CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Edge of the World

Lady Catherine stepped out of a basin placed on the floor and perched on the corner of her writing table to dry her legs on a towel. Phemie tossed the water out the tower window, then lifted a white muslin nightgown high so that her mistress could work her arms into the sleeves. Phemie had ignored the message brought by the two lads, "Be off wi' ye until the mornin'." Tonight of all nights Lady Catherine would need her ministrations.

 Cool night air blew  in like a blessing: Lady Catherine seated herself on the windowsill and tossed Fastolf's old blue mantle over her feet while she combed her hair. In the velvet black sky, one star glittered like a crystal, and she breathed a secret wish: Hold back the dawn.

The events of the last few hours were still beyond Phemie's comprehension. There were too many changes to absorb all at once: from a coffin to a bedchamber, from a maiden to a wife: and strangest of all, the change from legend to lord. As she tried to sort out her confusion, she took the comb away to arrange Lady Catherine's hair herself, spreading a soft brown cloud over her shoulders.

"Blithe I am to see yer bonnie face once more, my lady, the bonniest in all the countryside. Life wouldna ha' seemed much worth if ye had been gone." Sudden anger grated in her voice. "Sure as my name's Euphemia, it's that imp o' the infernal Sitric that done for ye. That lofty prideful schemin' hussy!"

"It was for love, and no lasting harm was done," Lady Catherine answered. "Tonight all of our hearts' desires have come true. And you have yours as well. I did not expect to see you tonight - I thought the stable would be the center of all your attention."

"Oh!" cried Phemie, in exaltation. "That Black Snorter! He's one o' the finest horses ever was seen. He stamps his foot, ye'll no believe me, as if he would ha' spoken out like a Christian. An there's a brave new yellow saddle, such as the fine ladies use who ride side-legs."

"Go saddle him now, if you like - it's no trouble for me to comb my own hair, "Lady Catherine said, smiling.

"It will be a strange day when I count anythin' a trouble I do for ye, my own wee dove." She stepped back in admiration and said, "There! Don't shift a hair or ye'll spoil yerself." After an instant's hesitation, she placed a hand on Lady Catherine's shoulder. "To say truth' I'm fair dumfoundered, though. There's no mortal here ever so much as dreamed o' such a thing as ye marryin' wi' Vincent. My mind misgives me sore. Ye run a risk o' bein' torn limb from limb."

Lady Catherine had to laugh. "Do you truly believe that?"

Phemie made a face. "We must hope for the best. I suppose he's a good-hearted creature, for one that's been so ill brought up."

Lady Catherine rose and embraced her warmly. "Don't fret yourself. Vincent is the very heart of life to me. Over all men on this earth, I would choose him."

Phemie clucked her tongue and returned the embrace. "Are na women the oddest things on God's earth. Well, God bless ye my dearest lady, an' may all good attend ye."

She wiped away a stray tear and tramped out into the passage. Vincent was emerging from another room, dressed in breeches and shirt, and drying his hair on a towel. Phemie stood like a sentry in front of the chamber door, crossing her arms on her chest.

"Well, well. Yer hour's come, my man. Ye've a nerve on ye, to wed the bonniest lassie that ever looked the sun in the face."

Vincent was not offended, for he knew her heart, so staunch and loyal. He could think of only one way to alleviate her fears for Lady Catherine. Placing a hand on his chest, he dropped into Scots. "My nerve is failin' me. I never thought it would come to this."

Phemie let out a snort of derision. "Man, where's yer pride? Would ye be feared o' a wee lassie like that?"

"As true as ye're standin' there," he vowed. "My goodness, it's a desperate thing this love, there's such terrors in it!"

She laid aside her duty as a sentinel to buck him up. "Ye canna blame yerself for lovin' her. It wasna a'together yer fault – I'd like to see the mortal man that could keep back his heart from my lassie." She relented enough to add, "On the whole, ye're no a bad sort."

"Eh, Phemie, it makes me right proud to hear ye say that."

She thumped his arm. "Dinna be feared, sir. No doubt it'll come natural to ye, folks say it's a glorious business for every man that has a steady hand an' a good eye an' a feelin' heart. Keep up yer spirits, sir, it's maybe the dark hour afore the dawn." She pushed open the chamber door and gave him a little shove. "Laddie, I'm thinkin' ye're wanted." She tramped on down the passage, shaking her head at the follies of menfolk.

