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“Aye. I’m me.”

Avery nodded, fingers twisting in the key ring. “Thank you for telling me. I would have been terrified if you’d just disappeared on me.”

“Never. We are bound, remember?”

Finally, a smile. “How could I ever forget?”

He laughed as she opened the door and let herself out into the cold night air. He let himself sit in it for just one moment longer—the light, the laughter, the love she brought with her. The way she’d made him feel more real than he ever had—even when he was alive.

So this is what it feels like, he thought, to be loved back to life.

Chapter 25

The pub was packed inside.

Warm, beer-laden air sank into me and I worked my way through the room toward the bar. Wolfe had lied—I was certainly over dressed. I eyed the scuffed up work boots and the practical pants and sweaters and shrugged it off.

It didn’t matter.

I’d done it.

I’d written for the first time in six months.

Over six thousand words, to be exact.

Even on my best days when I was deep in the thick of writing my first and second book I’d be lucky to see a number like that, but it’d all just flowed right out of me, her voice just as loud as mine inside my head.

I was too blissed-out to care what anyone thought of my dress or heels. I’d done it. And Wolfe was with me, the phantom press of his hand against the small of my back.

I had everything I needed right here with me.

I weaseled my way to the bar top, digging my elbow into the sticky wood to hold my place. I’d never seen the place so crowded. In the front of the room by the windows a band was setting up. The sharp crack of a fiddle rang through the room as the instrument was tuned. The energy snaking around me was intoxicating. The laughter, the clinking of glasses, the eager anticipation of spending the night dancing. The guitar began to play somewhere in the distance and I shouted my order for a Murphy’s to the bartender.

It was in my hand less than two minutes later and I decided to open a tab for myself. I searched the sea of faces around me and recognized none of them, but that was okay. For once, I wasn’t deterred.

Across the room, Wolfe leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest. He still wore the wine-red shirt but had rolled the sleeves to his elbows. He watched me with hooded eyes as I made my way toward him.

“It’s always been like this,” he said in my ear when I stopped beside him. “Even two hundred years ago, it was always crowded here. Nice to know some things never change.”

I slipped my jacket off and draped it over my arm and sipped my beer. Dark malt exploded over my tongue, the bare notes of caramel and chocolate dancing over my palate.

“Ready?” someone called from the corner.

There was a yell, a stomp of a foot, and then—

Music erupted, filling every square inch of the pub. It slammed into my chest and nearly knocked me right off my feet. I’d never heard anything like it—lively and bright, it sank into my bones and infested my bloodstream.

The fiddle rose above the rest, but I studied the four other men on stage. I recognized the guitar and the man playing the spoons, but the other two I didn’t have a name for.

Wolfe leaned close, shouting in my ear to be heard. “He’s playing the bodhrán.” He pointed to the man playing the small drum. “The other one is playing a concertina.”

I’d never heard anything like it in my life. The chants, the singing, the way the floorboards rattled under my feet with every stomp and step. I laughed, unable to contain it.

I knew Ireland was going to be full of life and color, but I hadn’t expected it to flood me so forcefully, to make me feel like every atom and molecule of my skin was alive with it.

They switched to an American song after, singing about being rocked like a wheel. The entire pub sang with them, their voices blending together. I couldn’t stop laughing, couldn’t stop my heart from racing in my chest.

“You should dance,” he said. “Enjoy it.”