Chapter 25: Léonie - Crushing His Mountain Flower

Once upon a time, I fell in love. . .

He was the kind of man you couldn’t take your eyes off.

He was the kind of man you couldn’t fall out of love with. . .

Or could you. . .

“I do not want a ring you put on another woman’s finger,” I spat, shoving his hand away so hard that the ring clattered onto the floor.

“You went too far when you played happy families with her. I can’t wear that ring again! It disgusts me.”

Fists clenched, I turned away angrily.

Had it been a massive mistake to have sex with him? Even if nothing about the carnal, raw magnetism that pulled us together had changed—that didn’t mean I was going to change my mind. Or forgive him.

I was here at his home because he’d blackmailed me into it, after all.

And trying to give me a ring that had even briefly been on that dead woman’s fingers? That showed he didn’t understand anything. That he couldn’t comprehend the hurt he had caused or how much he would have to work to rebuild my trust.

Arms folded tight against my chest, I flicked my hair angrily back in his face and made to leave.

Étienne bent and picked up the ring, then a strong, tanned arm snaked around my waist, the color deep against my pale, freckled skin as he pulled me back onto his lap.

“It’s not the same ring.”

“It’s not?”

I gasped as he turned it around. Instead of my old diamond ring, which had been part of the marriage negotiations, this one was formed to look like a beautiful mountain laurel flower, each delicate petal carved from different pink stones.

He turned it this way and that, each side sparkling with the loveliest shades of pink, going from pale softness to a bright floral pink, then a deep almost scarlet color.

“How—” I began.

The effect was stunning, almost absurdly delicate and beautiful.

For a moment my finger ached. Wanting that ring. Knowing it belonged to me.

“There’s nothing I won’t do for you,” he rasped. “Nothing I won’t get to show you how much I care.”

I couldn’t say a word, still staring at the ring.

“Stop me,” Étienne said, his breath ragged and raw, one hand tight on my waist, fingers digging into my flesh, the palm spanning my heated skin.

“Stop me right now.”

But I didn’t, my hand just frozen in place as he slipped the ring on my finger, his much bigger ones not quite steady.

Oh ancestors, it fit just perfectly. Like it was made for me. Like he knew me.

“Let me have another chance,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise it’ll be different this time.”

“I’ve heard your promises,” I said, the shine from my ring casting a light all down the walls.

“I vow it. I’d rather die than disappoint you again,” he said fiercely. “Strike me through the heart now, Léonie. You will have to kill me to get me to stop trying for a second chance.”

His arms caged me, those bloody, brutal arms that had killed how many people for me and my son? But now they held me gently, carefully. Like I could break.

But I wouldn’t break. No matter what happened. And I knew that now.

“Ask me tomorrow,” I said.

And he did.

And he asked the next day. And the next.

Every day Ciel grew bigger, stronger, his eyes staying open for longer. And he loved looking at his daddy, having his daddy gently pat his back to burp him, and hear little mountain songs sung in Étienne’s deep, gravelly voice.

And Étienne was true to his word. He did not stay away for long. He was back for dinner. He did not shut me out of his world, but shared what was happening and what he had done that day.

This is what it could have been all along. This is what it should have been all along.

But without what had happened, would I ever have been able to look my husband boldly in the eyes as I could now, or would I always have been that wife who thought her husband was doing her a favor by glancing in her direction, who was so grateful for any scrap of his attention that she would overlook anything for him?

I didn’t live like that anymore.

I could live without Étienne Bastide. And not only live, I could thrive without him. Ciel and I could go anywhere and be anything. Hugo now had the power and ability to make us disappear, and we could go back to the Savatier home whenever we wanted. We had the money and resources to live without him.

But could I ever love another man as much as him?

As much as that once-upon-a-time god, the one who had massively fucked up and was trying to fix it?

Could I take away the daddy Ciel loved? Didn’t Ciel see what was real and true in Étienne? The loving father and husband who would kill to protect us?

Come back to me.

Come all the way back.

He begged, he pleaded, but I didn’t give in right away.

Was this my husband who could be so gentle and kind, not just to me, but to the Savatiers too, when we visited, sitting and listening to their long stories at night, staying longer and longer each time until they knew to brighten up at his arrival?

And soon he was a part of the household too, bringing in beautiful rainbow trout or ruffled grouse for Tilly to cook.

Étienne had offered terms to Hugo and the Savatiers, a generous, unthinkable partnership with them. Riches, wealth, power. The keys to his kingdom.

There would be peace between our families, he told me.

