life. I lost a lot of hope after you died and then the ravaging came. But you were right.” She glanced back and smiled at her mate. “I met a wonderful person who I love very much. I’m going to be going with him, so I won’t be around much anymore, but I’ll be keeping you in my heart and taking you along with me even if I can’t be right here watching over your rest. I love you all so much, and hope to make you proud someday. I have a lot of time to work on it, after all,” she said with a dry chuckle.
Standing up, she brushed off her knees and stepped back to Silvas’s side. He pressed a kiss against the side of her head.
“Are you sure, my love?” he whispered. “We can stay a little longer. Dorinda did say that the forest would sleep for a while if we couldn’t return immediately. If we want to spend a little time here, we can.”
Diana leaned into his touch and shook her head, a smile on her lips. “No. I think I’m ready. I’ve been living here for a long time, never really happy and just going through the motions. It’s well past time for me to realize that this isn’t home for me anymore. You’re my home, and we need to be with Arx and in our forest. It needs us. I realize all the connections I made with the forest and those living in it have become my family too. Time to go home to them.”
“You are wise, uxorem.”
“You’re a good ati, just as I said you would be,” Raskyuil interrupted as he lumbered forward.
He placed an unlit cigar between his teeth, his long green tail tucking around him. Diana looked pointedly at it and his smile widened around it.
“Since when did you start smoking cigars?” she teased.
“A couple months ago on the road, I was offered one in trade and discovered that I like them,” he said with a chuckle. “Proves that the human world does have some decent things worth keeping.”
Diana laughed. “Well, if a cigar does it for you, then whatever it takes.” Her smile died as she considered him seriously. “Are you sure you won’t come home with us?”
Raskyuil glanced at Silvas for a length of time before shaking his head. “Nah. My time is done in the Eternal Forest. I think I’m going to keep exploring this world, maybe starting a family or a clan of my own like they did in the ancient days.”
Stepping forward, Diana wrapped her arms around him. “I hate that we are just brought back together and I’m not going to see you again. I owe you so much. I don’t even know how it is that you managed to show up in New Orleans when we did.”
“I was there for a few months, just after it went to ground. I knew you were looking for Cacus but I wasn’t sure what it was. With my previous experience I stuck around and tried to help the vampires shore up defenses and get into a training drill. I figured Selvans here would show up sooner or later. You surprised me, though. I never expected to see you showing up for war when you had your slice of peace and quiet.”
“I guess I am a little harder to get rid of, and quiet just doesn’t seem to work out for me. Probably a good thing too, considering all the craziness that everything seems to get up to in the Eternal Forest.”
His grin widened as he lit his cigar and nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad to hear that you are going back. Maybe someday our paths will cross again.” His eyes slid back over to Silvas and he inclined his head with respect. “Take care of your mate—and don’t lose her again.”
“Never,” Silvas swore, his arm looping around her protectively.
Raskyuil nodded, lit his cigar, puffed on it a few times, and ambled away, leaving Diana alone with Silvas in front of the headstones. Diana stared after him, her lips drawn into a thin line.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?”
Silvas didn’t answer immediately, but his breath brushed over her in a sigh. “I think he will be eventually. He has a lot of anger to work through, much of it my fault, though he has struggled with his own demons for a long time. The Eternal Forest has been a hard place for many generations, and it has been especially