* * *

Ronan looked up as Aidan entered the kitchen with Heather right behind him. The children immediately tittered, particularly the twins and Chloe, whose sparkling eyes met Aidan’s with something so fierce and bright, he blinked.

“Now wha’ is all this?”

With a quelling look at the children that did nothing except make the twins giggle harder, Ronan cleared his throat. “We have a surprise for you two. Ye recall how Lacey’s sister is coming out fer the wedding?”

“Aye.” Lacey and Ronan had already had their handfasting, which was more than good enough for the two of them, but Lacey’s sister, who had no inkling of magic or gods or werewolves, ex-ones or not, needed something more formal. To appease her, the family had planned a small twilight wedding to be held this Saturday. “I may or may no’ recall ye asking me to stand up with ye.” Something that still made Aidan inordinately proud. Ronan had two brothers, after all, brothers he was very close to. Yet he’d chosen Aidan to be his best man.

Ronan gave a solemn nod, but his lips twitched.

“We really do want you there, but well . . . we’ve decided it’d be better to have a daytime wedding, mate.”

Aidan felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Ronan, who for some odd reason seemed to be fighting back a smile, just sat there, his grey eyes dancing.

Aidan frowned, realizing he was the brunt of some joke and not at all happy about it. “Well, unless you’re interested in having a pile of ash fer a best mate, I’m afraid tha’s a wee bit out of the—”

Ronan stretched out one of those massive arms, his hand curled into a fist. For a second, Aidan thought he was going to be hit literally as well as figuratively.

And he’d had just about enough.

“What the fuck?” he snarled, ignoring Moiré’s tsk of disapproval.

Then Ronan’s fingers opened. Heather gasped, but Aidan remained glaring into his friend’s amused face.

“Oh, just look, ye bloody eejit.”

With another curse, this one wisely muttered under his breath, Aidan glanced at Ronan’s palm and froze.

“Tha’s no’—”

“It is.” Lacey was grinning up at him, her hand on Ronan’s forearm. “The ghrian siúlóir. Ronan has been searching under Knockdoon for months and he finally found some. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Aidan paused in the act of lifting the tiny vial from his friend’s outstretched palm, his eyes flickering to Ronan’s.

His old friend shook his head ever so slightly, before saying, “So what do ye think? Is my best man going be there on Saturday or no’?”

Aidan’s fingers tightened on the vial. “Just try and keep me away.”

Not too long after that, Aidan grabbed a bottle of Jameson’s from the sideboard and pushed Ronan out the sliding glass door while their women were occupied making last-minute plans for the wedding.

The two men walked silently down the stone path to Ronan’s cabin, stomping onto the porch but not going inside. Aidan took a long slow pull of the whiskey before passing it to his friend, who was looking up at the waxing moon with a wry smile on his lips. Aidan waited until Ronan took his drink before he spoke.

“How?” he demanded. “We both know yer arse is mortal now. No’ way ye coulda gone into tha’ pit and survived.” Aillen might have been gone, and his Sluagh minions with him, but the other demons sure as hell weren’t. No telling who or what was using the demon king’s former residence at the moment, but it was a safe bet that foul pit hadn’t gone unoccupied for long. “And if ye tell me ye really did risk something so stupid fer me, I swear on Lugh’s bloody throne I’ll—”

“It was Bav,” Ronan said shortly.

Aidan choked on his whiskey.

“Either Aine told her what I was trying to find”—or she’s still watching us all from that damn scrying pool, Aidan thought with less bitterness than usual as he wiped whiskey off his chin—“or she figured it out herself, but she showed up when I was staring down into the bowels of hell, calculating my odds.”

“Fucking madman.” Aidan shook his head, even though Ronan’s sheer determination touched him more than he’d ever be able to express.

“It’s yer own fault. I kept seeing yer pitiful mug tha’ day with Heather, and I . . .” Ronan shook his head, clearing his throat with another shot of whiskey. “Well, I thought ye should damme well get at least one day like tha’ with yer daughter, now tha’ ye had her again and—”

That was it.

Aidan set the bottle of whiskey on the porch railing and wrapped an arm around Ronan’s broad shoulders. It was a silent and very brief embrace. Ronan was the first to pull away, muttering something about having enough cracked ribs in his lifetime, thanks very much, but his voice was thick and Aidan’s own ears were roaring, so he may have misunderstood.