Vincent closed the door behind him and tossed aside the towel. He had been jesting with Phemie, but Lady Catherine looked so young and fragile perched on the windowsill; in the gloom her white nightgown shone dimly.

Self-doubt struck him a cruel blow: perhaps Phemie had been right to block the door. It might be that his desires were an insult to her delicacy and grace. He might possess rank and tide now, but he was still only himself, an outcast, unfit to approach a maiden so fair and softly bright. He took a step backwards, feeling completely at a loss. If his nearness distressed her, he would know it instantly through the bond. The next few hours would determine whether he would live through the coming years heart to heart with his dearest love, or whether he would meet the dawn at Land's End, and walk into the water.

Lady Catherine could see only his shape, looming tall and silent in the gloom. To calm her wild heart, she said lightly, "Phemie came by to assure herself that all the rumors were true, and to thank us for the horse. I am not quite sure which thrilled her more." She felt suddenly a little foolish sitting on the windowsill with a fold of Fastolf's mantle lapping her bare feet.

He looked immense in the shadows, and his face was hidden. An endless moment passed while they both hesitated, as if suspended between two realms: inexperience and knowledge or perhaps fear and longing. A jolt of apprehension quivered through her. She knew little of men but some old wives' tales of wedding nights had come her way and the accounts were not reassuring. She found herself gripping the shell around her neck as though it were a talisman. Why did he not speak? What was passing through his mind?

Her tremor of dismay pierced Vincent like a spear. With a swift movement that wrung a gasp from Lady Catherine, he knelt before her and laid his head against her knee.

Her mouth trembled as she leaned down and pressed a kiss into his damp tousled hair. "Don't kneel to me."

"Oh let me," he said, softly and wildly. "If you could know. If you could only know!"

She leaned over him with a protective gesture. "So much pain. Years and years of sorrow. You have suffered so much … I do know."

There were many sorts of suffering, and yet a shudder ran through her as she pictured his... to be forced to live without hope, knowing that the darkness would never be lifted, that his aloneness would never be ended. what had such isolation done to him?

In answer to her unspoken question, Vincent clasped her hand in desperate honesty and held it against his chest. "This is what I am, all I am, a being you have made a man." He had been courageous often, but never braver than at that moment when he let his inner barriers fall and opened his soul to her. "If you cannot face what I bring to you, tell me so honestly, and we will remain as we were. Just don't take your heart away from me."

The intensity of the connection was harrowing, for he hid nothing. Lady Catherine tried to concentrate, to understand. At first she sensed only immeasurable secrecy -- profound mysteries that protected his deepest emotions. His face was ravaged with endurance, for he was offering his innermost being to her, and to bare himself was terrifying.

Slowly the searching ray penetrated to the center of stillness, where his untouched life existed, and she saw what he had kept hidden. Concealed in his deepest self his soul gleamed like a crystal, radiant and flawless. Facet by facet his spirit revealed itself to her, shimmering with multicolored reflections. Touched by light, the perfect crystal blazed up, flashing as a diamond might the first time it was struck by the sun.

Struck with awe, she closed her eyes and gave thanks for that radiance. "You are beautiful."

Her name shaped every breath he drew. "Catherine."

Stroking his forehead, she said tenderly, "Don't grieve any more. The time for grieving is all over. Or are you still doubting me?"

His throat tightened, making it difficult to speak. "It was never you I doubted, but only myself."

Sweetly and warmly she reminded him, "But we are one."

Overcome, he dropped his head once more against her knee. "You have given me everything, my own life to live in."

She slid down to the floor and knelt before him; then kissed his clenched fists until they opened. She placed them on her shoulders and leaned her face against his arm with a soft sigh of fulfilment. "I would give you my heart in your two hands. I cannot give you my soul, it was always yours."

He drew in his breath sharply. "After so many years of solitude, this glory…"

"Your aloneness is gone forever, it can never come back again. Let it heal, let it all heal now." Her fingers slid between the thongs of his shirt and spread through the silken tangle she found there.

No poem, no fable, not even his secret dreams could have prepared him for her caress. Her touch was the meaning of his life. A memory flickered through his spinning thoughts: a rocky outcrop curtained by rain, and an unspoken cry, now voiced at last. "You alone on earth know who I am. No one knows me like one, just one hand of yours."

