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“You don’t seem like the submissive type.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“Yes. And you’re a butthead, but what can you do?”
“Are we ever going to get along like a normal couple? Or are we gonna do stuff like this forever?”
I smiled and stroked her cheek. “I hope not. Because I don’t want normal. I want forever. With you.”
Chapter 27
Kira
Moonlight streamed down from the waning crescent moon, casting a milky-white glow across the clearing. Home. The Eastern Wilds. For a time, I truly never believed I’d see it again. Now, here I stood, free and alive.
Breathing in, I noticed the things I’d always taken for granted. The green scent of the forest, the tang of the soil, and the sweet smell of wildflowers. We’d chosen this night as a symbol. Typically, mating ceremonies happened around the time of the full moon, but neither Wyatt nor I wanted to honor Heline in such a way. The fading light of the waning moon was our symbol instead. A way to show Heline’s fading influence.
Smiling, I ran my hands down my dress. It was even more beautiful than the first one Zoe had made me. She’d truly outdone herself, and it was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever worn in my life. She’d even hand-painted all the swirling symbols—mating ceremony glyphs. I’d cried when she revealed it to me and thanked her a dozen times.
Through the trees, I could hear quiet, murmured conversation the voices low and respectful. Members of my pack. My new pack. After everything that happened, the packs broke apart just as I’d anticipated. Even the Eleventh Pack. Mynew pack was composed of former members of the Eleventh Pack, a few Haven survivors, a few new wolves who’d joined from other packs, and many of Wyatt’s unofficial packmates.
The Eleventh Pack had been my family since I was born, and I’d truly believed theywerefamily, but there were dozens of members I still barely knew, and even more that I’d never met. That wasn’t a pack. These people, the ones I shared my life with now, were truefamily. People we would fight and die for, people who would comfort us when our hearts were broken, wipe our tears, and be a shoulder to cry on. They would laugh with us, hold each other’s children like their own, and build their lives around one another.
Pack. This is what I’d always envisioned it being.
Three months, and all of shifter society had changed. In some ways, it seemed like it had been much longer, and in others, it seemed to have gone by in a blink. The war had wound down, and Heline had vanished into near obscurity. Lucina had not been seen since she’d saved me. She was probably residing peacefully back on Bloodstone with her creatures of the night.
Bentley Crew had stepped in as a liaison of sorts to help negotiate peace accords between packs and assist with the dissolution of the packs that had splintered. He’d also sat in on themanycourt cases that brought down the mightiest of our race, including his own parents. Crew had never planned on being an alpha, but he’d done such an amazing job and was such a charismatic leader, he’d soon found himself being the alpha he never thought he’d be. His own birth pack had dissolved, and he now commanded his own true pack, along with Chelsey. The two had officially mated days after the final takedown of Simon and Heline. They truly were fated mates, and I’d never seen two people happier to be together.
The members of Haven that hadn’t joined my pack had chosen to join Crew and Chelsey in their new pack. Some weren’teven shifters, and that strange combination of pack members would never have been allowed before the upheaval. Now Crew said it was “an experiment that might be worth it.”
Who knew what the future held? Maybe things would look even more different in a few years. After all, look how much had changed in a few short months.
I walked down to get a better view of everyone. So many familiar faces. Chelsey and Crew, of course. Mika, with Zoe snuggled right up against him. J.D. and Leif, holding hands. Leif’s body, face, and attitude were stronger and healthier than during our final days on Bloodstone Island. It had taken weeks of intensive work with spell casters, healers, and psychologists, but he’d fully recovered. No longer feral, he’d begun working with J.D. to form a nonprofit company to help shifters who were in danger of going feral or who had recently slipped over. He wanted to give everyone the same help he’d been given.
Abel had come with his new girlfriend, the woman he’d always thought should have been his fated mate. My brother Kolton stood beside Eli, their hands clasped together. Eli was even more beautiful than before. After we’d revealed all the dirty dealings of the upper echelons of the Tranquility Council and proven her innocence, along with the dirty truth behind herdisappearance,her order had restored her wings and her title.
