Epilogue

 

The sweltering heat of August in New York was a bit more than a nine-month pregnant woman could bear. At full term and scheduled for delivery in two days, Gabriella couldn’t wait to get it over with. She just wished Damon could be here with her to experience it. But she knew that her warrior would never be able to handle modern-day New York.

The thought made her smile, thinking of her barbarian in Manhattan. She had made it home in time for Christmas, and it was the most horrible holiday she had ever experienced. When she wasn’t bawling, she was eating herself into a frenzy.

She had sold her parents’ house and everything in it; keeping nothing of sentimental value, knowing that she couldn’t take anything with her when she left. She still had her little flat, but even that would eventually be going, along with everything in it. Once the baby was old enough to safely travel, they were going back to England. She prayed with all her being that they would somehow, by some miracle of God, go back to Damon.

In the meantime, she was studying everything she needed to learn how to survive the middle ages. Even things she didn’t think she wanted to learn. She had been studying to be a master herbalist. Taken CPR and safety classes, learned to sew in case she needed to stitch someone up or make clothing. She learned how to make herself dresses, and clothes for her baby. She’d even made Damon a few tunics and learned to crochet a shawl for Rosalynn.

The two days passed quickly as she finished packing the rest of her belongings, sending almost everything off to Goodwill that she wouldn’t be using until her and her baby left. She spent the rest of her time cleaning and sewing. She was rushing around, practically in a frenzy to have everything prepared and ready for her trip back to England. Before she knew it, she was hailing a taxi, heading for the hospital.

It was eight a.m. and already a blistering eighty-seven degrees outside. Thank God for central air, she thought. She spent an hour at admissions before she was led upstairs to the maternity ward. From there it was another three-hour wait before her doctor came into her room.

“So...” Dr. Patel came through the door in a rush. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a tight braid and her dark eyes smiled brightly. She reminded Gabriella of Tanak, with her unassuming nature and her kindness. “Are you ready to have this babe?” She began to check over Gabriella.

“I have never been more ready for anything in my life,” she assured her.

“Then we’ll get you prepped, and I’ll see you in surgery.”

Gabriella winced at the reminder that she’d have to be cut open to have her baby. She knew that there was no other way. She was too small for natural birth, and the son that she carried was simply too big. Dr. Patel estimated that he already weighed between ten and eleven pounds. The doctor teased that she carried a barbarian, the child was so huge. If she only knew, Gabriella laughed to herself.

Taking Gabriella’s hand, her doctor comforted her. “All will be well, my dear. Have no worries. We do this every day, all day long. Your son grows strong and healthy within you, and is ready to face the world.”

Gabriella nodded, tears forming in her eyes. Soon she would hold her son. Damon’s son, in her arms, and she would feel his warmth and love once again.

Three hours later, she had a healthy baby boy weighing in at eleven pounds eight ounces, and he was an amazing twenty-six inches long. He was a chunk, and Gabriella laughed tears of wondrous joy as she held him in her arms for the first time, knowing that the wait wouldn’t be much longer before they would finally try to go home.

* * * * * *

Damon sat at his table in the great hall with a cup of mead in his hand, watching as the last of his servants scurried off to bed. Rosalynn continued to warn him about yelling at his servants. Telling him continually that it wasn’t their fault that Gabriella was gone. Telling him that he’d become entirely too surly and mean even for her to deal with and that if he didn’t get it under control, he was going to push even her too far.

He wondered, as he downed the contents of his cup, if she’d make him a toad. A toad indeed, he snorted. It had been nine months and more since Gabriella had disappeared like mist in his arms. His heart lay shattered in a million pieces, and he no longer cared for anything in life. He had returned to his castle a different man.

Where Richard and Smedley had been unable to break him or best him, fate had taken his life and, in two seconds, ravaged it. Torn it completely asunder and beyond repair. He was nothing without her, and he did not wish to exist without her by his side.

He had freed his cousin from his dungeon and despite Pasquel’s threats, thrown him out of his keep with the warning that if he ever returned or crossed his path, he would die where he stood. Pasquel gathered his men and stormed from the bailey in a cloud of dust.

Since then, Damon had watched over his friend, Tanak, as Rosalynn nursed him back to health. His wound should have killed him. A lesser man surely would have died. But with Rosalynn’s care, he was finally on the mend and actually able to take short walks around the castle; going no further than from his room to the great hall, or out to the bailey to get some well needed sunlight.

