Daegan slung his arm over Andromeda’s shoulder and donned a cocky grin, “Well, Andromeda will be old enough to ascend the throne in a few years. I figure she needs a mate to rule with her and pop a few heirs out with. Might as well be me.”
“In your dreams,” Andromeda snorts and elbows him in the chest. Daegan grunts and rubs the spot.
“Do you actually like this guy or is this all a game?” Thane asks, honestly curious.
Andromeda turns to Daegan and smiles slowly.
“I hate you,” she murmurs before lacing her fingers at the back of his neck and tugging lightly at the black braids cascading down his back as she pulls him in for a possessive kiss.
“Glad I asked,” Thane shakes his head and turns away.
Breaking away from Daegan, Andromeda startles Thane by lurching forward and hugging him. Her lips are velvet against the weathered skin of his cheek, gone far too soon for Thane’s liking as they traveled to his ear, “I shall never forget you,” she whispered.
Then she was gone, disappearing into the surf with Daegan at her side.
As his friends began drifting back to the ruins of the Warrior camp, Thane remained rooted to the spot even after Andromeda was long gone from sight. Thane sighed as his hands curled and uncurled at his sides.
As silent as the trained assassin she was, Octavia appeared behind him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Without turning round, Thane grabbed her hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing it gently and conveying without words how grateful he was to have her love and that he was gods-blessed enough to have her at his side until the gods came to ferry them to the other side. For though for a time Thane had harbored a silly crush on Andromeda and though both Andromeda and Octavia were beautiful, Andromeda was the dangerous, poisonous kind of beauty her people were known for while in Octavia he saw relief, like a refreshing glass of water soothing a parched throat.
Everyone had lost people they’d loved these past months, friends and family they’d fought and laughed and loved beside their entire lives but in helping reshape Vacantia, and the world, they would ensure that the memory of those taken too soon were never lost to time.
Thane and Octavia stood on the coast wordlessly as night bled into day and for the first time in many, many years the mist cleared away from the sea and the sun shone brightly on Vacantia.
Acknowledgments
Monsters & Mist was the first book that I wasn’t sure was ever going to be done. Every time I thought I could say it was “complete” something else would come up that I’d had to go back and work on again. Basically Monsters & Mist was the 2020 of writing books.
Thank you to all of my writer friends who encouraged me to keep going and cheered me on when I felt like giving up. You know who you are.
Thank you to my mom, Debbie Berndt, and my sister, Baylie Berndt, for once again giving me a place to stay when things got turned upside down.
And to the readers, thank you for your patience and continued support.
About the Author
TAYLOR FENNER is the author of seven Young Adult and New Adult novels and several short stories. Her Young Adult Fantasy Retelling, CURSEBREAKER was shortlisted for the 2017 Ozma Award for Fantasy Fiction.
Taylor is a twenty-something book junkie who devours books in most genres, although she has a soft spot for thrillers and horror novels and dreams of writing one someday.
Taylor lives in Clintonville, Wisconsin with family and her two cats, Tiger and (the aptly named) Houdini. Besides writing, she loves horror movies - she says classic horror is the best - as well as cooking, Heath bar lattes, bullet journaling, and obsessively planning for Halloween starting in July (it’s never too early). You can follow Taylor on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.
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