Chapter Twenty Five
Duane sat in the steps of the place that they called the Rec Center, turning his new father’s cell phone over and over and staring at in amazement.
There was a big party to welcome him and all the other boys home. Because this was their home.
His whole life had been filled with lies. Humans didn’t kill wolf-people, and they were called werewolves, not wolf people.
There were packs of wolves all over the place.
The people from the pack who’d come to rescue him and Bruce and all the other boys had told him all about it. They’d killed Mr. Tompkins and his sons because they’d tried to shoot at the pack with their silver bullets. They’d taken the sick baby right to the hospital, and also Bruce, who had a lump on his head where Clem had hit him.
And then they’d brought all the wolf-boys here, to a place called “Upstate New York.”
That’s where he learned that he had been stolen from this pack when he was a baby, and he had a mother and father, and they’d raised another young man that they thought was their son. For eighteen years, they’d raised him. And now they said Duane could live with them and be their son too, and now they’d have two sons, and Duane would have his own room, and go to school and live there forever.
“Girl werewolves,” John, who sat next to him on the steps, whispered to him. “There are girl werewolves here too. We could marry them someday.”
Duane stifled a laugh at the thought. Then he grew serious.
“If I got married and had a cub, I’d kill anyone who tried to take it from me,” he said, and John nodded, his face grim.
John was happy and sad at the same time, because he’d found out that he had a mother but no father. His father had died in an accident, and he never even got to meet him. But John got to live with his mother too. All of the wolf-boys did. There were twenty-five of them, and they all got to live here on the pack lands.
He looked over at Bruce, who was grinning so hard he looked as if his face might split open. He was holding on to the hand of a woman named Constance, who kept laughing and crying and then laughing again. Another little boy was holding Bruce’s hand and staring at him in wonder. He kept reaching out and touching Bruce’s face with his free hand.
Constance was Bruce’s mother, his real live mother. And he had a brother named Bill, who was also five years old, so now he had a brother and a mother and his own house. And books. He had so many books. Pack members had heard that Bruce loved books and they’d brought him boxes and boxes of them. Bruce had offered to share with all of the boys.
Bruce dragged Constance over to where Duane was sitting. “She’s really my mother,” he said. “I really have a mother!” At that, Constance started crying again, but it was the weird kind of thing where she was smiling while she cried. Bruce dragged Constance over to a table that had cakes and things called donuts on it, and Duane smiled as he watched Bruce wheedle her into letting him have his fifth donut of the day.
And Duane smiled even wider when Bruce broke the donut in half and gave the other half of it to Bill.
The sick baby was in the hospital with its mother and father, who were named Briony and Frank. The doctors said it would get better, but it would have to be there for two weeks.
All the people who’d known about the baby-stealing had been executed, he’d been told. That meant they’d been killed.
But that was a sad thought, and he wanted to enjoy today. He saw his mother and his father and his brother standing over by a table of refreshments. They waved at him, urging him to come over.
He stood up, and John stood up with him. “Let’s go get some of that pizza stuff,” he said happily. He looked around and grinned. “You know, I think I’m gonna like it here,” he said.
* * * * *
The drawing room was bathed in the light of the morning sun. It was a new day, the best day that the pack had seen in many years – Earvin’s reighn was over and all of the stolen wolves were back with their family.
“I can’t believe it’s finally over,” Mary marveled. Jarrod flashed her a grin and tightened his arm around her shoulders.
“Well, I can’t believe that you’re picking blue bridesmaid dresses when blue isn’t my best color,” Regina said, shaking her head in disapproval. “I mean, I guess the wedding can go ahead as planned, but I’m doing you a big favor, I hope you realize that. I’m going to go find something else to hack into.” She turned and walked off, her face puckered in disapproval.
“She kind of grows on you,” Mary said to Jarrod, who made a sour face.
“Like mold?” he said. At Mary’s playful smack, he sighed. “Sure,” he said. “She’s great.”
Regina’s family had been so mortally offended by Regina’s new attitude that they told her that she couldn’t come back home. Mary had prevailed on Jarrod to let her stay on pack grounds until graduate school started. Regina was planning on getting a master’s in computer forensics, and using her trust fund money left to her by her great-aunt to pay for it. She was also regularly chatting with the boy she’d liked from her computer class in college, which really horrified her parents, because he didn’t come from money.
“I have something I want to show you,” Jarrod said, leading Mary out of the room. Since he was heading towards their bedroom, she had a pretty good idea what he wanted to show her. Not that she was objecting.
“Are you happy?” he asked her.
“I have literally never been happier.” She meant it, too. It wasn’t just that she and Jarrod were together now. Angela and Craig were blissfully happy and talking about getting engaged. Regina had escaped from her overbearing parents and was going to have a career, one that she actually enjoyed. Everyone had their children back; it was bittersweet, of course, because some of the wolves were twenty years old, and the pack members had missed out on their entire childhoods.
