"I saw him kissing you," he muttered, skin growing hot.

She stood very still, holding his gaze. "I wasn't kissing back. He caught me by surprise."

Lannes nodded, digging a claw into the wood block. "And?"

"And he was a boyfriend, I guess. Tennis player. Doctor. Voted most likely to succeed in his college yearbook." She smiled wryly. "Those were the first three things he told me when he found out I had amnesia."

"Ah." Lannes felt rather ill. "Accomplished. I suppose handsome should be added to the list."

"I suppose." She walked toward him, slowly. Lannes held steady, his heart hammering. She was so very beautiful, and he was so very relieved to see her that he could have sunk down on his knees and stayed there.

"I called Will," she said. "He told me how to get here."

"I wanted you to have freedom," he replied. "To make your new life without...me hanging around your neck."

"After all we went through?" Lethe asked him, smiling gently. She stopped in front of him, very close. "I have to ask you something. I have to ask if you still want me."

It was hard to breathe. "You shouldn't have to ask. You know what I feel."

Her gaze searched his face, and there was a pain in her eyes that mirrored his own enough that he reached up and slid his knuckle along the soft skin of her jaw. She closed her eyes, leaning in to his touch, and he bent down and kissed her mouth.

Lethe leaned into him, shuddering. "I wished you could have been there. I couldn't stop thinking of you. It was awful. Not in any magical weird way. That subject didn't even come up. It's just... I don't know them. My own parents, my friends. I think... I think I must have been some kind socialite before. They expected me to be a certain way, and I wasn't like that. Not anymore. It disappointed them a little."

"They'll learn to accept you."

"Maybe." Lethe kissed his throat. "They want me to live with them. They want to take care of me until my memory returns."

His gut tightened. "That's kind of them."

Lethe laughed quietly. "Tell me how you really feel."

How he really felt? He hardly believed there were words for that.

Lannes held her waist and picked her up. She wrapped her legs around his hips with an ease that stole his breath.

His wings arched, spreading around them. Lannes, his body growing hot and hard, pushed closer to her.

"Tell me," Lethe said.

"I want you here," he rasped. "I want you with me. I want to care for you and love you and have you with me every moment, every day, for as long as we live. I want to be the one to protect you. Not them, not anyone else, ever. And all those...handsome doctors and tennis players and men who know their wine can just... go away. Because I might not be as handsome as them, and I may not even be as human as them, but they will never believe in you the way I do, and they will never know you as I do, and they will never, never, come within a breath of loving you as much as I do. Never, Lethe. And if ever there should be a man who loves you more, then I bow to him. Because you deserve nothing less."

She stared at him, eyes red rimmed, glistening with unshed tears. He felt rather weepy himself.

"I would have settled for some help unloading my bags from the car," she whispered. "Because, you know, I was going to move in whether you wanted me or not. But what you just said was..."

"Better than luggage?" Lannes asked.

"Yes," she said simply, tears finally spilling free. "Yes, Lannes. I think maybe you're better than anything I could have imagined. And I'm glad I don't have my memories. I hope I never do. Because when I look back, fifty years from now, I want all my memories to begin with you."

"It won't be easy," he rumbled. "There's so much against us."

Lethe stood back from him, and pulled a pocketknife from her pocket. He stared, startled, as she unfolded the blade.

"I learned something by accident," she said. "Yesterday."

"Um," he said, and then bit back a shout as she dug the blade into her hand. Blood welled. She paled, hissing. He grabbed her wrist, but she said, "Wait," and though he wanted to shake her, and though it terrified him, he did as she said.

And the cut, right before his eyes, healed.

"We did something in those woods. I don't know what," she whispered. "Or...maybe the Sidhe queen did it? Either way...maybe there are some things we won't have to worry about."

An image flashed from her mind; Lethe, gray and wrinkled, in a wheelchair, ancient-looking, and him, still as he was. Fear tightened his stomach. He had thought of this, too, and it was his nightmare.

"I would never leave you," he whispered. "You know that."

Lethe held up her healed hand, cheeks flushed. "Maybe it won't be a concern."

He closed his eyes, dragging her near. "We'll figure it out, one way or the other. We've handled worse."

"To h.e.l.l and back," she told him. "I'll fight for you with my last breath."

"And I'll love you with mine," he said, and wrapped her in his wings.

end.