But for Damon, it was as though a part of him had died and he wished that he had died right along with it. He barely ate, didn’t want to practice in the lists with his men, leaving the training to John. He only spoke to Tanak or Rosalynn. All he could think of was Gabriella and the child that he would never see. He prayed that somehow she made it home safely and that she and his babe had thrived.

Tipping back another cup, Damon wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his arm and rested his head in the palms of his hands. He was tired of this life, and he was tired of living it. With every thought focused on an end, he passed out on the table.

Rosalynn found him there the next morning as she came into the great hall from checking on Tanak. It was the same every day since Gabriella had gone. Her heart ached for this man, and yet she knew there was nothing she could do. Fate was still in control. The waters this morning showed her a child running through this very castle and hope sprang in her breast for the first time in months. But she knew she could say nothing of it to her lord. She, like him, would have to wait for gods to choose the way. “Get up, you oaf,” she said, shaking him.

Damon stirred beneath her bony fingers. Pushing her hand away, he groggily warned her, “Old woman, if you do not cease your bellowing, I will throw you from this hall myself.”

“As if you could,” she countered.

In the midst of their morning ritual of arguing, a guard came running into the great hall.

“Milord,” he panted.

Damon sat up and slanted open his eyes, squinting at the amount of light pouring in the open door. “Well, what is it man?” he asked, as the guard stood there unspeaking.

“A…a…a...rider,” he stuttered.

“A rider? A simple rider has worked you up into this blather, man?” he questioned, clearly annoyed by the disturbance so early in the morning. “Get me a drink, Rosalynn. My guards are driving me insane.”

“No,” she replied tartly.

“Not just a rider, milord,” the guard continued. “A woman. It looks like, at least as far as the guard from the watchtower can tell, that ‘tis your woman, milord.”

Damon stood so abruptly that the chair crashed over as he cleared the table and shoved his guard out of the way, running through the door so fast that Rosalynn was completely amazed he even remembered how to move that quickly.

He ran through the bailey and into the stable, not waiting for a stable boy to assist. Reaching Fallon’s stall, he grabbed a bit and threw it over his horse’s head quickly, leading him out of the stables. Once outside, he mounted without a saddle, yelled at the guard to open the gates and thundered across the bridge, not waiting for any of his men to accompany him.

* * * * * *

Gabriella held her breath as she watched Damon thunder across the plain. She had moved heaven and earth to get here. She had left the US a month ago and it took her three and a half weeks of wandering the small towns of England near Blackmoor, praying to every God, Goddess, stick, rock, star and anything else in the universe that would listen to her to bring her and her son back to Damon.

Finally, two days ago after stopping for a short picnic near a small creek, she lay in the sun with her son for a short nap. When she woke, everything had changed. Her rental car was gone, the roadway a distant memory. Thank God she had her two bags with her of their clothes and the medicinal bag she had the forethought of packing.

She had taken as much of her cash that she could and bought gold and jewels that she could use to buy what she would need along the way to get her and her son to Damon. And now, watching Damon ride towards her in a frenzy, she knew it had all been worth it. Clutching her son tightly, she kicked her own mount into a gallop.

* * * * * *

Damon couldn’t breathe, he was so distraught with happiness. She was here. She’d come back to him. Somehow she had come back to him. Before their horses could even fully stop, he jumped from Fallon to the ground and pulled her into his arms, kissing her with every ounce of his being. Never wanting to let her go again. Unable to believe that she was real.

As he continued to kiss her senseless and her head began to spin, their son began to fuss in her arms. Reluctantly pulling back from him, Gabriella looked up into Damon’s beautiful silver gray eyes. “God, how I’ve missed you,” she said, tears flowing down her face.

“And I you, my love,” he told her, wiping her tears with his thumb.

Their son began to howl. Damon looked at her sheepishly and she smiled a bright, full smile. “Your son is quite the loud one, milord,” she told him, pulling back the blanket that swaddled the boy.

Damon looked down to see a huge child with a mop of pitch black hair and deep green eyes like his mother’s. His heart was instantly overfilled with love and admiration as he looked from his child to the woman he loved.

“Your son, milord, Michael Sebastian DeGracey, after my father,” she told him.

“And a better name there could not be,” he said, pulling them into his arms.

That night, a great feast was held at Blackmoor. All in attendance danced and drank and celebrated the marriage of their lord, Damon DeGracey, The Dragon of Blackmoor, to his lady, Gabriella.

And as toasts were made and Damon held high his son, he knew that happy endings truly were a reality.