Page 36

I glance at him, surprised. He's never mentioned this in all the years I've known him. "I didn't know that."

"Not something I discuss often. But I understand better than most what you're actually wrestling with right now." He meets my eyes directly. "The question isn't whether loving Zoey risks eventual loss. Everything worth having carries that risk, Kellan. The question is whether you're willing to actually live fully despite that risk, or whether you're going to keep choosing isolation because it feels safer than genuine vulnerability."

"I don't want isolation anymore. I haven't wanted it in weeks, honestly, not since Zoey chose to stay knowing exactly what I am."

"Then stop treating your parents' memory like it demands you sacrifice genuine happiness in their honor. That's not what they'd actually want for you, if I understand anything about the people who raised you." Everett's voice softens slightly. "Your mother helped build half this pack's safe house network because she believed deeply in protecting people she loved. Your father trained scouts because he wanted this community to survive and thrive, not just endure. I don't think either of them sacrificed everything protecting this pack just so their son could spend the rest of his life too afraid to actually live."

"You think they'd approve. Of Zoey, of everything I'm building with her."

"I think they'd be proud you finally let yourself want something this genuine again. I think they'd recognize exactly what I've watched happen these past two months, a man rediscovering how to actually live instead of just surviving each day out of obligation." Everett's expression carries something like genuine warmth now. "You've spent seventeen years honoring their memory through duty and sacrifice. Maybe it's time you honor it through happiness instead."

I sit with that for a while, the weight of guilt I've carried so long finally starting to loosen its grip, replaced by something that feels almost unfamiliar after all these years. Permission, maybe. Permission to actually want the future I've been slowly building with Zoey without treating it as betrayal of everything I lost.

"Thank you," I tell Everett eventually. "For understanding this better than I managed to understand it myself."

"That's what family does. Helps carry the weight when carrying it alone becomes too heavy." He claps my shoulder, something final in the gesture. "Go build that future you've been afraid to fully claim. I think it's past time."

I find Zoey back at the cabin that evening, working through sheet music she's started drafting again. Something quiet and personal rather than anything built for public consumption. She looks up as I enter, warmth immediate in her expression despite whatever complicated emotions the day at the memorial site left me carrying.

"You look like you've been somewhere heavy," she says, setting the music aside.

"Everett's memorial site. Where my parents are honored, along with everyone else lost that same night." I settle beside her, working through how to explain everything the conversation actually clarified. "I've spent seventeen years convinced that loving someone this completely would somehow dishonor what happened to them. Everett helped me understand that's backward. That they'd want exactly this, watching me actually live instead of just surviving out of guilt."

Something soft crosses her expression. "What does that mean, practically? For us?"

I take her hands. "It means I'm done being afraid of wanting this future with you. Permanently, completely, without the fear I've been carrying since we first admitted what we felt for each other." I meet her eyes, wanting her to understand exactly how serious this moment actually is. "Build a life with me here. Not just staying because Cross's threat forced circumstances, not just something we fell into because danger threw us together. Choose this deliberately, permanently, the same way I'm choosing you."

"Kellan." Her voice carries something between disbelief and overwhelming joy. "Are you asking what I think you're asking?"

"I'm asking you to marry me. Eventually, whenever feels right for both of us, no rush attached to it beyond knowing this is exactly what I want for the rest of my life. I love you completely, Zoey. Not despite everything I've lost, but because loving you taught me that surviving loss doesn't mean I have to avoid genuine happiness. You taught me that."

"Yes." She says it without hesitation, certainty immediate and complete. "Yes, absolutely yes, whenever feels right for both of us. I've known for weeks this is exactly what I want, permanently, completely, no reservations left about any of it."

I pull her close, relief and joy tangling together. Whatever comes next, whatever building an actual future together requires, I understand that choosing this happiness doesn't betray anything I lost.

It honors it. Fully, completely, exactly the way Everett suggested my parents would have wanted for me all along.

35

ZOEY

Yvonne doesn't seem remotely surprised when I bring up buying the neighboring parcel of land, the overgrown five acres bordering her own property that she's mentioned selling for years without ever finding a buyer she trusted enough to actually approach.

"Took you long enough to ask," she says, settling across from me at her kitchen table with the same warm directness she's offered since the day I first arrived under a false name. "I've been waiting for this conversation since I watched Kellan move his things into your cabin."

"You knew this was where it was heading."

"Mountain's got a way of showing people exactly what they actually need, even when they arrive looking for something else entirely." Yvonne's eyes crinkle with genuine warmth. "You needed safety when you first came here. Turns out you found a whole lot more than that."

We finalize the sale within the week, paperwork handled quietly through Ava's careful management, no public record connecting Zoey Milano to a mountain property purchase that might otherwise draw exactly the kind of attention I've spent months escaping. The land itself sits perfect for what Kellan and I have been slowly imagining together, close enough to Yvonne and the pack territory to feel connected rather than isolated, private enough that building an actual life here feels genuinely possible.

Construction begins almost immediately, a modest house designed with Kellan's input alongside my own, practical and warm rather than anything resembling the sprawling properties I used to own during my old career. I insist on one addition that surprises even me with how much I want it, a small studio space overlooking the forest, windows positioned to catch morning light the same way the cabin's kitchen always has.

"You're serious about writing again," Kellan says, watching the studio framework go up alongside the main house.

"More serious than I've felt about anything creative in years." I study the space taking shape, imagining actually working there once everything's finished. "Not for labels, not for tours, not for anyone's expectations except my own. Just music because I actually want to make it again, not because an entire industry demands constant output."

"I like that idea. You, creating something purely because you want to, without all the machinery that made you miserable before."