Epilogue - Caelan
One year ago, I didn’t know this room existed.
Now I stand in the doorway of the Llewelyn-Grayhide Cultural Center and watch my mate teach a combat class to warriors from three different packs.
Patrick moves through the group with the confidence of someone who has finally found his place.
His voice carries across the training floor as he corrects a young Ambersky wolf’s stance, and the wolf adjusts without argument.
Six months ago, that same wolf would have bristled at taking orders from a former Thornridge fighter. Now he just nods and tries again.
Things change. People change. I’m living proof of that.
The training methods Patrick brought from Thornridge have been adapted to serve the alliance instead of threatening it.
He stripped away the brutality and kept the efficiency, and the result is a fighting force that moves like a single organism.
Wolves from packs that spent decades as enemies now train side by side, learning to trust each other with their lives.
I remember the first session Patrick led, how the wolves circled each other with hackles raised and teeth bared.
Oren had to intervene twice to prevent actual bloodshed.
Now those same wolves spar together like they’ve been packmates their whole lives.
Jonas is among them.
Patrick’s brother has filled out over the past year.
He’s broader through the shoulders, with a steadiness in his movements that wasn’t there when he first arrived in Grayhide territory.
Reeyan took him on as a student, and Jonas threw himself into his studies like he was desperate to believe in something.
Pack history. Conflict prevention. The diplomatic strategies that keep wars from starting in the first place.
He spends hours in the archives every day, poring over texts that most wolves would find unbearably dull.
But Jonas devours them like they hold the answers to questions he’s been asking his whole life.
He’s good at it. Better than anyone expected. Reeyan says Jonas has a natural talent for pattern recognition, for seeing the threads that connect past conflicts to present tensions. The skills that Thornridge honed for destruction, Jonas is learning to use for prevention.
He spots me in the doorway and raises his hand in a wave.
I wave back, and a small smile tugs at his mouth before he returns his attention to the training exercise.
We’re not close. We may never be. The shadow of what his pack did to mine still lingers between us, and some wounds take longer to heal than others.
But we’ve found a way to coexist. We share meals sometimes.
We talk about Patrick, about the weather, about nothing important.
It’s more than I hoped for in those first terrible weeks after the battle.
“You’re staring.”
I turn to find my sister leaning against the wall beside me.
Sera looks better than she has in months.
The shadows under her eyes have faded, and there’s color in her cheeks again.
Reeyan has been good for her. They’ve been good for each other.
I remember how worried I was when she first broke the curse, when the weight of saving our entire pack nearly crushed her.
But she found her footing. She found her purpose.
And she found a mate who supports her through all of it.
“You have a dopey look on your face,” she teases.
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do,” Sera grins at me. “It’s the same look you get every time Patrick walks into a room. Like you can’t quite believe he’s real.”
I want to argue with her, but she’s not wrong.
Sometimes I still catch myself watching Patrick and wondering how I got here.
How the stranger I met in a bar became the husband I was forced to marry became the mate I chose to keep.
The path from there to here was never straight, and most of it hurt like hell.
But I wouldn’t change any of it. Not the fear.
Not the fury. Not the long nights when I couldn’t decide if I wanted to kiss him or kill him.
All of it led me here, to this moment, to this life.
“I’m not apologizing for being happy,” I tell Sera.
“I’m not asking you to.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “I’m just saying you look ridiculous. In a good way.”
Movement across the training floor catches my attention.
Patrick has stepped back to let the wolves run through the exercise on their own, and he’s looking at me.
His amber eyes find mine across the crowded room, and a smile spreads across his face.
His hard features go soft and open into something warm and unguarded that belongs only to me.
My heart does a little flip in my chest. A year of marriage, and he still makes me feel like a lovesick teenager.
I used to think that feeling would fade.
That the novelty would wear off and we’d settle into something comfortable but ordinary.
Instead, it just keeps growing. Every day, I discover something new to love about him.
The way he sings off-key while he cooks.
The way he checks on Jonas, even when he pretends not to care.
The way he holds me at night like I’m the most precious thing in his world.