The mountain feuds could all die here.

The man of blood had become the man of peace?

And one day Hugo asked Étienne for all the information he had on Romy.

“It’s not that I—can ever hope for a second chance,” he said. “There are some things—I had to do—that are heavy on my conscience. I just want to ask her forgiveness for them.”

His dark eyes were haunted, and I had to bite my tongue not to ask what my gentle, kind brother-in-law possibly could have done to merit the guilt he carried?

But it was not my story to pry into. When he wanted to share, he would.

“And you’re coming with me, idiot,” Hugo told Mano, who only shrugged but didn’t complain.

What would both of them look like when they came back?

“What do you think?” I asked Tilly one day as we shelled peas. “You saw his cruelty to Hugo for years. Could a man such as he ever be redeemed?”

She hesitated, fixing her eyes on her work.

“Étienne—he has never been a moral man. He has always had tunnel vision for whatever he wanted, and the consequences be damned.”

My throat seemed to close. What had he done? What I heard next might determine my forgiveness.

If he had harmed—abused—Hugo⁠—

“Mme—she was the one who first imprisoned Hugo. She was the one who convinced Étienne to keep him there—and⁠—”

Her throat seemed to convulse and she swallowed very hard.

“I should have done more. I should have tried to get Hugo out of there long before. I felt trapped, feared the power of the Bastide family. But some of the things they did to him⁠—”

I waited.

“You did get him out,” I said gently. “I know he doesn’t resent you. But—what things did they do to him?”

“There was one time—Hugo refused to do something for his Mme, and she asked Étienne to make him do it. Your husband refused, point-blank. Said it was small prick behavior to hit his brother over that.”

I felt a tiny flicker of hope, almost swamped amidst my sorrow for what Hugo had endured.

“After Étienne was gone—Mme called Mano over—got him to do it.”

Tilly turned her head. “Hugo—you know how he is—he held out as long as he could. But at last he was forced to give in. It was around the time of your wedding, so your Mme knew Étienne would not be there to check on his brother. You know, as much as she favored Étienne there were times I thought—she secretly wanted Mano in charge. He was much more suggestible, more willing to do whatever she wanted.”

It was a relief to know my husband had refused to torture Hugo, but what about my sweet, intellectual brother-in-law? Was he safe with Mano? What had it cost Hugo to kill his own mother, even if she was his tormentor?

I had tried not to worry over Hugo’s trip, not to pester him with texts, but I couldn’t resist checking in.

I got a response almost immediately, rapid fire texts one after the other.

Spring? Send Étienne whom he hated? But that was still months away! And not a word about whether he had found Romy or not!

The next day when I called, the line went dead and there was no response.

Was he ok?

I prayed to my Gran as hard as I could, that she would send him protection and safety.

For a while, I wrestled with myself, desperate to send a party after him now. But I would do as he had requested. If he wasn’t back by next spring, Étienne must go after him.

Back at home, the summer lingered on, but there were signs the seasons were changing. But what was changing inside me?

One day Étienne persuaded me to go out into the mountains again while Tilly watched Ciel, and we hiked for miles through the woods to make it to a rocky peak where we could see the leaves changing to brilliant red, yellow, and orange colors.

“It doesn’t feel the same,” I said as a soft autumn breeze swirled around my hair. “I don’t think we can go back to what we were.”

“That’s all right,” Étienne said. “It can be different and I will still love you.”

“I might never fully forgive you,” I warned him, my gaze fixed on the distant mountains, the way fog wreathed around their tips. “What if there’s a part of me that always holds resentment and bitterness?”

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“That’s all right,” Étienne said again. “I will take any part of you that you can give me, Léonie.”

“You were unforgivably selfish, arrogant, and greedy,” I said, looking right up into his harsh dark face. “You thought you could treat me as cruelly as you wanted and it didn’t matter, because I loved you so much that I would forgive you easily.”

He didn’t argue. “Yes,” my husband said as he stepped closer. “I was too sure of you, and I was a fool and a bastard. No one would ever blame you for hating me.”

“All the Pinoteaux land and resources are mine now to do with as I wish. They are not yours, and I want them to be a place where people who have been harmed by my family will be allowed to live in peace.”

“They are your lands,” Étienne said, drawing a rough finger across my cheek. “You are the head of the Pinoteaux family. You decide which of your ancestors are remembered and which are forgotten and who deserve graves and memories.”

“I'm not the girl you once knew,” I said defiantly. “I won’t go back to being meek, sweet little Léonie Bastide.”

