait as he had ever seen, and although he did not like looking at himself in it, he loved to look at Jenna, and never ceased to marvel at the fact that she was his, in the eyes of the world as well as in his heart; the ceremony Evelin had conducted barely three moons ago had made it so. He was Kane Hawk now, mated to the Hawk, and Kane Druas no longer existed.
And Jenna had drawn the last of his father’s poison out of him, convincing him slowly but inexorably that he could be free of the taint, that the evil had been stopped, that he had in essence stopped it when he had walked away from the monster that had sired him. He felt reborn, clean in a way he’d never known, and as the ugliness left him, the void left behind was quickly filled by Jenna’s unquestioning and unending love.
“. . . and so begins the history of the Hawks, and so will it continue in an unbroken line into all eternity . . .”
Jenna read the now familiar words in the tone of a ballad. The lines detailing their own joining, the union of Jenna the Hawk and Kane the Warrior, had appeared the morning after the ceremony, along with the intricate drawing of the newly pledged couple. While it had been startling, it was certainly no more so than anything else that had happened, and they had accepted it with wary wonder.
“I wonder,” Jenna said thoughtfully, “why it did not tell of our joining until it was done?”
Because even a wizard cannot force love, my friends.
Kane nearly dropped the book, and Jenna stifled a cry as Tal’s laughing voice echoed in the room. They both looked around, but they were alone in the cottage. Kane, having been through this before, recovered first.
“You are all right?” he asked. Jenna smiled at him then, as if pleased that had been his first thought, rather than to question how what they had heard was possible.
There was a pause, until Kane began to wonder if the connection was to be that brief. Then, in Tal’s infuriating way, a nonanswer came back.
I am as I have been. But you have things to do.
“Tal—” they both began in irritated unison.
Turn the page, came his voice again. And be well, my friends.
Jenna opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked at Kane. He tilted his head slightly, then nodded at her.
“He is gone.” He sighed. “Perhaps forever, now.”
“I will remember and pray for him always,” Jenna said softly.
“All of us will.”
Kane felt a tightness in his chest, worry for the man who had for so long been his only friend. “He needs it more than any man I know. Now.”
Jenna smiled, and he knew she had not missed the significance of that last word; once he had needed her prayers more than any man living, and she had given them, and her love freely.
“I love you,” she said suddenly, urgently.
Kane’s mouth softened into the smile only Jenna could get from him.
“And I love you,” he said; it came almost easily now, but never, ever lightly. Never without full knowledge of the wonder of it, the power of it.
It was a moment before he remembered Tal’s words and turned a leaf in the book, to what yesterday had been a blank page. He was not really surprised when it was no longer blank; it had happened before, but when he read the words that had appeared his breath caught. His gaze shot to Jenna, who was looking up at him, her face shining with joy.
“You have built weapons all your life,” she said softly. “Can you now build the one thing that most signifies hope for the future?”
“I . . . what?” he said, feeling a bit stunned by the news he could not doubt.
“A cradle,” Jenna whispered.
He pulled her into his arms. “I know nothing of cradles,” he said against the warm fire of her hair. “I know even less of . . . fathers and children, as they should be. But I will learn, Jenna. I swear to you I will learn.”
“Our son, and his brothers and sisters after him, will be a fortunate child to have such a father,” she said, hugging him back so fiercely he reveled in it.
“And it will happen,” he said in awed wonder. “It will go on, and on. Always.”
“And our love will be the beginning.”
Kane stared down at her, saw the courage and heart and spirit of the woman he held so clearly that he wondered anew at the pure glory of having her love. It was a love so pure and strong it would indeed carry down the years, and in that moment he believed that even the family to come generations from now would feel it.
If you feel it half as strongly as I do now, you will be blessed. She is a woman worthy of founding a dynasty, he said to himself, wishing he could send the thought down to these unknown children so far down the years.
Then he felt the warmth of the book he still held.
And he knew that he need not worry. For all the generations of Hawks would know of her, and of their heritage. And he knew with a certainty that he could not question that Jenna Hawk, with her fiery hair and fierce heart and courage, would be the pride of them all.
And our love will be the beginning, she had said.
And there will never be an ending, Kane promised her silently.
And so he stood there holding the woman who had made his most impossible dreams come true; Kane the Warrior wept, and they were tears of joy.
The End
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About the Author
“Some people call me a writer, some an author, some a novelist. I just say I’m a storyteller.”
—Justine Dare Davis
Author of more than sixty books, (she sold her first ten in less than two years) Justine Dare Davis is a four-time winner of the coveted RWA RITA Award, and has been inducted into the RWA Hall of Fame. Her books have appeared on national best seller lists, including USA Today. She has been featured on CNN, taught at several national and international conferences, and at the UCLA writer’s program.
After years of working in law enforcement, and more years doing both, Justine now writes full time. She lives near beautiful Puget Sound in Washington State, peacefully coexisting with deer, bears, raccoons, a newly arrived covey of quail, a pair of bald eagles, and her beloved ’67 Corvette roadster. When she’s not writing, taking photographs, looking for music to blast in said roadster, or driving said roadster (and yes, it goes very fast), she tends to her knitting. Literally.
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