“What happened to worrying about some of my sort getting ahold of this and seeing the world upended in blood and fire?” he said once he was able to speak, reaching for the whiskey again.

“Well, seeing as how Heather finished Abhartach and Sloane got rid of that bastard Declan, I’m no’ too fussed about ye vampires at the moment.”

Aidan grinned. “Aye, my women seem more than a match for the bastards. Present company excluded, of course.”

“Keep telling yourself tha’.” Ronan chuckled.

“So,” Aidan asked, when the bottle was nearly gone and they had both slumped down the wall of the cabin, looking at the stars twirling in the sky. “How much of the stuff did ye and tha’ fucking goddess of death find?”

Ronan was quiet for so long that Aidan finally glanced over. His friend was grinning hard enough it looked like his craggy face might crack.

“Let’s just say, how long has it been since you’ve had a decent tan, mate?”

The wedding was fucking perfect.

Lacey wore blue, the traditional color of Irish brides, or at least it had been back when her husband was born. It suited the fiery little pixie who’d once held a sword to his throat, Aidan thought, suited her right down to the ground.

Mac gave the bride away. They all said he’d earned the right by being the oldest male in the bunch. Not that Lacey needed anyone to give her to Ronan. Anyone could see the man already owned her, body and soul.

Heather was her maid of honor, of course, and flanking her at Ronan’s side, Aidan took his place with his knees weak.

“Buck up, buttercup.” His wife elbowed him surreptitiously in the ribs, her eyes bright. It was just what he needed to put some steel into his spine. He kept his eyes on Ronan throughout the ceremony, but his thoughts were a thousand years away.

All the way back to the night he and a cursed werewolf had met in a glen, certain that one would kill the other. Ronan’s eyes met his over Lacey’s head and the big man grinned, looking so damn happy it was a trifle embarrassing.

Of course, since Aidan was damn sure he’d had the same look on his face the night Ronan and Lacey had stood up for him and Heather, he wouldn’t give his friend grief about it.

He smiled back and added a wink. Much, anyway.

After the words were said, everyone scattered into the shade of the trees, enjoying the respite from the heat of the fine September day. Everyone, that is, except two vampires who stood in the middle of the field, Lugh’s sun beating down on their heads.

“I think I’ll throw out every pair of sunglasses I own,” Heather mused, her arm linked in Aidan’s, her face tilted to the sun. “How in the hell did you stand going without this for so long?”

“About as well as ye might expect. Ye do recall the mood I was in when we met.”

She grinned. “You were a grumpy asshole. Of course, I thought that was mostly because you were horny.”

“Tha’ too.”

He kissed her forehead, then stepped away.

“Think I’ll take me a stroll. Back in a bit, love.”

Heather blinked. “Something wrong?”

“Of course no’,” Aidan said easily. “Just need to stretch my legs for a minute.”

She let him go, but he knew she wasn’t fooled. He’d lied a bit and she’d call him on it later. It wasn’t because he had anything to hide from Heather, but because he hadn’t wanted to alert the others to what he’d seen and ruin the festive mood.

There was a patch of darkness out under a great oak that spread its branches right before the tree line. In the deepest bit of that shadow, Aidan thought he’d seen something glittering. Something like green sparks.

By the time he’d made his way up behind the tree, he knew his instincts had been dead right.

“Hello, Bav.”

She sighed, those red curls waving in the light breeze, bright against her pale cloak. “You really aren’t so arrogant to think that you snuck up on me, do you?”

Aidan started. Actually, he had thought that, but he said nothing, waiting for her to tell him what the hell she was doing here. Nobody invited the goddess of death to a wedding.

Bav kept looking out at the lawn, away from him. “I knew you were coming the moment you left that mortal’s side. I could have vanished, you know. I didn’t care to.” She sniffed. “You don’t know me as well as you think, Aidan O’Neill.”

“There may be some truth to tha’,” Aidan said slowly. “For instance, I suppose I should be saying thank you right now.”

She flinched. “I think we’d both rather you didn’t.”

“Ronan said ye helped with the ghrian siúlóir.”

