EPILOGUE
Roman
Roman woke before dawn the way he always had, but these days the first thing he reached for was the warm, weight of his mate instead of the cold certainty of another empty day.
Ella slept on her side facing him, one hand curled protectively over the small curve of her belly, dark hair spilled across his pillow.
The claiming mark on her shoulder was a neat, permanent scar that still made his wolf rumble with satisfaction every time he saw it.
Through the bond he felt the deep, peaceful rhythm of her sleep and beneath it the bright, new spark that was their child.
His.
Both of them. His.
For six years he’d told himself there was danger in that word.
That anything a man called his could be taken from him, and the taking would cost more than never claiming it in the first place.
He’d built a life around that idea. Run the boundary alone.
Kept his brothers close and everyone else further off, because a pack of three was small enough to protect and a mate was one more heartbeat he might fail to save.
Lying here now, her breath warm against his shoulder and their child turning slow somersaults under his palm, the old fear didn’t disappear so much as go quiet.
The way a wound stops aching once it’s finally allowed to close.
He hadn’t failed her. He wasn’t going to.
Some mornings that was still the whole of his prayer.
He eased out of bed carefully, pulled on sweatpants, and started the coffee.
Decaf now that Ella was pregnant. By the time it finished she had padded into the kitchen wearing one of his flannel shirts and a pair of his cut-off sweatpants, both of them struggling to keep her stomach covered.
Her hair was a mess. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep.
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“You’re staring again,” she murmured, accepting the mug he handed her.
“Observing.”
“Same thing when you’re doing it.” She leaned into his side and rested her head against his chest. “Baby’s already awake. Feels like popcorn in there.”
Roman slid a hand under the flannel and spread his fingers over the place where their child moved.
The wonder never lessened. Years of believing he would die alone, and now he had this.
Soft laughter in his kitchen, the scent of his mate layered with the new scent of his pup, a future that stretched out clean and bright instead of blood-soaked and empty.
Later they walked the fence line together, her gloved hand in his, snow crunching under their boots.
The lower ridge was clean. No strange scents.
No threat. Word had traveled exactly as far as it needed to and the illegal hunts had stopped.
The Matthews land was protected, the woman who lived there was claimed, and anyone who forgot either fact would not live long enough to regret it.
At the highest point of the trail Ella stopped and turned to face him. Snowflakes caught in her lashes. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. She looked like every good thing he had never let himself want.
“I can feel you thinking something heavy,” she said.
“Just thinking that I get to keep you. Both of you. For the rest of my life.” He paused and let himself say the rest of it out loud for once instead of just carrying it.
“I spent a long time thinking I didn’t get to have this.
That I’d used up whatever right I had to keep someone safe.
You walked into my woods and made a liar out of that certainty. ”
She rose on her toes and kissed him, slow and sweet and full of the future.
“Yeah,” she whispered against his mouth. “You do. Get to keep us, I mean. That’s not up for negotiation anymore.”
Roman wrapped his arms around his mate and their child and let the mountains bear witness.
The wolf inside him was finally, completely still.
Home.