Epilogue One Year Later
The convention center smelled like stale coffee, industrial carpet cleaner, and the nervous, pheromone-heavy sweat of three thousand romance readers. To anyone else, the air would have been stifling, a sensory assault of humidity and low-grade anxiety.
To me, it was the most beautiful smell in the world. It was the scent of people who had found a safe harbor in the pages of a book.
I adjusted my glasses, pushing them up the bridge of my nose with the back of my wrist. They had slid down again, slick with the heat of the room and the exertion of the last two hours.
The sharpie in my hand was warm, the plastic barrel slippery against my fingers, the felt tip hovering over the title page of a hardcover copy of The Alpha's Oath: Definitive Edition.
"To..." I looked up, blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights to focus on the girl standing on the other side of the autograph table.
She couldn't have been more than nineteen.
She was wearing an oversized hoodie that swallowed her frame, the sleeves pulled down over her hands so only her fingertips were visible.
She was clutching a second book to her chest like a shield, or perhaps a holy text.
Her eyes were wide, darting around the crowded hall like a prey animal scanning for predators, terrified of being seen but desperate to be here.
"Maya," she whispered. Her voice was barely audible over the dull roar of the crowd behind her.
I smiled. It wasn’t the practiced, media-trained smile Anders had tried to teach me during our prep sessions, the one that involved showing teeth and angling my chin for the cameras. It was soft. Real. A mirror of the shy girl I used to be.
"To Maya," I repeated, letting the name roll around my mouth before writing it in the looping script I had practiced until my hand cramped.
I shifted in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position.
It was becoming increasingly difficult; gravity was no longer my friend, and my center of balance had shifted dramatically over the last few months.
The baby, who Daniel insisted was going to be a linebacker based on the sheer kinetic force of the kicks, decided at that exact moment that my bladder was a trampoline.
I winced, then rubbed a hand over the distinct, heavy curve of my belly beneath my velvet dress. Seven months. And they felt like seven years of growth, stretching my skin and my soul in equal measure.
A shadow fell over the table, blocking out the glare of the overhead lights.
"Water," a deep voice rumbled, vibrating through the floorboards and straight into the soles of my feet.
A massive hand placed a fresh bottle of artisanal spring water next to my elbow.
The cap was already discarded, and a straw was inserted at the perfect angle.
Daniel stood behind me, looking like a private security detail that doubled as a lumberjack who owned a cozy bookstore.
He was wearing a soft flannel shirt that strained across his chest, the sleeves rolled up to reveal honey-brown skin.
He was scanning the crowd, his hazel eyes warm but vigilant, cataloging every movement near our booth.
"I'm not thirsty, Daniel," I murmured, leaning back slightly to catch his scent, which was a balm against the chaos of the hall.
"Hydration is non-negotiable," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He rested a hand on my shoulder, his thumb brushing the faint, silvery scar of the bite mark on my collarbone, the permanent claim he had left there a year ago. "Doctor's orders. Pack orders. Drink."
"Drink the water, Tess," a teasing voice chipped in from my left. "He's been staring at your hydration levels for twenty minutes. It’s making him twitchy."
Simon was perched on the edge of the stage, ignoring the "No Sitting" sign with casual disregard.
A DSLR camera was grafted to his hand, his long, ink-stained fingers adjusting the lens focus with fluid dexterity.
He looked less like a haunted ghost these days and more like a rockstar who had wandered into a library, dressed in black denim and a hoodie that smelled faintly of dark chocolate and graphite.
He snapped a candid shot of the girl, Maya, capturing the exact moment her anxiety turned into awe as she looked at Daniel.
"The lighting is terrible in here," Simon complained, checking the digital display and frowning at the histogram. "Fluorescents are the enemy of art. But you're glowing, so it balances out."
"That's sweat, Simon," I shot back, taking a sip from the straw Daniel was practically holding to my lips. "It's a hot convention center in the middle of July."
"It's radiance," he corrected, swinging the lens toward me and snapping a picture as I subconsciously rubbed my belly again. "That goes in the private archive. For the kid to see later."
"Focus," a sharp, clipped voice cut through our banter.
Anders appeared at the end of the line. He wasn't sitting behind the table with the mortals; he was standing at the perimeter, occupying the space like a general surveying a battlefield.
