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I walked back and forth, my white dress swishing around my legs to match my nerves. My hands trembled and my heart pounded hard. I knew how today was going to go. There really was only one path. But there was always that tiny chance it’d all go to shit. I wanted it over. I wanted to move forward with my life. I wanted to finally get past this mile marker and move on to the part that had been robbed from me so long ago.
Three months. We’d been out of Faerie for three months and everything in the deal was upheld. I didn’t age those years in Faerie. We were returned to the same exact moment that we had left, and the guys were completely themselves.
I made them take extensive testing at the doctor’s to make sure.
And me? I was human again. I couldn’t feel the magic, I couldn’t use magic, and I looked as I did before I was taken to Faerie.
My heart pounded normally, my temperature was at a human level, and the emotions. It hit so hard. I hadn’t realized how numb being a fae had made me until I had woken up with the guys hovering over me with deep concern.
They had enough time to tell me I’d been out for a day before I broke out crying, grabbed on to all three of them and didn’t let them go until my sister showed up at my hotel room three days later. Then we cried together for another day while she tried to curse me out.
Then I lived. I loved. And I kept crying because it was like my emotions were set to on and then the switch was broken off so that I couldn’t turn them off.
“Dammit, Josie, stop!” Addie said from her chair. She wore a soft pink dress with some ruffles, but not too many. Frankly, I only wore a dress because she was making me. I wanted to wear pants. After all those fancy annoying dresses in Faerie, I wanted nothing to do with them. Only Addie talked me into one. She had always been good at getting what she wanted from me.
“Something’s going to happen,” I said, my words coming out as a wheeze.
She was on her feet in a moment and pushing me down into a chair. “Nothing is going to happen. Nothing. It’s over. You’re home. You’re safe. And we are never letting you go again. Never.”
I nodded as she cupped my face. She talked me through my panic attack, something that had become common in the last two months. I kept waiting for shit to hit the fan and each day, I kept learning about how broken I was.
But at least I was with the guys again, and shit, they were good at putting me back together every time I broke. They were patient, helping me through all the fears I had refused to let permeate my thoughts for the last hundred years.
“It’s time. Are you ready?”
I nodded.
She helped me to my feet and played with my hair a little bit, fluffing it up before taking my arm and leading me out the door. Most likely she was worried something was going to take me away again and that was why she was gripping me so tightly. Or she thought I was going to make a run for it. If there was any direction that I ran to, it was to the guys, never away from them.
About time. All that pacing was making me dizzy. Berry followed behind. I glanced back at him with a warm smile, still in disbelief that he was there and that he could still talk to me. He had shown up last month and bitched me out for leaving him behind. It had taken him a while to find a way back to me.
But he did. He was still determined to never leave my side. I loved him even more for it.
What fae followed a human back to the human realm?
We got to the doors and my dad stood there with a heartbreaking smile. Another thing in my life that had been repaired. Two months ago, Addie dragged them to me, and I spent a week crying with them. Explaining to them what had happened to me was impossible. They wanted me to go to the police. I’d had to explain to them that it was fruitless. They still wanted me to go even now.
I wasn’t sure what they thought happened to me. I know I hadn’t given them any hints and Addie hadn’t either. Judah made sure she was incapable of speaking of the fae world with anyone who didn’t know about it.
Dad gave me a shaky smile, his gray mustache quivering. A new thing for me to see on him. I had always remembered the man as clean-shaven with a head of black hair. Now it was peppered gray, and he’d grown a mustache and beard but kept it nicely trimmed. He was also stronger. I always remembered him as a thin man, but he looked good. Fit.
Addie made it a point to tell me it was him working through his stress at my disappearance plus wherever he and Mom traveled in the world. He had to be strong to keep her safe, apparently. I hated that thought.
“I never thought I’d get to see this,” he said in a thick, gravelly voice. “To see you in a wedding dress, to be able to walk you down the aisle to your men.” He shook his head.
I grabbed his hand hesitantly, still feeling weird about touching him, and squeezed. “Let’s do this, shall we?” I asked.
He swallowed and nodded, eyes glistening as he smiled. The music started, the doors opened, and the lane before me was lined with flowers, friends, and family. My mother stood in the middle, taking a picture, crying. Her brown hair was away from her face, her cheeks flushed, her eyes blurry as she tried to fight against her emotions. I blinked furiously, still amazed that I was with them again. My parents. My sister. Berry.
And the men of my life.
Mom stepped back and behind her were the three guys I was never going to let go ever again.
All of them were drool worthy.
All of them reflected back at me the love I felt for them.
All of them were finally officially tying their lives with mine.
Finally. I got exactly what I wanted.
An ‘us’ with my loves.