“He exaggerated. It was all his doing.” Bav smiled tightly without meeting Aidan’s gaze. “I’ve no love for that one, but you certainly picked your friends well.”

“Tha’ I did.”

Bav pulled her robe over those vivid curls and turned to go, then looked back over her shoulder once, not at him, but at the rest of the wedding party.

Aidan followed her gaze, trying to see it as she did. The Fitzpatrick children running over the grass, having an impromptu game of football despite their finery. Ronan and his brothers shouting advice from the sidelines. Lacey’s head cupped to her husband’s wide chest as he played absently with the short copper strands that glistened in the bright sunlight.

Moiré was cutting fresh-baked bread on the trestle table she’d had Daire and Michael set out earlier this morning. Shelagh stood next to her, one hand on her hip, the other curled around a glass of wine as she watched her brood. Both of the women were laughing.

Lacey’s sister, Kate, stood a ways apart from the rest of the group with her own glass of wine, her eyes following Daire’s broad shoulders as he waded into the children’s game, a faint smile on her lips.

Mac was reclining against another oak, reading one of Sloane’s books, his fingers threaded through her golden hair as it lay spread across his lap. She looked up at him in a way that made Aidan’s heart ache with loss, pride and a deep, unshakeable love.

He blinked and turned to see the goddess watching him with an expression that must have mirrored his own closely. No sooner had their eyes met than the look was gone, replaced by the cool indifference of a creature who had lived thrice his lifetime and more. Lived it alone, without ever once finding what he had.

It took Aidan a second to recognize the tightness in his gut as pity. By the time he had, Bav was walking deeper into the woods, her snow-white velvet robes swishing against the grass.

“Bav?”

She stopped, half turning toward him so that he could just make out her profile under the soft cowl. “What is it, Aidan?”

“I hated ye for wha’ ye did. For centuries and centuries, it consumed me.” He stared at her. “I canna scarce remember a time when I didna have the taste of it with every breath I took.”

Her shoulders tightened, but the goddess said nothing, waiting him for him to finish. Above them the huge tree rustled, branches creaking, reminding Aidan of another tree, one soaked in blood and terror. But that tree had been uprooted long ago. He took a deep breath.

“The hate is gone now. I doona know if I can ever forgive ye completely, or tha’ I even should, but . . . Whatever ye did or why ye did it, it led me here. And fer tha’ I will be saying thank ye, like it or no’.”

Her slim hands clenched into fists as the hood fell forward, obscuring her face completely, but not before Aidan’s preternatural eyesight had caught the sheen of tears in those green eyes. It was her only acknowledgement of his words.

Before he could say anything more, the goddess was gone in a cascade of dancing emerald sparks. He had a feeling he’d never see her again. For some inexplicable reason, the thought tightened his throat painfully.

Awareness tickled the back of his neck and the tightness eased. Aidan turned, letting a smirk curl his lips.

“Making sure I’m no’ running off on ye?”

Knowing him better than he knew himself, Heather went with it, even though he knew she’d seen Bav. “As if I have anything to worry about,” she snorted. “You can’t even look at another woman without thinking about me.”

“And ye call me arrogant, Nobody.” His hand slipped around her waist, his eyes drinking in the fine sight of his wife in the daylight. The mix of emotions slowly settled into a feeling he’d long ago forgotten, if he had ever known it at all. Contentment.

Heather smiled, but that violet gaze was soft with concern. “Is everything all right, Aidan?” she asked quietly, glancing once at where the goddess of death had so recently stood.

Aidan didn’t notice. He was looking back over the lawn toward their family and friends. He pulled her into his arms before resting his chin on top of her head. “Everything is so bloody right, it fair makes my head spin.”

Heather finally relaxed against him. It was a moment before she spoke again, and this time the teasing in her voice wasn’t forced, but genuine. “It’ll be spinning again tonight, Aidan O’Neill.”

“Is tha’ a promise then?”

“No.” She ran her nails lightly up his chest, flicking the buttons of his dress shirt before giving him an impish look. “It’s a threat.”

Tossing a throaty laugh over one shoulder, Heather headed out into the sunshine, the golden light swallowing her whole.

With a grin, Aidan followed.