Gavin Fell had come, too. I’d invited him, but hadn’t truly believed he would attend. He stood off the side, mostly keeping to himself. After the way the Ninth Pack had dissolved, he’d fallen in with some old members and created their own new pack. He’d finally come to grips with the fact that he and I were never meant to be together. The faint smile on his lips showed that he was at least sort of happy for Wyatt and me. Hopefully, he would find someone out there who was meant for him. As annoying as he could be, he’d done right by all of us. He deserved to be happy.
Not everything was happy, though. Wyatt’s father hadn’t been invited. If not for him, we might have died on Bloodstone Island, and he had sheltered us that night in Fangmore. There was good in him, but he was too deeply enmeshed in the old ways. Too blinded by ancient pack loyalty and the hierarchy. Once Crew released the acolytes and worked with people to ignite big changes, Lawrence Rivers had fled the city. Thankfully, most of the dirt August and his hacker and detective friends had dug up on Lawrence hadn’t been too awful. Mostly money and investment issues. I hoped that one day, he and Wyatt might reconcile, but that day might be far in the future.
My own parents had learned to look beyond the old ways better than many. They stood beside Kolton and Eli, holding hands and smiling. They now saw the love Wyatt and I held for each other, the way we fit together like puzzle pieces, finishing a picture that had yet to be completed. They were able to look at me—their daughter, a female alpha, created by experimentation—and loved me for who I was. They looked at Wyatt—the renegade alpha, a lone wolf, member of an unofficial pack—and saw the way he treated me and took care of me, and they loved him for who he was now.
I sniffed and blinked, desperate not to ruin my makeup. Crying wasn’t my thing, but sometimes emotions did what they wanted without your say-so. So much had happened, and it was only really hitting me now. Wyatt and I had gone through hell. Danger beyond description, and we’d come out the other side. Not only had we found each other, but we’d changed the world. We’d set shifters free of the ancient, toxic chains of hierarchy. It was early, but I thought the changes we’d brought about would alter the world for the better. Maybe years from now, people would look back on what we did and smile. The sheer scale of all we’d accomplished weighed heavily on me.
Wyatt finally appeared. A smile spread across my lips at the sight of him. He was clothed in the traditional mating clothes, with similar swirling glyphs and runes on his garments. I’d never seen a more handsome man in my life. This was exactly what I’d dreamed of as a young girl, before all the awful things Simon did to me. Before Jayson Fell, Bloodstone Island, andThe Reject Project. I’d once dreamed, like most girls, of a day like this. A gorgeous dress, a man who loved me, family and friends, all together to celebrate a love that would last forever.
Wyatt and I had already claimed each other, but this ceremony was a symbol. A day we could look back on in twenty, thirty, even fifty years and smile at the memory of. No cameras, just the people who loved and cared for us.
Beginning my slow walk across the clearing, I wondered how long it would be before Wyatt and I could live normal lives again. Unfortunately, our celebrity status hadn’t died down yet. In fact, we were two of the most famous people on the planet. It was part of why we’d kept our new pack here in the Eastern Wilds, far from prying eyes, reporters, and above all, no cameras. Out here, we didn’t have to worry about our lives being broadcast to the whole world.
Wyatt and I, tasked with rebuilding the Tranquility Council, had been appointed directors of the Tranquility operatives. Our first order of business was inclusion and representation of other beings besides wolf shifters in both the operatives and council. There was no reason for two of the most powerful groups on the planet to be solely made up of one species. Those duties, unfortunately, took us to places like Fangmore and other large cities. When word of our arrival spread, we were treated like celebrities, even by otheractualcelebrities.
One of those being Von Thornton.
The vampire had done his duty: he’d rolled over and spilled his guts. His testimony alone had sent seven pack alphas, fivepack betas, the entirety ofThe Reject Projectboard, nearly the whole Tranquility Council, and thirty percent of the Tranquility operatives to prison. Along with that, dozens of others had been taken down as well. Von had been given amnesty for his cooperation and had somehow managed to land on his feet. He was the new host ofShifter Wives, a dating show for all species of shifters looking for their fated mates.
Wyatt and I would have a short honeymoon soon, but once we were back at work, our main focus would be tracking down and destroying any of Simon’s experiments that may have survived or lay hidden away somewhere. August, whom Wyatt had talked into joining the new Tranquility operatives as a forensic hacker, had dug up a lot of Simon’s money transfers and shell corporations. With his help, I was sure we’d find every last drug, potion, and abomination the mad fae had hidden away.
