Fisher (Prince of Tigers, #3) - Kathi S. Barton Page 0,34

best things in life, and I’m not sure if someone is going to come along and tell me it was all a joke and that it’s not real. It is real, isn’t it, Fisher? I mean, just because I’m a little stressed out, it doesn’t mean you’re going to tell me you don’t love me, are you?” He told her he’d never do that. “I’m happy to hear that. Because I’ve fallen in love with you. I don’t know when it happened, but I only just realized I’ve been in love with you since you spoke to me in the middle of the night.”

“I have loved the thought of you since I was old enough to realize I’d have a mate at some point in my life. But since meeting you, holding you, I’ve realized that none of my thoughts about what it might be like were ever close to the real thing. You are, without a doubt, the best thing that has ever happened to me.” She came to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I love you, Piper. Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” He sat her down on the table and got down on one knee. “Oh, I so love your parents right now. For teaching you the correct way to woo a woman, and to be the most romantic person I’ve never known.”

He pulled the ring out of his pocket. Aurora had helped him put the beautiful amethyst into a ring. Not only was the gem on the top, but she had fashioned a band to go with it that had the gem circle it in a beautiful pattern of alternating diamond and the dark purple of the stone itself.

“I don’t know what will come with this ring. The others got magic that surpassed what they already had. Then again, there might not be anything more with it than my undying love.” He put it onto her finger, pushing it up to her knuckle. It fit around her like it had been made to fit on the first try. “I love you with all of my heart. I will keep you safe and from any harm for the rest of our lives together.”

Looking up at Piper when she moaned, he saw her body stiffen, her head thrown back as great spikes of light came from her. The color wasn’t white, as he had expected, but every shade of purple that he could have imagined. When she looked down at him, her eyes were bright too. The color of the amethyst on her finger paled by the new color of her eyes.

She said his name twice before he was able to stand. Whatever was happening to her, it was doing the same to him. Reaching blindly for Piper, filling his hands with her flesh, in a passing thought, he realized that her skin wasn’t hot as he had expected it to be, but cold. Like the frozen ponds he’d skated on as a child.

Fisher woke in bed. It took him several minutes to remember what had happened and how he’d gotten here. Sitting up slowly, his body aching in a way he’d not felt for a very long time, he looked at the woman beside him. Piper seemed to have weathered better than he had. He told her how sore he was.

“I am as well. I was just lying here thinking about getting up to pee, but my body tells me it’s not ready for that sort of movement.” He laid back down. “You have a streak of white in your hair. I don’t remember seeing that before.”

He looked at her. “You do as well. It’s bright white. Not gray, but a shiny white.” He touched it with his fingers and smiled at her. “It’s soft. Like silk running through my fingers. Or even a waterfall that comes from a high mountain top in the middle of summer. We have one, by the way—a watering hole. As cats, we can go there and play around. There isn’t any worry of anyone being around, so we might end up there all day.”

“I think it’s a tad cold for that now, don’t you?” He wouldn’t care if there was a foot of snow on the ground if she had wanted to go now. Fisher would have given her the world if she asked him for it. Leaning down, he was so close to kissing her when she stopped him. “If you kiss me now, I’m going to strip you