by LM Spangler
Naida did love him. She wanted forever with him. Fate had granted her a second chance, and she’d be damned if she’d screw up again.
The words passed her lips before she could censor them. “Marry me.”
Coop lifted his head and met her gaze. “You want to be my wife again?” He punctuated each word with a deep plunge.
Her eyes drifted shut, and she groaned. “Yes.”
He began a brutal pace. Each push ignited small fires, sending her spiraling toward release. She met him stroke for toe-curling stoke.
Coop’s heart raced against her chest. His breathing became fast and labored. “Oh, God,” he moaned against her neck.
His soft plea sent her into another orgasm. The heat roiled through her, leaving her limbs weak and heavy.
He pounded her into delirium before throwing his head back and howling his own release, grinding his hips against hers until he had completely emptied himself inside her.
Naida’s arms fell to her sides as he collapsed beside her. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her snug against him. He brushed his lips over her temple. “How’s the headache?”
She snorted. “What headache?”
His warm breath feathered her skin as he chuckled. “Good.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you love me, Coop?”
He lifted himself, resting his weight on his elbow. “I’ve never stopped loving you.”
“Do you love me enough to risk your life? Because tonight is just the beginning. We’d be paired like this many, many times. Perhaps multiple times a day.”
“I’m not worried. We’re magic together. Yes, I’ll marry you again. I love you, Naida. With all of my being.”
She snuggled more closely to him. “I love you, too, Cooper.”
He laughed and laid his head back on the cushion. “Don’t call me Cooper.”
Naida would soon be calling him “husband” once again. It felt right. She should have given him the benefit of the doubt three years ago.
Instead, fear had caused her to run. To leave the one man she’d ever loved.
She grinned as she stared at the dancing reflections on the ceiling.
Now, she’d always be running into his arms.
Epilogue
Three months later
“We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty,” the madam foreperson declared.
Mutters erupted in the courtroom. Judge Hawker banged her gavel. “Order. Order!”
The crowd slowly quieted as all eyes fell upon her.
She addressed the young woman who’d just received a second chance. “You will be escorted back to the prison where you will then be released. You will gather your belongings and be free to live your life. I hope you will think again before taking someone’s life, though this time it was deemed justifiable. Please follow the bailiff. Court dismissed.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The justice watched as the defendant hugged her attorneys, Cooper and Naida Martin. She fought the urge to grin at the newly married couple. They acted like newlyweds, with their gentle caresses and soft smiles.
Judge Hawker hoped the second time was a charm.
She rose from behind the bench and walked into her chambers, followed by reporters, none of whom she paid any mind to. The chamber’s hardwood door slammed solidly in the throng’s faces, canceling out the questions and camera flashes.
The blinds lowered by remote, and Judge Hawker was closed off to the world. She removed her robe and carefully hung it on the brass coatrack. Today was the last day she’d need to wear it. She’d informed the attorneys she’d worked with that she was moving cross country to care for her ailing mother. That she’d taken a job out west.
The robe wasn’t needed anymore. The whole chamber wouldn’t be needed anymore. It had served her purpose.
Now, it was time to move onto the next couple in need of her … special kind of therapy.
She had reunited Coop and Naida. Having given the young woman’s life back was a bonus.
Judge Hawker moved in front of one of three mirror panels gracing the wall opposite the huge desk that she had briefly called her own. An expensive designer suit hung off the body of a sixty-year-old woman with a hunched back and a wrinkled, craggy face.
It simply wouldn’t do, anymore.
A bright light began to glow in her mid-section and then spread until it engulfed her completely.
Her previous clothing disintegrated, falling away from her body, replaced by a lightweight sweater and well-worn, comfortable jeans.
The light faded away.
Gone was the aged woman. In her place stood a tall, young lady with long, curling, auburn hair.
Her grin revealed two rows of gleaming, white teeth, perfectly aligned.
A wood panel opened on the sidewall of the chambers, usually hidden. Eldritch Bonworth stepped into the room from a passageway that led to a secret exit, usually reserved for moving higher profile persons from the courthouse. “Glad to see you lost the façade of the old crone, Aphrodite.”
She glanced down at herself. Yes, her goddess form suited her so much better. “Judge Hawker served her purpose. The offspring of the shaman and the nymph are together again.”
Eldritch scratched the thatch of springy, white hair atop his head. Unlike the Greek goddess standing before him, he was as human as they come. He descended from a long line of people entrusted with the secret of the gods and goddesses, assigned to help when they graced the Earth with their presence. “Why do you care so much about these creatures? They are the scorned, the banished. Vampires, lycans, and a mix of other species of those fallen from grace.”
The answer was simple to Aphrodite. She had loved once. Loved a man who had fallen out of favor with the other gods and goddesses on Olympus. They had banished him to Earth to live among the humans. Gone was his immortality. He had died alone.
And she had lost him. Her love. Her life.
“I believe in those who are destined to love, to a life together. Coop and Naida are two of those people.”
Eldritch smiled. “You’re playing Cupid. Does he know you’re trying to replace him?”
Aphrodite laughed, the sound light and airy, a far cry from the cackle of the judge. “I’m the goddess of love. I outrank him.”
“That you do. Who’s next on your list?”
Aphrodite shrugged. “I’ll know them when I see them. Let’s go.”
Together, they exited the chamber.
As they stepped into the sunshine and cool temperatures of the early spring day, Aphrodite smiled to herself.
Yes, she’d know them when she saw them.
After all, she had been right about Cooper and Naida.
The End
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