She continued to explore his shoulders and chest, wondering at her own daring. In the faint light, the richness she stroked was the same color as the candleflame. "This feels wicked, Vincent. If I should forget my manners and become too bold, remember you have promised to be my true knight, and forgive my faults."

His head dropped back: his hands clenched on a shred of his shirt, on which was pinned an oval pouch rather like the velvet one that swung over his furred chest. Driven by curiosity, she reached for it; he said, almost roughly, "Go on, it's yours."

In her palm shone a length of silver ribbon and an ivory miniature of her own face. Amazed, Catherine cried breathlessly, "But I sent this to... "

His expression twisted with remembered pain. "To Alistair. That image drove me from Raven's Rock, sent me across the water to bring you back from Ambermere. When my boat broke apart and I thought I was going down, when I lay in the dust waiting for the fire, when I went above to fight and die, your dear fair face was close to my heart."

Tears spilled down her cheeks: she slid her arms around his waist and kissed his chest. "Dear heart. Brave heart."

He drew her up a little until they were both kneeling face to face, bent his head and kissed her, tasting the salt of her tears, or perhaps they were his own. His kiss was so gentle, and yet through the bond she felt his starvation. She realized then, if she had not known it before, how much Vincent needed her to love him, how deep was his hunger for tenderness.

His enormous hands trailed down the curve of her back, drawing from her a soft sound and a helpless response of pleasure. Her slight body quivered beneath the muslin nightgown as she swayed against him.

He buried his head against her shoulder, asking without words: Did I do that?

She breathed, "Yes. This is what your touch means to me."

He picked her up and rose to his feet in one fluid motion. The doors to the closet bed stood open; he placed her on the lavender scented sheets. Faint sounds told her that he was kicking off his boots and unlacing the front of his leather breeches. When he stretched out beside her, there was nothing between them but the thin cloth of her nightdress.

The one candle that burned near the bed shadowed and highlighted the power of his body. Without thinking he reached for a fold of the sheet to cover himself, then decided against concealment. Catherine saw the vulnerability that he could not hide, and realized that he would not ask her again for reassurance. She did not answer him in words that might be misunderstood. Instead, she raised his hand, held it between her breasts, and turned within, to the center of her being; and focused the connection there like a beam of the sun. In the warmth of the bond, her spirit began to unfold itself to him. Petal by petal it uncurled like a white rose, until all the heartfelt truth and loyalty of her loving nature, her deepest dreams and shy desires, were communicated straight to Vincent's heart.

She did love him, just as he was. He could not doubt it, not when he felt the opening of her spirit, the white petals folding back one by one to reveal the golden heart of the rose, hidden all her life, until now. Catherine knew he felt that tender flowering, for she saw a wondering light gradually illuminate his expression.

The barriers were all down; there was nothing in either life that needed to be concealed from the other. That moment of spiritual union was their souls' marriage, and both of them sensed it.

In perfect communion his mouth reached for hers, learning her taste, exchanging it for his own.

Another kiss followed the first, and then another, each wilder and sweeter than the last. Vincent kept kissing her, he couldn't stop, like a drowning man drawing in the breath of life. He had wanted to believe his lips would touch hers and find such sweet response. She gave herself up to his desire with complete generosity, knowing the poignant truth; that her love was all he had to live on.

The kisses lasted until neither one of them could breathe. Through the bond his hunger was hers, pulsing and building with every flickering kiss, every stroking motion, everything his hands and mouth learned of her silken skin. Her mind spun: she gripped him as if she were the one going under and felt the muscles of his back knot beneath her hands. She became aware of the strength in his shoulders and arms that held her with such tender ferocity.

Her throat curved like the slender stem of a flower; he could taste her pulse beneath his tongue until he reached the edge of the nightgown. She moved away a little to make it easier for him. A slow sweep of his clawed fingers and the cloth parted, falling back like wings. In the candleglow, the tender curves of her body were warm ivory.

His sudden stillness made Catherine wonder if she pleased him. She had a sudden shy wish to pull together the two halves of her nightgown and cross her hands over her breasts.

Her pang of self-doubt subsided when in awe and wonder he rested his head against her breasts in a curiously vulnerable gesture. Locked in darkness, her beauty had shimmered in his thoughts like a constellation. And now, beyond all prayer, she was here, loving him; and she welcomed his love.

