Alphas of Black Fortune Complete Series (24 page)

They returned to the island with nearly double the people they’d carried when they left. It had been nearly a year since Cressida had seen the island last, and watching its proud emerald peak rise up through the horizon again filled her heart with a calm and contentment that she had not felt since the first time she’d held her son in her arms. Now she felt the joy of both, standing at the forecastle gazing up at the island’s mountain brow, her son nestled in her arms.

Reza stood beside her, his gaze moving always between the island and her, and now her son as well. Protective. Adoring. The boy had James’s look, in the end, and so they’d named him Harry Esterbrook Kelly, but Cressida had said that they would raise him together. All of them. The first new addition to this strange den, built on an island of tigers and protected by a mystical jewel.

“You shall have all the fruit you could ever want,” Cressida cooed to the infant, shooting Reza a teasing grin.

He snorted. “And your mother will see you raised to loot and pillage.”

She laughed. “And your
fathers
will see you roar and howl. You are going to have a strange life, Harry.”

“An
amazing
life,” Kelly called from the wheel as he guided them into the little bay where they would drop anchor. For now.

Cressida loved her mates, and she loved her son, but her heart would always be wild. And she thought that one day—perhaps not soon, but
one day
—she would weigh anchor again and have another adventure. Perhaps with one of her mates, perhaps with her son, or perhaps on her own after all. That was as she liked it: free and unpredictable,
possible
and new. She would never abandon Reza and Kelly, not really, but her ship was still out there somewhere. And someday she fully intended to take it back.

But for now, there was love and Harry and this incredible new home.

They’d seen the ship approach, and those who had stayed behind met them on the beach. Cressida was delighted to see Prija and Fat Tom hand in hand, and they came forward to gush over Harry and exchange firm handshakes, meet Ella and Hilda and the other women and children, and lead them from the beach up to the mountain. There were gifts from the tribe along the way, fruit and handwoven mats, saris from the women and skins from the warriors. In the long months since they’d been gone, Fat Tom had organized the bears left behind, and Prija had called in some of the women of the tribe, and together they had rebuilt the rope bridge, safer and sturdier, giving them all a much easier way up and down the mountain. And where the Keeper’s sanctuary had once been, they had constructed a network of huts not unlike the tribal village, at the center of which was the cave and the light pool, left untouched, where Cressida and Reza and Kelly would live with Harry.

That first evening, they shared a celebratory meal with the tribe. Chief Sajja blessed Harry on behalf of the island, and Prija returned the Jewel of So Sur to Cressida, its rightful Keeper. Having the weight of it around her neck once more truly did feel like coming home, and Cressida sat by the fire with Harry in her arms. She watched Kelly arm wrestle with Chaiya, listened to Reza sing to Kamala’s infant daughter, born while they were away as well, and felt Harry’s tiny hands toying with the jewel between her breasts. Her heart was so full of light and gratitude that she had to wipe a few happy tears from her eyes. No wonder she had never been satisfied by the rules and boring men, by fine houses and clothes and baubles. Her heart had known that this was out in the world, that this perfect bliss was possible. Her soul had driven her to find it, to find them, to find this. This, then, was home. And perhaps this, too, was freedom. Loving unabashedly, living unchained. Cressida hugged her son close, the Jewel of So Sur between them, and knew contentment at last.

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