one year later
gray’s epilogue
It’s strange to walk through my house and see it so empty. I haven’t had a lot of constants in my life, but the existence of this house was one of them.
This was my home when I was just a scrawny teenager, living with my parents. It was the place I used to come to visit for a long time after I joined the service, and the place that I avoided for years after they died.
It brought me comfort to know that it was still here, though. Even if I didn’t want to visit. Just like it brought me comfort to know that my parents died together in that car accident, the way they would have wanted, instead of watching each other sicken and age, each of them forced to die alone.
It’s a far away comfort. One that I don’t want to spend too much time looking at, even after all these years.
I didn’t have a plan when I started renovating this place, I just knew I couldn’t sit on my ass all day. While I was ready to leave the Army behind, I wasn’t really ready to be retired, but I couldn’t see where the civilian world held a place for me.
Tanner changed all of that. I used to feel guilty for how I felt about him. The age gap bothered me. But since we’ve been together, I had the chance to see us go from something forged under stress of an unusual circumstance to something real.
Now, the thought of leaving my security blanket of a house behind doesn’t seem so hard. Tanner didn’t seem to care much where we live. He wasn’t pushing for me to sell. And if I’d kept it and just moved away, I know he wouldn’t have minded.
But I realized it was time for a fresh start. For both of us. Ashfall is our home, but there doesn’t feel like much of a future here.
The house is almost completely packed up, but the one thing I’m missing is my mate.
“Tanner? Don’t tell me I accidentally put you in one of these fucking boxes.”
“Upstairs!” I hear him respond faintly.
As soon as he says it, his scent hits me.
Ever since he moved in, the house has smelled like him.
It’s a difficult scent to describe, even though he’s asked me before.
Sort of like fresh strawberries. But not the berry itself, the green part on top.
Slightly sweet, but mostly verdant, brimming with life and freshness. That’s what he’s always been to me.
But it’s easy to trace the scent upstairs to our bedroom. Before I even get to the door, my body is responding to the way it intensifies and sweetens the closer I get.
Oh no, I think as I get a little hard. I’ve spent most of my life suppressing my libido for the sake of my job, and sometimes I wonder if it’s all trying to catch up to me now.
We absolutely do not have time for this.
I open the door slowly and see exactly what I’m expecting to see on the other side.
Tanner, completely naked, presenting for me with his ass in the air, already glistening with slick. He likes to surprise me sometimes when the mood takes him, and one of the blessings of being retired is that I’m always happy to oblige. But now it’s just an impossible tease.
“Oh, sweetness,” I say, struggling to keep my arousal out of my voice.
It’s beyond my control when I take a few steps into the room and reach out to fit my hand around his hip. He shivers under my touch, which doesn’t help my situation, and I indulge in a deep inhale of his scent.
“Alpha,” he moans, already so far gone.
“Sweetness, what day of the week do you think it is?” I ask him in a gentle tone.
I can practically see his brain struggling to function, already lost on a sea of endorphins. The scar from his mating bite glints with sweat in the low light, and it’s taking all of my considerable self-control not to grab him by the scruff, pin him down and rut into him until we’re tied together.
“Tuesday?” he asks, after a considerable pause.
“I’m sorry sweetness, but it’s Wednesday. Your brothers will be here any minute. And as much as I would love to do this—” I cut myself off, teasing both of us by slipping the tips of my fingers inside him for just a second,
pulling a moan out of my love and making it even harder to step away from him, “—I don’t think they want to wait downstairs until my knot goes down.”
“Shit,” Tanner says, although it’s so breathy and wanton, I think it’s more in response to my fingers than anything else.
I wait for another moment, and then see when my words click into place in his lust-drenched brain.
“Shit!”
This time there’s real panic there. He snaps up out of the position, turning to knee-walk towards me across the mattress until he’s leaning on my chest.
“Shitshitshit,” he says, eyes wide. “I thought that was tomorrow!”
“Evidently,” I say with a smile, but he’s too deep in his sudden panic to notice.
“I’m such a fucking idiot. I’m…” he trails off, looking around for a second. “Shit. I’ll jump in the shower.”
His panic is continuing to swell, way higher than is appropriate for the situation.