"You're so beautiful you make my heart stop. Just to hold you like this, even if there were never to be more, I would give anything. Endure anything. Risk anything."

A surge of joy swept over her. Her body was filling, flooding with unfamiliar sensations. She had never been this close to a man before; strange, how she knew what to do. Strange and wonderful. Glorying in his strength, emboldened by his need, she put her modesty aside to whisper feather-light kisses and wordless murmurs of desire over his chest and shoulders. Her fingers trailed down his stomach and paused on his strong thighs. She was rewarded by a ragged gasp. He couldn't breathe. He was afraid to move. He could not believe she would touch him there. But she did, delicately, as lightly as a butterfly.

Vincent was losing the battle he had been waging with his self-control. Heat flooded him with agony. He needed her so much it terrified him. He wanted so much not to hurt her that he retreated, swinging his feet to the floor, then forcing himself to stand by the side of the bed. He reached up and grabbed the tops of the two carved doors; the candlelight turned his massive body to molten gold. "I would rather live and die and never know your love than ever hurt you."

She had a warm, rumpled look that stirred him to desperation. Her unbound hair drifted across the pillow; rags of the nightgown curled up around her like petals. A smile trembled on the mouth that he had just been kissing.

He made a convulsive movement and the two doors splintered from their hinges, crashing to the floor on either side.

Her arms reached out to him. "Do that to me, Vincent."

There was not a power on earth that could have stopped him then. His arms reached completely around her and she was moving and he was moving until the emptiness inside both of them was filled and loneliness was banished forever. They found a union that was eternal, giving and receiving streams of sensation, lost in each other as they obeyed the call of each emotion flowing between them.

From the first shock of delight she repeated Vincent's name over and over like an incantation, feeling waves of something deeper, more true than she had ever known, wash through her …  a current of motion and harmony... until she felt his strong body clench above hers and the sound of his name carried her on a wave that broke and came crashing to the shore, carrying both of them with it.

When the room stopped whirling, she found herself cradled against a massive chest; beneath her cheek a heart beat strongly. Here was more than passion. Here was comfort, strength, and understanding enough for a lifetime. When he turned away to pull up a coverlet for her, she protested sleepily. "Nothing is the same when you're not touching me."

Vincent tucked the coverlet around her bare shoulders, to keep away the cold. He reached his arms around her again, closed his eyes, and kept very still, trying not to cry. Whatever he had wanted, whatever he had dreamed of, was so much less than what he now held in his arms. His love, so brave and fragile, so wise and true, who had brought him up into the light and given him her own dear self.

He bent to whisper words against her hair, words he had been able to say only in the silence of his own solitude. "Hear me. Listen to me. I love you... love you. Hear me, Catherine, you must." Drowsy as she was, already losing herself in dreams, she heard, and smiled.

***

Vincent awakened in darkness and confusion reaching out a hand, he found the bed empty. Catherine was not there. Half asleep, he could not distinguish dreams from truth, and a cry of dismay broke from him. She heard and sat down on the side of the bed, holding a smock and shoes.

A wave of relief swept through him: he caught her hand against his cheek. "It's true? It's all true?" Her nearness was a miracle, a wonder, a blessing; and he was grateful to the very depths of his soul.

"Better than that. True forever." She bent and skimmed her lips across his chin. Her unbound hair, like a smoky cloud, floated across his chest. "Now, hasten and rise, it's almost dawn."

Unexpected happiness soared within him like a flash of rainbow wings, making him giddy. His heart floated up like a feather lifted by the wind. He wanted to roar -- or sing. Instead, he reached an arm around her bare back and tipped his head to look out the window. Tender tints of pale pink streaked the black horizon. "That is not the dawn. It's merely... fireflies."

She had to laugh even as she half-struggled to free herself from his embrace. "what nonsense! Fireflies!"

A fleck of lavender clung to her bare shoulder: he licked it off with a swift thrust of his tongue, then buried his face in her hair. "Yes, armies of them, in the trees. You don't know yet about the strange insects of the Heathery Isle."

Never had she known him so lighthearted: it was disconcerting. "Release me," she insisted, trying to scowl. "This is not at all proper."

