Chapter Thirteen
Xenos
I ran a finger along the tombstone carved long ago for Jarl. It was made of crushed shell too. I let out a long, slow breath as a grave was finally dug in front of the stone. Saun and Barry took turns digging while Martha and her carrier watched on. Dead Martha stood on the edge of the cemetery as if she feared getting too close to her own stone. Sometimes it was easy to forget that ghosts and spirits could be superstitious too.
If Jarl ever wandered the world as a spirit, that time was indeed over. His bones were bones. They weren’t haunted or enchanted or filled with some lingering life force. Every time I thought about how we would all someday just be bones and dust I cried. If my dad were here, he’d tell me to stop. He’d hug me while he said it, but he’d say it nonetheless. He’d say that’s why we had to live each minute as our best life.
When the grave was sufficiently deep, Suan and Barry covered the dirt with some of the prettiest elven woven cloth I’d ever seen. It was green and blue like the sky and earth mingled just to make it for Jarl. Then they laid him out. Barry’s knowledge of autonomy helped them get all his parts and pieces in more or less the correct spots. That way we could all say he was stretched out and relaxed for the rest of eternity.
“If that’s you,” I thought to our unborn baby, “don’t pay it no mind, because it’s not you anymore. You’re you. The past lives you lived won’t determine where you go. You’re our baby now. Our little wolf pup and you’re more loved than you could ever know. By us and our family and by your old family too. It’s going to be alright. It’s all going to be alright.”
After the ceremony, we all returned to BAKE for a homecooked meal. Suan had shut down shop for the day to honor his long ago fallen brother. We ate in mostly silence and I kept one hand on my belly as if my baby could catch the grief from the air.
That night I lay awake for a long time wondering where my dad was. Had he been reincarnated already? Lady Annabella had came back as our baby. Had Dad snuck in too or was he somewhere else? Where was my carrier? Where was…
“I don’t know,” Barry whispered, half asleep but picking up my ponderings over our mating link. He turned onto his side and stroked my cheek. “I don’t know where any of them are, mate, but I know where I am. I’m right here with you and I’ll stay with you no matter what. No one plans to die but if I go before you, I’ll be like Ormund. I’ll be a giant pain in the ass refusing to leave without you. If you go first, I’ll learn to see spirits and work your magic so we can stay together. I can’t promise about anyone or anything else, but I can promise this – you will never be without me. You will never be alone in this big scary universe.”
He kissed my forehead and then my tear-wet eyelashes.
“I love you. I think I loved you before I knew what love was or what it could be. I think you’re the only reason I know what it is at all and I’m never going to let you go. Not now. Not in some distant lifetime. We’ll figure out how to spend eternity together. Frost and Juda did it after all. You are mine and I am yours. I’ve claimed you for eternity.”
I dozed off to Barry’s coos of poetry and reassurance, trying not to think what the other bears would think of me if they heard how much reassurance I needed. Barry wouldn’t care what they thought. He never did. He loved me in whispers and in shouts. I loved him too and I hoped he was right. That we’d be together for eternity.
***
We extended our stay at SLEEP a few days but soon it was time to return home. Our vacation didn’t feel like much of a vacation at all but wherever Barry and our kids were, was exactly where I wanted to be. Upon entering the house as a surprise to all our kids because we didn’t tell them exactly when we were coming back, we were greeted with a half-ready surprise welcome home party.
Stephie crashed into my legs and nuzzled my kneecaps until Barry scooped her up for me. I wasn’t positive but it very much so felt like I had entered the second trimester of my pregnancy. My bump was edging ever closer to my diaphragm. I took my baby and kissed her all over her face while she laughed her butt off.
Our vacation had been eventful in ways we couldn’t imagine and neither of us got as much rest as we hoped for but it was still nice to be home with our babies. That night after all the visitors left we settled down in the living room and watched a few movies until the kids all conked out one by one scattered all over the place. I almost called Mori since we hadn’t heard either way about his relationship with Teddy but decided to leave it alone until he was ready to give me an update on what was going on. Neither Dern nor Ormund had reached out again, and I took that as a good sign.
“No news is good news,” Barry yawned. “Besides, we’d have felt it if Mori and Teddy had some sort of true-mate response. I don’t think they could’ve avoided each other this long but I sort of feel like they’ve met before. Not in another lifetime but here or something.”
“Were they old enough then?”
“Had to be, I think. Are we sleeping out here or unburying ourselves so we can go to bed?”
“Eh, my back will hate me for it in the morning, but let’s sleep out here.”
“I’d kiss you goodnight, but the kid divide is too great,” he laughed from the other end of the sofa.
Barry dozed off before I did. I lay awake imagining who Jarl would be this time around. We wouldn’t recycle the name. We wanted all of our babies to have a fresh start in life. Just as my eyes drifted closed the vision came to me of Barry putting our next baby into my arms. He’d be a big boy – the biggest wolf pup I ever delivered coming in at almost ten pounds. He’d have those perfectly pointed ears of his sire and my eyes. We’d call him Xentholomew.
“Yes!” my bear cheered in my thoughts from the other side of the vision. “He’s finally gonna let us use that name!”
Hello and thank you for reading! Whether this is your first book in this universe, or you’ve been around since the beginning, thank you!
Some housekeeping notes:
1) Yes! Everyone will find out what happens while Mori and Orthoni are visiting Dern. That happens in Teddy’s book AKA the last book of the Starscale Mates Series which should be out this spring/summer.
2) We have family trees ! Really – trees in the plural! Thanks to the awesome Riley Morgan ! Thank you so much!
3) Someone recently asked me why I hyphenated true-mate. When I first started writing my first book, I thought the words true and mate just looked a little separated and needed to be tied together because of what their joint meaning was. So, it became the way everyone in the Hemlock Universe wrote it.
4) You can follow me here to keep up with all the upcoming releases and other fun stuff 3 3 3
5) Thank you all for your ongoing support. Y’all mean the world to me. I have lots of fun stuff planned for the Hemlock Universe after this series that I can’t wait for you all to explore!