Epilogue
Six months later
JAX
“Do you need any help with that, my love?” I call To Tippy. She’s reaching up on tippy-toes to put a jar of dried herbs on a shelf.
“Hmm, maybe you could fetch the ladder.”
“As long as you don’t climb up it,” I say protectively. “Leave the high shelves to me. Promise?”
“I promise.”
I go over and kiss her, then place my hand on her burgeoning belly.
“How are they all going today?”
“Moving around like crazy. I think I’ve got a basketball team in here.” She puts her hand over mine and moves it around her tight, round belly. “Feel that?”
Sure enough, I feel the ripples as our younglings kick in unison.
We’ve recently learned that we’re expecting quadruplets. Not so uncommon for vixen shifters, but these cubs have wolf in them, and are likely to be big and strong.
And my little wixen is small.
But she’s strong and healthy, and Felicia says there will be no problem with her birthing our cubs.
We are working hard to get the new apothecary up and running before her confinement.
There is still a fuckload to do.
Tippy’s Healing Place as she’s named it, sits on the edge of Vixenville. We have plans eventually to move it up to Earth, but we wanted to start off in familiar territory.
And where better than somewhere close to her family? Who, incidentally, have welcomed me with open arms.
I’ve been allowed to help out around Vixenville, the first male who’s been openly welcomed to do jobs that my superior strength and agility make easy. Mending the rooves and repairing their jeeps and scooters, and the like.
I also do my share of cooking and cleaning.
I haven’t got tickets on myself because of my High Priest title.
It is, after all, just a title.
As I go outside to fetch the ladder now, I hear a rasping cough. That’s a smoker’s cough, I think to myself.
“Excuse me,” queries a voice. “I’m looking for a Tippy Honeywell. I was told I might find her here?”
I turn to see a slightly built middle-aged male, with red hair and a wily build.
He’s dressed in braces and boots, and carrying a small rucksack on his back. He looks like a traveler, one of the many species who move between levels, working in the mines or manufacturing.
“You have been told right.”
“Are you her husband?”
“Soon to be,” I say proudly.
He sniffs, clearly picking my scent. “You’re wolfen.”
“Yep, I am.”
He nods, his features resigned to the fact, then he sticks out a hand. “I’m Harold.”
“Nice to meet you, Harold. I’m Jax.”
For long moments he just stands there, shifting his pack on his back. I smile encouragement.
“She’s in there now, is she?” He nods his head toward the bow-windowed building.
“She is.”
He shuffles his feet, scratches his scant red hair. “Can I talk to you a moment?”
I sense no malice from this man, just that he is ill at ease. Clearly he has something he needs to get off his chest—something other than the cough that again wracks his thin frame.
“Sure,” I say. We sit on a couple of stools placed outside the shop entrance.
He looks at his hands, roughened by work. And then I see his claws. They furl and unfurl nervously.
I check his belt. Sure enough, tucked tightly into it is his tail. Red with a white tip.
A fox shifter.
And I suppose I’ve already guessed when he lets out a sigh and says, “I’m Tippy’s father.
Been gone a long time. But I heard on the grapevine she is expecting younglings.
For many years I’ve wanted to return. I tried a couple times but got given my marching orders quick smart.
I deserved it, I wasn’t a committed dad.
But these past years, they’ve been hard.
They’ve been lonely. I’ve missed my kids. ”
He takes a rolled-up cigarette out of his bag and holds it up. “And these… I smoked to make life bearable, but I gotta get off them now, doc says.”
I huff a laugh. “Ah yeah, I know all about that.”
“So… do you think she’d see me? Talk to me a while?”
I nod. I know Tippy. “Would you like me to go fetch her?”
“If you would be so kind.”
At that moment, Tippy walks through the door. “Decide to take a nap, did you, Jax Summers? Where’s that ladd—”
She stops in her tracks, staring at Harold.
“Oh. Oh… Dad…”
He stands. His face crumples, and he coughs, then swallows hard, composing himself.
“It’s been a while, Tippy-Anna.” For long moments she stares at him. And then her face softens and she looks at me and she looks at him and I know my sweet mate is going to welcome the father she barely knows.
Because that’s who she is.
She knows that life is complicated. That love is complicated. That it takes courage, and faith, and commitment. And, above all, forgiveness.
She smiles at me, and I smile at her.
And then she goes over to her father, links her arm in his, and leads him toward the door of her apothecary.
“Come inside, Dad, and I’ll mix you an elixir for that cough.”