"I refuse," he declared. With one encircling arm he kept her captive while he brushed kisses across her warm throat and shoulders. His free hand fled down her side, urging her nearer. "And if anyone thinks what we do is improper, why, they needn't watch. They're welcome to stay outside."

Catherine had found in him strength and gentleness, power and wisdom. Now she discovered his capacity for joy, and it unsettled her. Bracing herself, she pretended indignation. "With the fireflies?"

His tongue found the flower-tips of her breasts -- he was drunk on the sensation of skin against skin "Absolutely. For a newly wedded woman, they're an omen that you must not put your smock and shoes on yet."

Her whole body awoke to tingling life: she drew a ragged breath. "You just invented that superstition."

He released her and lay back on the pillows, linking his hands behind his head. "I did, I admit it. You invent one now."

"You're learning foolishness, Vincent," she warned him.

Sudden earnestness locked his gaze with hers. "I'm ready to learn it all, now that I know it isn't possible for someone to die of too much joy."

Her eyes burned with a wash of tears, but she didn't want to cry, so she sat up and curled her feet under a corner of the coverlet. He closed his eyes and remained quite still while her fingers explored the contours of his face, brushing his lips, drifting over his jaw, discovering the pulse-beat in his throat, moving down to the fur that mantled his chest. A smile glinted in her eyes as she slid a hand under the coverlet, teasing him.

Without moving, he said quietly, "I take it back. Perhaps it is possible to die of joy."

"Shall I stop?"

He didn't open his eyes. "No other woman's hand has ever touched me. Only  yours. It's worth dying for."

Catherine leaned over and murmured against his mouth, "You think too much about dying, Vincent. Why not live?"

"Very well. If you insist." He threw aside the coverlet and drew her down to stroke the curve of her hip.

The velvet brush of fingers across her ribs made her gasp and clutch the sheet. Frowning, she panted, "You seem to have lost all your shyness very quickly. I remember the first time I was bold enough to kiss you, you seemed stunned."

"Stunned? I was speechless," he answered, lightly cupping his hands under her breasts. "It was a good hour before I could get my breathing working again".

She let herself smile. "I'm glad to know I can take your breath away." She slid a knee between his thighs, delighting in his startled expression. There was a surge of wicked satisfaction in the knowledge that her touch affected him so strongly.

He raised his eyebrows, and there was a growl in his tone. "I'm warning you."

Thrilled by her own daring, Catherine taunted him. "Are you going to grapple with fate until it surrenders what you want, or find consolation in defeat?"

Vincent's eyes flared and he reacted to the mocking challenge. Catherine's hand twisted convulsively in his tangled hair as he pressed a burning path of kisses across her breasts and stomach. His stubble-roughened cheek rasped across her thigh as he drew in the faint scent of her. He surrendered to the sensation, allowing himself to touch and kiss below... between... within.

Her head pressed back into the pillow and her body arched up to deepen his touch. Her wild gasping pushed Vincent beyond the bounds of reason. Driven by unbearable need, his body sought hers. She opened, then gripped him. Mouth to mouth and heart to heart they moved together: they couldn't be close enough. His kiss was so devouring, the pressure of his enormous body so overmastering, that she could hardly breathe. It was dangerous -- and heavenly.

They became one body, one driving force. Each sound she made and the sweetness of her body enclosing him was redoubled by their bond that surged with waves of giving and taking. All caution was lost in primitive desperation.

She repeated Vincent's name over and over like an incantation until the sound of it finally fractured in her throat and became a shattered cry of ecstasy that was echoed by a sobbing groan. The violent starburst of pleasure was so intense that Catherine fainted.

Vincent went through a few panic-stricken seconds, fearing he had injured her. When she came to, she found herself held hard against his chest, his powerful arms wrapped her around like a fortress. "No! Please!"

To reassure him she nestled even closer, as if that were possible, and whispered, "Loving someone just as the sun is rising is a good omen. It means we will love each other forever. Do you like the superstition I just made up?"

He didn't answer, so she tilted her head back to glimpse his expression. What she saw in his eyes made her heart lurch. "Oh Vincent. As much as that?"

She seemed so small and delicate, too fragile for the courageous spirit that burned within her. Emotion drove him to utter his deepest confession. "I never had any hope. I ached for you until there was nothing left of me but a cry of longing, and always without any hope at all."

She slipped her arms around his neck. "You've won me. Against all odds, through the glitter of the upper world and your fears and my foolishness, you drew me to you. As far as any one person can belong to another, I'm yours."