Étienne cupped my face in his hands, looking at me with such desperate, pulsing longing.

“I love you even more this way. I want you in any form you take, my angel. You can transform and re-emerge like a butterfly every single year, with a new way of being and I will love in every way you choose to be.”

Once upon a time, I fell in love with a god. . .

Did he still have my heart when he fell from the heavens?

Ciel and I stayed in the house, back where it had all began. At first, I justified it to myself that it was about his nursery, that beautiful nursery we had dreamed and worked for so many months on.

I could always go right back to the Savatier home, whenever I wanted they’d be there for a visit or a stay, warm hearts ready for us.

And then when I fell into my husband’s open arms at night, gave myself up to his passion, I told myself it was just about our bodies, nothing more.

Not my heart.

“I am sick of blood,” Étienne told me one night, as my head rested on his chest, his heart pounding fiercely in my ear.

Our bodies were sticky, fused together.

“Your Papé is resting well,” I said. “Réjean did kill him, and you avenged his death.”

“You were right. Papé would not have wanted me to spend so many years plotting revenge,” he said, one big hand stroking my hair. “Réjean could have been killed in a simple fashion. I could have avenged his death in that way. But, like you said, I was arrogant. I wanted the destruction of the entire family. I wanted all their lands for myself. I wanted even more than mountain justice demanded.”

Was I honest with myself about how it had felt to see Étienne burn the bodies of his own people, to kill without thinking twice the woman I had been so jealous of? The woman who would have stolen my child?

He had burned them and taken the remains to throw far away from our lands, so their bodies didn’t pollute the soil or disturb the ancestors.

He had been gone every day this week, making sure these people’s bones didn’t lie anywhere near us.

“You killed your own people, too,” I said, feeling that warm, wicked-sweet heat deep inside me. “You killed when you needed, Étienne. You were strong and brutal when it mattered. I only regret you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth earlier so we could found a different way.”

His hands tightened on me and then he was kissing my overheated face passionately.

“My greatest, foulest mistake, and one I will atone for every day for the rest of my life. When I think that I dared to use you as a bargaining chip, I can’t believe my own stupidity.”

He pulled me on top of him again, and as our lips met, my body slotting down over his whispered wicked words, begging for my cunt over his, I knew he was bloody and he was brutal, but it had been needed to keep Ciel safe.

But what would be enough for me. . .

Since we did not know where Gran was buried, and Da and Réjean were dead, Étienne asked me where I wanted to build a memorial to my grandmother.

Did I want it on Pinoteaux land or here?

Here, I said decisively.

I did not want to remember her on the land where so many Pinoteaux had died, where they had killed her.

So Étienne and I worked day and night to build her a memorial. It was carved out of granite and stone, in the form of Pegasus, her favorite constellation, and because I remembered how much she loved to ride across the mountains on her trusty horse Nightwalker.

I sat on the front porch with Ciel as the leaves began to turn, to crunch under my feet as I looked out over the land, and watched the muscles in my husband’s back pulsate with power as he worked carefully at the curve of the Pegasus’ neck.

For such a brutal man, he could have such a tender, delicate touch when it came to creation.

As a break, I wandered in the woods, gathering the sweet paw-paw fruits, green outside and bright yellow custard inside, always with my husband’s protective presence behind me, picking the high fruits, brushing back stinging nettles, carrying Ciel when he grew too heavy in my wrap.

But there was something I still held back from him. It was almost like I was waiting for a sign.

What are you waiting for? he asked me one night as we lay together in a sticky tumble of limbs in the bed. You haven’t given me your whole heart yet.

I am waiting, I said.

For what?

I do not know. Maybe a sign from the ancestors.

When do you think they’ll give you a sign? Please, I’m begging.

I don’t know. Maybe next week. Maybe next year. Maybe never.

I will take it. I will take whatever you give me. Your hate or your love. I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I never replied, never responded in kind, but he still said it.

I wanted Hugo to be back for the full memorial service, but I also needed to say a few words about Gran before the first snowfall, so I decided we would bring more pawpaw fruits to her grave at twilight the next day.

But when twilight arrived, Étienne still had not arrived back home.

Now where was he? He was always home by dinner. He had never missed an evening at home yet.

A mix of unease and anger grew inside me as darkness slid over the mountains.

If Étienne couldn’t make it back in time for this, it was over between us. I was going to move back to the Savatier household permanently.

Ciel was starting to be able to hold up his head on his own, and I was delighted to see him poking his head up and pushing off my chest to look around with his bright blue eyes.

I absolutely melted at the sight.

