Wakefulness came slowly to Stray and for that she supposed she should be thankful.

After all, she thought, smiling up at Logan’s profile, she hadn’t really slept properly in months and months.

Not since leaving Illunis. Not even on the road with the Company of Miracles. Every night she’d tossed and turned, always near to waking. The knowledge that she wasn’t safe- that nothing she did was safe- setting fear growling at the top-most layer of her mind like a hungry wolf. But when she’d fallen asleep last night, safe in the heart of the waterfall and in the arms of her Sunlight Lock, Stray had finally let herself relax. Let go, in a way that she could not have previously imagined. For she was with Logan, and they were safe, and she was finally where she was meant to be-

Not even the Phoenix could pull them apart now, she mused, her smile widening.

Logan’s arms tightened around her, the length of his body a warming comfort at her back, and she felt rather than heard him chuckle as he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

“You’re awake,” he said without preamble. His hands stroked upwards, across her arms as he buried his nose in the neck.

Her skin tingled as Logan murmured something that sounded like “…still smell so good.”

Stray grinned at him, no shyness now. No reticence. “So do you,” she murmured, turning in his embrace and reaching down to kiss her way across his chest. Licking. Suckling. Nipping. Any semblance of maidenly modesty apparently lost in the night. Logan groaned, a pleasure-drenched sound, and she almost purred in answer as she felt his arms tighten around her. Sweat-streaked skin and wiry, springy hair tickling her cheeks and nose, his greater weight pressing her tightly into the ground as he rolled her body beneath his. His gaze collided with hers, hazel to brown and they both smiled, unable to help themselves. The simple, honest happiness bubbling between them more than Stray had ever let herself believe would be hers. Logan closed his eyes, touching his forehead to hers and breathing in deeply, as if taking her scent into himself.

For the first time since she had known him, Stray thought he looked…peaceful.

“I knew you would be worth the waiting,” he said softly then.

Stray frowned, placing a tiny kiss between his eyebrows. “You were waiting for me?”

He nodded. “Aye, for you. For this. For all of it. Sometimes I thought that you wouldn’t come to me, but Ororo always told me to hold my course and in this she was right.”

And his eyes opened, his smile genuine, almost boyish. He gestured to the grotto in which they lay before brushing his hand gently across her cheek.

“I began my time in the Twelvelands in this cave, not knowing whether I would live through the night,” he told her softly then. “That is how I knew to bring you here, that is how I knew my way to Shaw’s Manor when the Company of Miracles began their journey to Emmalaine’s wedding. You remember how I was on the journey, my nightmares and bad tempers?” Stray nodded. Oh, how she remembered. “Well, that was because I was remembering what had happened to me the last time I was in these lands. You see, Stray-” He took a deep breath. He seemed to be working himself up to something.

“You see, this is where I washed up when I was shipwrecked.”

The girl gasped at that and he nodded to her in acknowledgement, pressing a kiss to her palm. She knew it was a ridiculously unnecessary reaction, but she tightened her arms protectively around him all the same, as if the sea could steal in here and take him away. Her mind flashed back to the Phoenix and suddenly the creature’s words made sense: He deserves his mate and his quietness, deserves to travel the moon-burnished sea.

So her beloved had been a sailor: She had not known as much.

But he was still talking. “I made my way here, my ship lost, the storm which had claimed it raging outside,” he was saying. “This place called to me from the shore, told me that I would be safe here- And safe I was. I had to crawl here, half dead, half broken- For a long many years I felt like I would never be anything else- But this place helped me survive it.What I found here helped me survive it.”

And he reached down, lightly kissed her nose. His smile was serious.

“You see,” he told her, “the first night I slept here, I dreamed of you.”

His voice dropped at the memory then, turning gravelly. A burning, seductive grin spreading slowly his face as to counteract the darkness of his words. An answering warmth flushed through Stray, making her skin feel hot and tight, overloaded with the memory of pleasure. But she couldn’t let him simply drop something like that last statement into their conversation and not pursue it- No matter how he was looking at her.

“I beg pardon,” she murmured, pulling her mouth away from his, “but did you just say you dreamt of me?”

Logan nodded, as if this were simply to be expected. And mayhap in the land from whence he came, it was. “Aye, I dreamt of you. Of course I dreamt of you. Or rather, I dreamt of my Moonlight Lock that first night I slept here.”

Stray frowned, pushing herself upright. “But if that is so then why did you try to push me away when you first knew me?” she asked. “Why did you resist me so much in the beginning?”

If anything, Logan’s smile turned chagrined. Some of the light dimmed in his eyes. “You must understand lass,” he told her, “I dreamt that night that I would find my Moonlight Key in this land, though all my previous years of searching in my own country had proved fruitless. I did not dream that you were she. And why should I have? I assumed that my mate would be similar to myself in both years and temperament, similar to me in all things. I did not dream that she would be young and lovely as you, nor a rich man’s daughter. I did not dream that she would be both brave and tender, as you so surely are.” And his gaze turned grave, eyes burning into hers.

Stray’s belly gave am queer, giddy little flip.

“So you did not know me when you saw me?” she guessed.

He nodded. “My life has not been an easy one, Stray,” he answered quietly. “Though there are plenty of others on whom Lady Austerity has sharpened her axe far more harshly than I. I dared not dream such as you would be for me: Such, it seemed to me, would be folly on a massive, goddess-angering scale. And if I had taken you and turned out to be wrong, what harm would that have done you? You would have had your heart broken, you would have been left bereft of your maidenhead and the chance to marry where you chose because of my rashness and lust. I would not- could not- permit that to happen. I had to keep you safe.” He shrugged. “So I told myself that no matter what I felt I must be mistaken, that you could not possibly be the one who was meant for me-”

“But I am.” Stray’s voice spoke over him; It brooked no disagreement. She really hoped he wasn’t working his way up to inflicting any on either of them. “And you are the one meant for me. Do you not accept that, Logan, is that why you tell me this story?”

Again her stomach flipped nervously, sudden fear making her nerves spark.

She need not have worried however. He blinked at her in surprise, obviously reading her expression, reaching out a hand to rest it against her wrist. “Of course not,” he said quietly. “I accept- I would not have brought you here had I any doubts. We would not have lain together if I had any doubts. I just wanted you to know my tale: Not another soul does, save for Ororo. It was she who found me on the road, brought me to Father Javier and the Company of Miracles when I was half dead from starvation. It was she who convinced me that living was a wise choice, no matter what I might have thought at the time. And today I am happy she did so, for today…” He took a deep breath. “Today I didn’t have to dream of you. Today you were real for me.

Today you were mine.”

And his sudden smile was so bright it dimmed the very morning sun outside, so bright no fire or gold or even phoenix-flame would ever dim it.

In that moment Stray vowed that she would give him cause to smile like that, broadly and often and well.

The werewolf took her hand in his then, pressing it to his chest gently. Taking the other, planting another kiss firmly on her wrist. Stray’s worry eased, the realisation that he just wished to have honesty between them making her glad. The fact that they were not about to start their first day together with an argument a massive relief. “I just wanted you to know who I am and what I have done, what you mean to me lass,” Logan said softly.

He’d begun kissing his way down her throat again, confession apparently over, his mind on more important things.

Not that Stray minded. “And I thank you for it, my Logan,” she answered simply, pressing a quick kiss to his wrist then taking his lead, kissing his own throat gently. Pushing him down onto his back, her own, native hungers roaring back to life. Logan grinned at her enthusiasm and she at his, the realisation that this day was getting off to a truly wondrous start making both of laugh together-

And for the next few hours, wondrous is what things most certainly were…