A little sob of pure joy broke from him. "Even if I had not a thousand other reasons, for those words alone I would love you all my life."

She cried out in sudden dismay. "Oh! We'll miss the dawn!" With a quick twist she freed herself and hurried to pick up her clothing that was scattered across the floor and the splintered doors of the bed. She laughed to herself, thinking of the heated gossip those broken doors would spark. Over her head she pulled a speckled woolen kirtle, and fastened a purple plaid with an otter brooch. "Do I look like a woman of Clann Eóghain na h-Oitrich?" she teased him.

With a sigh Vincent rose, stretching his arms up to the ceiling, then hastily pulled on his shirt and breeches. He pulled on one boot, then reached out his arms to draw her near, but she taunted him by running out the doorway, saying over her shoulder, "I'm going to the edge of the world where the sun comes up. Follow me, if you dare."

He tied the thongs of his breeches and hurried out after her, hopping on one foot as he tried to pull on his other boot. She was far ahead by then: he caught only a glimpse of her skirt as she skimmed up a flight of stairs.

Vincent pushed open a door at the top of the stairs and found her again on the battlements, speaking earnestly to Somhairle.

He said' "A better day's coming for us all, I hope, my lady. As sure as ye're standin' there, the longship is headin' out to sea."

Vincent loomed behind her and the sentry lost his breath. That face was so fearful. Even the steady eyes did not make it the face of an ordinary man. After a struggle Somhairle admitted, "It was a very bonnie fight, sir: ye worried 'em like badgers and hunted 'em like foxes off the countryside. Give us a grip o' yer hand, my lord."

He thrust out his hand and Vincent gripped it, saying quietly, "Better days are coming for all of us, Somhairle. Peace and plenty, and maybe a bonnie fight once in a while to keep up our spirits."

Somhairle tore off his horned cap and tossed it into the air in delight.

A ladder reached to the topmost tower; Vincent and Lady Catherine ascended and stood alone there, looking out over the stone railing. The sun had risen, splashing the sky and distant sea with gold and crimson. A black speck was moving out on the ocean -- the Viking longship. Other specks moved across the hills, heading for the ruined village: clansfolk already hurrying to rebuild.

She slipped an arm around his waist. "Somhairle told me that the men-at-arms from Ambermere are waiting for my commands. I have no fear for sir Alistair -- Sitric will not allow him to die. When he recovers, I will ask him if he wishes to rule over Ambermere in my absence. I could give him my full authority."

"You do not wish to return there?" That she would choose to stay in Raven's Rock lifted his heart even higher.

"Someday, to pay them a visit. You and I could travel down the coast slowly, bring a tent with us. Rest under a tree when the sun is hot, eat our oatcakes and cheese in the shade. Fish in the evenings and build a campfire. If it should rain, we'll ride the thunderstorm."

The pictures she painted filled his soul with glory. "And be once again in the great freedom."

Her smile flashed up. "Are there other horses in the stables?"

"Yes indeed, Gilleghlais, the Gray Lad; Murchadh, Sea King; and Raibeart, Bright Fame. "

"You should start riding every day around the island --I will ride beside you."

"Oh heaven," he breathed. "This joy -- I don't know how to bear it."

"You needn't try -- let it bear you. It's strong enough to hold us both." A moving speck caught her eye and she leaned over the railing. "That looks like a horsewoman. I wonder if it's Phemie. Do you suppose Sea King and the Gray Lad would like a gallop this morning?"

He reached his arms around her and gathered her close. "Catherine, you know that I love you -- even to be able to say that to you is a miracle, after choking back those words for so long. To know that you have married me. And last night. And this morning ..." He looked down into her fair, bright face and saw a loving light that was the greatest miracle of all.

She raised herself on her toes, linked her arms behind his neck, and kissed him with all her heart. His face, so fearsome to others, had never seemed so to Lady Catherine, for she had been given a glimpse of the soul within those deep eyes, the color of the summer sky that now domed over them both.

Between kisses she murmured, "And tonight, and tomorrow night, love. But this morning I want to ride beside you to Land's End, and see if the otters still play among the rocks. It's just possible you might catch a glimpse of fireflies. Give me your hand --and run!"

He linked his fingers with hers and together they ran into the morning.

 The End