Living in a secure situation where he isn’t talked down to on a daily basis has done wonders for my sweetness. But I know he still struggles sometimes. With the negativity that his father spent years building up in him, as well as to generally catastrophize.
Which means it’s my job to arrest the spiral, and honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better one.
“Sweetness,” I say again, looking for his attention.
He tries to get up, so I gently stop him by taking his chin in my hand and forcing him to look at me.
“Tanner, breathe.”
There’s a little alpha in my voice, and he complies immediately, on instinct. I focus on projecting a calming scent, and letting himself catch the panic.
“Everything’s fine. It’s only moving day. I will get your brothers started loading the truck while you shower. We might not have time for all of this,” I gesture to his beautiful, still-naked body, “but they’re allowed to smell omega in the house, it’s not a secret anymore.”
Tanner blows out a breath so hard I can see his chest deflate as he loses the whale-eye of panic. As soon as he settles, I see him roll his eyes at himself.
“Ugh. You’re right. They’ve known about me for way longer than it was ever a secret now, I don’t know why my instincts keep telling me to freak out like this.”
“Because you’re trying to protect yourself,” I say, pulling him in to place a kiss on his forehead. “Although that’s my job now.”
This time when he rolls his eyes it’s definitely aimed at me, but he’s only teasing.
“Sir, yes sir,” he says, with a mock salute.
I’m already pulling him in for a real kiss though, and it just means I have to smother my smile against his lips.
When we pull apart, the tension is gone, replaced with a fresh wave of arousal.
“You should shower before we get distracted again.”
“Right,” he says, but now he’s smiling up at me with the naked love I’ll never totally get used to seeing.
He starts to scramble past me to the bathroom, but I call out after him.
“And don’t forget to eat something! We need to get on the road as soon as the truck is packed, and we’re not stopping until we get to Last Ditch.”
“Yes, Dad,” he says with a facetious little smile, quickly dodging out of my reach before I can swat his ass like he deserves.
“Pest,” I tell him. “Keep that up and I’ll make you drive the moving truck instead of the Jeep.”
Tanner only laughs, finally stepping into the en suite to shower.
It shouldn’t be too long of a day. Jax and Karl, for all their faults, have been relatively supportive of their brother since everything happened.
I wasn’t expecting them to side with Tanner over their father after the fight, but they both surprised me.
They still make insensitive comments about omegas from time to time, but it feels more like a habit than a deliberate effort to degrade their little brother.
I don’t think either of them have visited their father in prison. But I know how persuasive Frank can be, and I’m not convinced things won’t change back to the way they were as soon as he’s released, which is four weeks and six days from now.
Staying in Ashfall feels like a risk I’m not willing to take. I was happy to sell the house in the end, if it meant putting some distance between Frank and his son.
Karl and Jax are helping us pack up the last of our shit before the new owners arrive, and Atlas will help us unpack once we get to Last Ditch.
Our rental isn’t far from where he lives near the fire station, so he and Tanner can continue to be close, and it sounds like Alyssa might be staying in town for a while longer as well.
I’m happy about it. Tanner can be prickly, and I saw first-hand his attempts to push everyone else away once he moved in with me out here in the middle of nowhere.
But Atlas is probably the most constant thing in his life, and Alyssa turned out to be absolutely relentless when it came to maintaining their new friendship.
Hopefully, after the move, I’ll make some friends of my own. Not that I don’t love spending all day every day with my omega, but it would be healthy to find some friendships that work out better than things did with Frank.
Plus, between the sale of the house, my Army pension, and some careful investments I’ve made over the years, we should have enough to start a real landscaping company, like we’ve been talking about.
I don’t think Tanner was planning on really using his degree when he chose Forestry & Conservation Science.
I get the impression it was more a pick-one-from-a-hat situation.
Maybe it’s just another way we were fated to come together. I’ve loved plants as long as I can remember, and although I didn’t think there was a career in that when I was young, I know better now.
We’ll make a good team. I’m sure of it.
And if Tanner decides he wants to move somewhere else in a few years, I’ll be happy to do that, too.
I’ve had decades of living only for myself.
The thought of spending the next half century devoted to giving him the kind of freedom and family that he should have had all along…
that makes me feel like anything is possible.
As long as I have my sweetness close to me, I won’t let anything else get in our way.