Beautiful, perfect, looking just like his daddy with that clever look and those bright, sharp eyes.

What was Ciel looking at?

He was attuned to his daddy, that was for sure, because I turned in the direction my baby’s eyes were fixed, and there was my husband striding toward me, his tall body, those broad shoulders cutting through the autumn fog.

I felt a stab of emotion, something painfully bright in its clarity.

I knew then that I would love Étienne Bastide until the day I died. Whether I let him know it or not was another question.

And then—someone beside him. But who was that? Hugo? Mano? Where had he been and who had he seen?

No, it was someone shorter—much shorter.

And then my breath caught, painful, jagged in my throat.

But it couldn’t be.

It was absolutely impossible. She was dead. Dead. Réjean had said so!

This was impossible. A trick. An illusion.

And then I was running, holding Ciel tight against me.

It couldn’t—couldn’t⁠—

It must be a trick. Mountain fog sometimes played tricks on your eyes, showed you will-o’-the-wisps that weren’t there.

Was I going crazy now, to see such things?

“Léonie!” she cried, running toward me with her arms outstretched, her long gray braid flying behind her.

Oh, ancestors! It was too much!

“Gran!”

I was crying, tears streaming down my face, when I finally caught up to her, almost still disbelieving it even as I gathered her in my arms.

She felt frail—so frail—thin, weak, feather-light like a bird.

“How—Réjean said you were dead!”

“Honey, he was a lying bastard,” Gran said, with a ghost of her old spirit.

She was very thin, her cheeks sunken, and her hands clawlike as they embraced me. I would have to get good food and bone broth into her immediately.

“How did you find her?” I cried, turning to Étienne.

“Armand and Tilly have been working with the older people on the Pinoteaux lands—the ones who were too weak to flee when I came through. One of the oldest there was a man, oh about 100 years old. He told Armand about an old Pinoteaux hideaway down in one of the hidden hollers out east.”

“A holler? Gran has been hidden this whole time?”

“Imprisoned by your Da,” she said. “I knew it would always happen with my mouth. I’m just sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”

“Oh Gran,” I wept.

“I went looking, and hell, sweetheart, there were a fuckton of old hollers out there. But I kept going. Every damn day. Didn’t want to tell you in case it wasn’t true. And finally—I found her.”

“Honey, I knew he was trouble,” Gran said. “Never knew when to quit, that man.”

My heart was so full to overflowing I couldn’t speak, and for a minute I thought I would faint, but my husband put one strong around my waist and guided all of us gently back to the house.

I knew exactly where to take her where she’d be the most comfortable, and just as I suspected, Jeannie and Otilie Savatier and Tilly and Armand greeted her with open arms and moved her right into the bedroom where Ciel and I had been staying.

Étienne brought us over every day so Tilly and I could compete with nourishing broths and stews and soups, as I just sat for hours, my arms around my beloved grandmother, and every day my Gran was just a little bit healthier, a little more shine to her cheeks, able to sit for longer, and one afternoon she was even asking about a horse to ride when I left a sleeping Ciel in his crib with Tillie and walked out with Étienne.

This time we had no destination in mind, just held hands and wandered, like we used to do, our only goal foraging what we could with the cold snap coming next week.

Étienne stretched for a particularly plump pawpaw.

“I love you so much, Léonie. Come back to me, come all the way back, with your whole heart. I promise I’ll be so tender with it this time.”

He twisted the pawpaw open and scooped the seeds out with his fingers, then held half the fruit out to me.

“You’re going to get me all sticky,” I protested, but my heart had started to hammer as he dove into his half of the pawpaw, sucking all the juice out as it gushed around his face.

There must have been something in my eyes, because as soon as he saw it, he dropped the fruit and kissed me, his tongue eager, teasing at my entrance.

“Fuck, when you have that expression on your face. . .I can’t resist you. . . I never could. I loved you the first moment I saw you standing all shy and sweet as a berry in that field. And I’ll love you to tomorrow and the next day and every day until forever.”

“I love you, Étienne,” I said back, half-laughing, half-crying, as I put sticky arms around his neck, pulling him closer, that powerful body, all coiled energy and suppressed passions.

He laid me down on the soft meadows, and as I looked up into the mountain skies, a perfect, bright red leaf fell, drifting down gently on the breeze as my husband moved from my lips down the front of my dress and under my skirts, where he pressed a sticky tongue into my wet and dripping heat and began to swirl. . .

Once upon a time, a god fell in love with a woman. . .

And they decided to stay together forever. . .

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