Epilogue Te Maruaroa o te Raumati — The Summer Solstice
VAN
Nine months later
There’s a flash of amusement through the bond a moment before Ellie spins around, barefoot in the grass as she grins at me from behind her sunglasses.
With the evening sun lighting up her long wavy hair like a gold halo, she looks just like a sun goddess in her summer dress, which is fitting, given the date.
“What?” I ask her.
“You know what.” She nods to the adjacent field of grapevines, their leaves currently lush with new growth. “Happy accidental inappropriate proposal anniversary. Or did you forget?”
“I did not. I remember that morning well.” Three years ago I woke early, shifted, and ran a perimeter of the vineyard before noticing Ellie’s presence between the grapevines.
I’d shifted back, meeting her in the middle of the field, and had somehow ended up asking her to marry me while two of my fingers were buried in her cunt.
I laugh quietly at the memory, careful not to jostle Māhinarangi.
We’re only six days into this parenting gig, and neither of us have figured out how to tie the damn baby wrap carrier correctly, so I’m carrying our tiny daughter in my arms. With my body blocking out the sun, her eyes are open for the moment, her yellow gaze unfocused.
There’s not much difference between wolves and humans — and fae, I have to assume — at this stage, and I don’t think she can see much beyond anything directly in front of her face.
Still, it doesn’t stop me from pretending that she can.
“Where are we?” I ask her. “We’re on the vineyard.
And look, there you are in the sky, my little Māhina. ”
We hadn’t settled on a name before her birth — instead we’d made a list to choose from that was quickly discarded once she was born.
She hadn’t suited any of the names we’d picked, and we’d been discharged from hospital that evening with Baby Livingston fast asleep in her capsule.
It wasn’t until we were back at our holiday home in Titirangi, where we’d been living for two weeks in anticipation of the birth — I wasn’t going to risk us getting trapped here on the island, though I know in an emergency I could always call Mom to make use of her portal magic — that we’d looked up at the rising moon and inspiration had struck.
“Marama means moon, right?” I’d asked Ellie.
“There’s a few different words. I can look it up.”
We’d named our daughter mere minutes later. Māhinarangi. Moon in the sky. I can’t think of a better name for the new centre of my universe.
“You sure you’re okay carrying that?” I ask Ellie now, nodding at the picnic basket slung over her arm. She nods.
“You have no idea how much easier not being pregnant is. Especially after your Mom worked her magic on me.”
Mom sped up Ellie’s healing a few days ago, declaring “We don’t let anyone get prolapses in this family,” as she pressed her hand just above Ellie’s pubic bone, a frown settling on her face as she did so. “I thought you said you didn’t tear?”
I’d watched from across the room as Ellie lay back on the couch, the swell of her stomach no longer a huge mountain but a soft hill under her summer dress.
“They said I didn’t.”
“Well they’re wrong. It’s very minor, but it must be uncomfortable for you at the moment.”
“Yeah, but that’s normal, right?”
“Mm. Normal, maybe, but not something you need to put up with. I’ll get you fixed up. You’ll still bleed — I’m not going to interfere with your uterus, we always let that settle in its own time — but the bruising to your vagina can be healed.”
Ellie had shot me a look that I interpreted as I can’t believe I’m talking to your mum about my vag, but she’d been visibly relieved in the aftermath of Mom’s magic, and I haven’t seen her wincing since, though I know she’s still wearing her adult diapers under her dress to cope with the heavy bleeding.
“You’re amazing, you know that, right?” I say now, remembering the way she’d looked as she pushed Māhinarangi into the world on her hands and knees on the hospital bed, her eyes glowing green and her blossom-covered antlers on her head.
She’d joked about portal pussies in the aftermath, grinning and with a fresh baby latched to her breast, but I think there’s some truth to the statement. “You’re a fucking badass.”
“Says the actual alpha wolf.”
“I’m serious, Ellie.”
She falls into line beside me, planting a kiss on my arm. “Thank you.”
Our destination is the start of the vineyard garden.
There’s already a picnic blanket set out for us — I asked the staff to leave us one under the twin pōhutukawa trees — and Ellie settles down on the tartan mat, holding her arms out for the baby.
I pass Māhina over, marvelling at the way Ellie effortlessly begins to breastfeed as if she’s done this for years and not days.
“You want me to start dishing up your food?”
She nods emphatically. “I’m starving.”
Soft cheeses, prosciutto, cured salmon, hummus… I pile her plate up with all the foods she wasn’t allowed during her pregnancy, and then, because she has her hands full, I start feeding them to her. She grins around her mouthful of camembert and quince paste, her eyes growing teary.
“This is everything I imagined,” she whispers, blinking as she looks down at Māhina. “The nights are hard, and I feel like a slob half the time with my leaky boobs and my mum bun, but this moment is perfect. Thank you for getting me out of the house.”
“I love your leaky boobs and your mum bun, so if that’s your version of being a slob please keep it up.”
She snorts with amusement, muttering, “Of course you do,” as she lifts Māhina, switching breasts. I reach over, stroking Māhina’s round cheek and the gentle point of her ear, a legacy from her fae ancestors.
“Hey,” I whisper quietly, listening to the rhythmic click of her swallows as she drinks. “We’re under the trees your mommy grew for you. One day you’re gonna climb them.”
I take my chance to eat while Ellie finishes the feed. By time I’m done and lying back, staring up at the red flowers in bloom, Ellie is declaring our daughter a drunkard. “Look at her; she’s out cold! Completely milk-drunk.”
She lays Māhina on my chest, watching us both as she eats a second plate of food.
“It’s Sunday tomorrow. She’ll be one week old,” I say.
“It’s gone so fast.”
“It’s been a blur,” I agree, brushing my fingers over the black wisps of Māhina’s hair. “But I feel like she’s been with us forever.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Ellie lays down beside me, tucking her head against my shoulder.
Lying here in the light of the setting sun, with my wife and child, surrounded by the scents of sweet pollen and breastmilk and newborn, is exactly where I want to be.
“We’re gonna stay in this newborn bubble for as long as we can,” I whisper, planting a kiss on Ellie's hair.
“No work. No pack meetings. Just us three.”
Ellie turns her head, her lips brushing mine. “Sounds like a plan.”