Robert fought to speak, but he had no breath left and he tried to raise the dagger in a futile attempt to have it end otherwise and fell back on the bed dead.

Slatter threw a blanket over him and left the room.

“My father doesn’t wish to be disturbed until morning,” Slatter said to the first servant he saw and left the MacBlair keep without a backward glance or an ounce of regret.

Willow stood by the window in the bedchamber watching the snow accumulate against the window, the dark night obscuring everything else from view. It had been over a week since she’d last seen her husband and each day he didn’t return home, her worry mounted.

She had told everyone that her husband had an important matter to see to and he’d be home soon. No one questioned her explanation, but she knew many didn’t believe her. All except Snow.

“He’ll be home soon,” Snow would say every day.

And every day that he didn’t return, she feared he had died.

She pressed her hand to her stomach. She prayed and prayed that wasn’t so since she had something important to tell him.

The door opened slowly and she didn’t turn to look since Seanmhair had a habit of stopping by at night to see how she was.

“Pining away for me?”

Willow turned, tears rushing from her eyes as she rushed to her husband’s open arms.

She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face against his chest sobbing.

Slatter scooped her up and carried her to the bed and sat cradling her in his lap. Her sobs tore at his heart. “All is well. I’m well. Don’t cry, mo ghaol. I’m home and home is where I’ll stay.”

She couldn’t stop sobbing as she spoke. “I… thought… I…lost you. My fault.”

“No. No, not your fault, mo ghaol. It had to be done.” His grandmother would have explained everything to her so she wouldn’t think he had left her and would never return. He knew if he had explained it all, his wife would have either insisted on going with him or have followed him and he hadn’t wanted that. “It’s over, finished. We’re free. No more past to haunt me.”

Her sobs eased. “You’re never to go away like that again. You can never go anywhere without me.”

She wanted to know that he would be the Slayer no more. That it was done and over and that was fine with him. He’d served as the Slayer for enough years. Now he wanted something else. He wanted a good life with his wife.

He kissed her wet cheeks. “I have no problem with that, wife, though,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes. “You do owe the Slayer.”

She couldn’t keep a small smile from surfacing. “And what is it he wants from me?”

He brushed his lips across hers and whispered, “Your love always and forever.”