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Of course, before they request a meeting with Aleks, they come to see me.
I don’t break bonds anymore; at least, not unless a couple wants an Elizabeth-aided supe divorce. I’ve found my purpose as a vampire matchmaker, instead. Not what I had ever expected would be my fate during those long years as a lone wolf—and even longer time as the Wicked Wolf’s pet—but I should have trusted in my goddess. After all, she made my fated mate the most amazing vampire ever. Why wouldn’t I eventually use my gifts to help his race of supernatural?
I let them know if I sense a prospective bond between two—or, like Leigh, Tamera, and Gretchen, more than two—souls. Vamps and shifters have their own way of recognizing their beloveds and their fated mates, but it’s a little tricker for a chosen mate. I use my abilities to tell them whether it’s a good match or not.
Helping other supes find their forever instead of constantly worrying that I’ll snatch it away from them… this is it. This is my calling. This is what the Luna always meant for me to do, and when I admit that to both Aleks and myself, my goddess whispers,You finally understand, my daughter.
This time, when she goes silent again, I don’t feel her absence like an ache deep in my gut. I’m following the path she set out for me. I don’t need her to guide me anymore mainly because I’ve finally stopped running from my fate.
I have my mate at my side, with a bond so unbreakable, not even death will separate us. I’m embracing what I can do. When I’m not reading bonds, I have Cadre members visiting me to entertain them with my tarot cards.
I… I’m happy.
Somehow this lone wolf found community among her ancient enemies, love with a male two centuries her senior, and her place in a pack made up of bloodsuckers, all while using her Luna-given gifts—no longer a curse—to serve her new packmates. And I mean it, too. I’m deliriously happy.
With the last of the vampire rebellion quashed—for now—there hasn’t been any attempts on Aleks’s life in weeks; he was right, and the grumblings about a new leader have finally seemed to die down. The Wicked Wolf is dead. Christian is dead. After being punished by the Alpha collective, I heard that Peyton slunk her way back to her ex-mate and the Oak Valley Pack with her tail between her legs. Ryker has assured me that she’ll stay there, and Aleks vowed to get revenge on her if she so much as comes within a hundred miles of Muncie.
I’ve seen him fight. Despite being gentle and caring with me, my sexy vampire is also a vicious killer when he’s pushed to it. Then again, so am I. Christian was a revelation. To protect my mate, I’ll do anything.
To keep me safe, so will Aleks.
Patting my chest, I run my pointer finger along the curve of his fang. Other shifters see the twin silvery-white points on my neck and know that I’ve been marked by a vampire. Vamps know one of their kind has claimed me by the magic in the fang hanging over my heart. A symbol of protection and ownership, I don’t need it to show all of Muncie that I belong to Aleks. Our mating is evident from how deep his scent is embedded in my skin, our blood mingling, our lives forever entwined. Still, you can’t blame a girl for showing off. Now that Aleks ismine, I’m even happier to let the rest of the supe world know.
And if it has my mate reverting to Polish, his pale eyes bright with love and emotion and desire when he sees how proud I am to wear both his biteandhis fang? Well, I’m happy. I want him to be, too.
He is. Even if he wasn’t as open and honest with his love for me as he is, I’d know. As the weeks pass, our bond is only growing stronger, and I can’t imagine what my life would’ve been like if I continued to reject the pull I felt toward him like I tried so desperately to do in the beginning.
That’s why, about a month after I left the meeting with the Alpha collective and ran straight into Aleks’s arms, I made a decision. As Muncie’s very own matchmaker, I have no problem sensing bonds and giving advice about if they’re shaky, solid, or even fated. But breaking them? I’d rather not get involved.
I never want to be blamed again for coming between a pair of mates. It might’ve been an accident, like what happened with the Alpha couple of my birth pack, or I was manipulated, just as Kyle manipulated me to break his fated bond with Peyton, but I don’t care. I’m going to leave all that to the Luna. I’m out of the bond-breaking business, for the most part.
Especially since the one downside to Peyton outing me to the Alphas is that my abilities are common knowledge in the shifter world now.
I’m too well-protected to have to worry about a shifter like Walker coming after me to get control of my gifts. But ever since news broke, Aleks has had more than a few reports of shifters approaching the borders to Muncie, eager to meet with the Luna-touched female.
Whether they come to gawk at me or because they want to see me perform like some kind of circus monkey, I don’t know. My mate immediately increased the Cadre patrols around the Fang City after the close call with those four shifter males. No shifter is getting into Muncie on his watch, and eventually that becomes common knowledge, too.
Elizabeth Howell Filan is off-limits.
Except, it seems, for when a friend calls in a favor…
Gem’s smart. Before she got in touch with Aleks, she called me first. She might be an alpha female, but I’m basically the co-Alpha of Muncie these days. Though it was Aleks’s permission she needed to get a free pass for one of her packmates, she neededmineto talk to Aleks.
It’s a mated shifter thing. Add in the fact that I still have to grapple with how she used to wear Aleks’s fang around her throat, and Gem’s making it clear that she’s no threat to my mating. If I say ‘no’, she’ll respect that.
Of course, this is Gem. Even though her dominance doesn’t translate over the phone, she’s done so much for me, I’d give her anything she asks for. She wants to send one of her packmates down from Accalia to meet with me? I clear my afternoon, then give her the go-ahead to speak with Aleks.
My mate immediately comes down to see me after she called him. Like Gem, he needs to make sure I’m okay with it before he agrees to let another shifter pass our borders. He’ll refuse her if that’s what I want, even if it reignites the animosity between him and Ryker. And I love him all the more for giving me the choice anyway.
After kissing him senseless, I tell him it’s fine.
And it might’ve been, if it wasn’t for what Gem’s packmate came to see me about.
EPILOGUE
Irecognize the big, brawny male the moment Everett escorts him to my floor. The young vampire leaves us alone when I make it clear that I don’t want—or need—someone watching over me. Despite the shifter’s size, he’d never hurt a female.
Big guy goes by Duke, though that’s not his real name. Before Gem moved to Accalia, he was another Jack—like Jack Walker—and she hated the reminder of her birth father so much, she decided to call him Duke instead. Though Duke’s a member of Ryker’s inner circle, his rank is a delta. He had no chance against Gem, and the name stuck.
