He shook his head, but there was a gentleness in his eyes, a quiet strength that needed no posturing or raise voice to make itself felt. “No, Alexandra,” he repeated “The running is over. I know it must be faced, for both of us. But you’re not doing it by yourself.”
She balled her fists against his chest. “Damn it, Kieran, I don’t want your sacrifice for my sake. This is what you’ve been searching for all your life. Your people, your own kind—”
“You are my kind, Alexandra.”
“You won’t have to wander ever again, looking for a place to belong. This is your home!”
He cupped her cheeks with his hands, catching an errant tear with his thumb. He stroked her skin, both scarred and smooth, his fingers forming a cage to hold her fast.
“You are my home,” he said.
She felt the last shreds of her feeble resistance drift away like snowflakes in the wind.
“It doesn’t matter what happens when we go back,” he said, cradling the back of her head in his palm. “Wherever you go, I go. Nothing can change that.” He brushed his jaw against her hair. “We’re bound, Alexandra. No one can take anything from us ever again.”
“But—”
“I love you, Alexandra.”
Just as she began to shatter, as her knees began to give way and her bones dissolve, Kieran covered her mouth with his. He gave her his strength, his goodness, his acceptance in the kiss, gave her the love he had shown in a hundred ways. She buried her fingers in his hair and pulled him down fiercely, giving back in full measure.
And Alex knew that Kieran was right. It didn’t matter that she was only human. She was his kind, as he was hers.
They were images in a mirror—not in form, but in spirit. When she looked within herself she could find no anger, no fear, no dark foreboding about the future that awaited them. Kieran was free of his past, as she was of hers. They were both through running.
She pulled back, coiling a lock of his hair around her finger. “I guess,” she said wryly, “that you’d have followed even if I’d managed to get away.”
He showed all his teeth. “Wolves are very good hunters.”
“And I still think you’d make one hell of a wolf researcher. I even have a position in mind.”
His eyes narrowed. “I also have a… position in mind.”
She gave a little squeak of surprise as he swept her up in his arms. ” ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane,’ ” he quoted softly.
“You heard that!” she accused, remembering the day she’d discovered him naked in her bed.
He bent his head to hers. “Wolves also have very good hearing.”
She returned his gentle kiss and touched his cheek. “You know it’s not always going to be easy, Kieran.”
He rubbed his jaw against the palm of her hand. “You and I wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves if it were.” Golden light sparked in his eyes. “But I think there’ll be some compensation.”
Epilogue
Alex sat on the porch and gazed down at the last blank page in her journal.
She hadn’t touched it since the day after her first night with Kieran, when she finally dared to put her feelings into words. The feelings that Arnoux had tried to use against her, and failed.
Eight months ago, now. It seemed like forever. Alex rested her hands on the broad curve of her stomach and smiled. A very wonderful forever.
It was time to fill that final page.
She shifted the pen in her hand and began to write.
Dear Mother, I’ve come home at last. Truly home. Everything is more wonderful than I believed it could be. I spent so much of my life closing myself off behind bitterness, blaming myself and the world for things I couldn’t control, instead of learning to change what I could.
I know now that you would never have blamed me for the accident, that you wanted me to live more than you loved your own life. I never needed your forgiveness at all; I needed to forgive myself.