He was wearing a tailored charcoal suit that probably cost more than the venue rental, his white shirt crisp and unwrinkled despite the heat.
He was reviewing the queue, checking wristbands with a terrifying efficiency that made grown men weep and security guards step aside.
But when he looked at me, the icy blue of his eyes thawed instantly. The compulsive check of his expensive watch was forgotten as his gaze dropped to my stomach, then up to my face, a fierce, proprietary pride burning there that smelled of Aged Bourbon and Teakwood.
"We have ten minutes until the panel starts," Anders informed me, his voice pitching low for my ears only. "Do you need a break? I can clear the room. I can have security shut down the hall."
"I'm fine, Anders," I said, suppressing a smile at his readiness to go to war over my comfort level. "I want to finish the line."
I looked back at Maya. She had frozen, her eyes wide as saucepans.
She was staring at the three men hovering around me, the massive mountain refilling my water with gentle hands, the brooding artist capturing my angles with visual worship, and the high-powered agent guarding my space like a dragon with a hoard.
"They're real," Maya whispered, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. "The pack... they're really like the book."
I laughed, a sound that felt light and unburdened in my chest. It wasn't the terrified squeak of the girl who had fled her hometown. It was the laugh of a woman who knew exactly where she belonged.
"They're better," I told her, glancing at the three of them. "They do the dishes."
Maya giggled, the sound breaking the tension in her shoulders. She relaxed, lowering the book slightly from her chest.
I looked down at the title page. I thought about the girl I used to be, the "Graduation Girl,”, the one who threw bath salts at a drone in a panic, the one who thought her voice was a curse that only brought ruin.
Then I thought about the baby growing inside me.
A girl, if the ultrasound was right. A girl who would never know what it meant to be ashamed of her biology, who would have three fathers to teach her that she could burn the world down if she wanted to, and a mother who would hand her the matches and show her where to strike.
I pressed the pen to the paper, the tip bleeding ink into the fiber.
Maya,
I wrote, underlining the name.
Your voice matters. Scream if you have to.
— T.L. Rose (Tessa)
I closed the book with a soft thump and slid it across the table.
"Thank you," Maya breathed, clutching the hardcover like it was treasure. "You... you saved me. Your books saved me."
I reached out across the divide, bypassing the Sharpies and the promotional bookmarks, and took her hand for a second. Her fingers were cold, trembling against my warmth.
"You saved yourself," I promised her, looking her dead in the eye with all the intensity of the Valedictorian I was supposed to be. "I just wrote the manual."
Maya walked away, clutching the book, looking a little taller than she had when she arrived.
"That was a beautiful promise, Tessa."
I froze. It wasn't a fan's voice, not exactly. It was a velvety, melodic alto that I recognized from a hundred hours of audiobooks. It was the exact voice Daniel had tried, and failed, to imitate.
I looked up to find a woman standing at the edge of the table. She had an air of quiet, observant intensity, her eyes sweeping over the three Alphas behind me with a look of professional curiosity that didn't hold a hint of fear.
"Isobel Gretan," I breathed.
"Tessa Kane," she replied, her smile soft but enigmatic.
"I’ve been living with your characters for weeks now.
I just had to see the woman who finally gave them a happy ending.
" She leaned in, her voice dropping to that spine-tingling frequency that made her a star.
"I think our next collaboration is going to be something very special. "
She gave me a small, knowing nod and disappeared into the crowd, leaving a scent of jasmine and old books in her wake.
Daniel leaned down, pressing a lingering kiss to the top of my head, inhaling deeply. "You okay?"
"Yeah," I said, leaning back into his solid heat, letting him take the weight of my spine. I looked at Simon, who lowered his camera to give me a slow wink, his dark eyes crinkling. I looked at Anders, who gave me a sharp nod of approval, his jaw relaxing.
My scent mingled with theirs in the crowded room, creating a bubble of atmosphere that cut through the convention stale air. Bourbon. Spice. Chocolate. Blackberries. We were a walking atmospheric event.
I placed my hand over the sharp kick against my ribs, feeling the life we had made together acknowledge the pack surrounding us.
"We're perfect," I whispered.
The pack smiled, and for the first time in history, the ending was written in ink that would never fade. It wasn't just happy. It was ours.