“See?” Sera whispers. “Dopey.”
“Shut up.”
She laughs and starts walking away. “I have to go. Reeyan wants to show me something in the archives. Apparently, he found a reference to the curse in some old Llewelyn text that nobody’s looked at in centuries.”
“The curse is broken. Why does it matter?”
“Because understanding how it started might help us prevent something similar from happening again.” Sera shrugs. “Or so Reeyan says. Honestly, I think he just likes having an excuse to dig through dusty old books. The man gets excited about water damage patterns on three-hundred-year-old paper.”
“And you love him anyway.”
“I do.” She doesn’t even try to deny it. “I really do.”
She waves goodbye and disappears down the corridor.
I watch her go, grateful for the easy relationship we’ve rebuilt over the past year.
The curse stole so much from our family.
It kept us distant and cold when we should have been close.
We grew up in the same house, ate at the same table, and never really knew each other.
The curse made sure of that. It wrapped around our hearts and convinced us that distance was strength, that needing someone was weakness.
Breaking it gave us a second chance, and we’ve both been determined not to waste it.
We talk now, really talk, about our childhood, about our fears, about the futures we’re building with our mates.
Sometimes we argue. Sometimes we disagree.
But at least we feel something when we do. At least we’re honest with each other.
A familiar scent reaches me a moment before strong arms wrap around my waist from behind.
“You’re supposed to be teaching,” I say.
“Class is over.” Patrick’s breath is warm against my ear. “I saw you standing here and couldn’t stay away.”
“That’s very unprofessional.”
“I know.” He presses a kiss to the side of my neck. “I don’t care.”
I lean back into his embrace and let myself relax. The mate bond pulses between us, steady and sure. Some days I forget it’s even there. Other days, it’s all I can feel. Today it wraps around me like a blanket, warm and comforting.
“Jonas looked good out there,” I offer.
“He’s improving every week. Reeyan says he’s one of the most dedicated students he’s ever had. He thinks Jonas might have a future in diplomatic work. Negotiations between packs. That sort of thing.”
“The irony of a former Thornridge wolf becoming a peacekeeper.”
“Stranger things have happened.” Patrick’s arms tighten around me. “I married a Llewelyn princess, after all.”
“I’m not a princess.”
“You’re Matriarch Lydia’s niece. Close enough.”
I elbow him in the ribs, and he laughs. The sound still surprises me sometimes.
When I first met Patrick, I didn’t think he knew how to laugh.
He was so serious. So burdened. Now he laughs easily.
He smiles without thinking. He’s become the man he was always meant to be, before his pack twisted him into something else.
“Jonas asked about you yesterday,” Patrick comments. “Wanted to know how you were feeling.”
I place my hand over the spot in my stomach where our child is growing.
It’s still too early to show, but I know they’re there.
The healer confirmed it last week, and I’ve been carrying the secret around like a precious stone ever since.
A new life. A new beginning. A child who will belong to both worlds, Llewelyn and Thornridge, carrying the best of each.
“You told him?”
“I told everyone.” Patrick sounds almost sheepish. “Sorry. I was excited.”
“You told everyone before I could?”
“Technically, I told my brother. And then he told Reeyan. And then Reeyan told Sera. And then Sera told your mother. And then your mother told Matriarch Lydia. And then—” he breaks off. “Okay, yes. I told everyone. Are you angry?”
I should be. This was supposed to be our news to share on our own terms. I had a whole plan. A special dinner. A carefully rehearsed speech. All of it ruined because my mate couldn’t keep his mouth shut for more than five minutes.
But the hopeful look on his face makes it impossible to stay mad.
“I’m not angry,” I admit. “But you owe me.”
“Anything you want.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
He grins and turns me in his arms so we’re facing each other. His hands settle on my hips, and he looks down at me with so much warmth that my knees go weak.
“I love you,” he says. “You know that, right?”
The words still make my breath catch. We’ve said them before, whispered in the dark, gasped in the heat of passion. But hearing them now, in the middle of the day, with wolves training just a few feet away—it feels different. Realer.