Epilogue Lucien
Epilogue
Lucien
When I told Drew Colter that I had wanted her from the first moment I laid eyes on her, I didn’t lie.
If anything, I downplayed what truly happened.
The moment I opened my eyes—in so much pain I could hardly breathe, still in my wolf form from when I tried to kill my attacker—and saw Drew’s beautiful chocolate brown eyes, I was a goner.
That feeling hadn’t changed. The more I got to know her, the stronger that feeling grew, and it became much harder to restrain. But I had restrained it nonetheless.
Because she was my Eteria, and I was terrified that any action I took would make the Eteria magic force her to love me.
Yet I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stay away. I needed her like I’d never needed anyone.
And I selfishly claimed her.
I didn’t believe her when she told me she loved me. I wanted to. I wanted to so much it had taken everything inside me to shake me out of this impossible delusion.
But the moment I bit her, I could feel it. I had felt the connection between her soul and me, the connection I had felt since I had first laid eyes on her, sever, the tether gone.
And I was terrified all over again. Because what if she opened her eyes and realized it had all truly been mind control? That she had transformed into a werewolf only to find out everything was a lie?
It had made me sick to my stomach, thinking that after telling me she loved me, she would take her words back.
But what she said instead was that she loved me all the same.
She loved me.
Not as an Eteria. As a woman.
My woman.
And for the first time, I allowed myself to trust her completely. To believe her.
To truly, fully love her.
Watching her beautiful face now as she rested, eyes closed, her wavy chestnut brown hair spread all over my pillow, a sense of possessiveness filled me. She’s mine, I thought, tracing my knuckle over her face. Mine. Mine. Mine.
I was following the trail my knuckle made down to her throat when I stopped, hovering over the dark bite mark I had left there a few hours ago. The Transference that had turned her into a werewolf.
My own wolf couldn’t wait to meet the one who’d been born inside her.
Sweet, kind, beautiful Drew, I thought, pressing a kiss against her forehead, wishing I could stay in bed with her until she awoke.
But she wouldn’t awaken for another day at the very least, and I was an Alpha with duties I couldn’t postpone, and so reluctantly, I got off the bed and exited the room.
Thayer, Drew’s older brother, was in the living room. He’d spent most of his time in the Concordian Ward, but when I sent word about Drew, he had rushed back. He seemed distraught, as though he hadn’t slept in days. He was obviously haunted by Anais’s condition, and now by Drew’s decision.
My heart felt heavy when he looked up and stared at me in that suspicious, distrustful manner of his, which I tried not to take personally. He was protective of his sister, and like any protective older brother, he didn’t like me. Not yet, at least.
Which was why I was a little wary when I said, “I’m heading out. Keep an eye on Drew and call me immediately if she wakes up.”
Unsurprisingly, Thayer’s eyes narrowed. “Is she all right?” he asked through gritted teeth.
My phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans, and I knew I didn’t have more time, so I walked toward Thayer, put a hand on his shoulder, and said, “She will be all right. I promise. So try not to worry, and call me when she wakes up if I haven’t come back yet.”
Before Thayer could reply, I left the cabin and headed to the pack’s Heart.
Zairos, the Syndicate Fae, had made his choice as to who would be part of the liaison team along with Teya.
His choices, though, were extremely odd.
Teya and Oz had told me they would take him through all pack facilities so he could find someone of a suitable circumstance and age to choose. Of course, one of those facilities was the Penitentiary, but I hadn’t thought they would want a criminal.
The Syndicate might be made of Fae assassins and similar criminal-type personnel, but with the Syndarch also being a Proctor—one of the twelve high-profile people who made up the Council for Regulation of Arcane Phenomena, the global organization that oversaw all the world’s Otherborne—the Syndicate didn’t associate with actual criminals.
But the contract with the Syndicate said they could choose whoever they wanted, like I could choose whoever I wanted from their ranks. Whether she was a criminal or not didn’t matter.
So they chose two wolves from the Penitentiary.
A young werewolf woman called Rowenna Ashtros, who’d been incarcerated and awaiting trial for the murder of another pack member, and, somewhat unsurprisingly, Dianna Rook.
I was sure Zairos had chosen her under orders from the Syndarch, seeing as she had been one of Mack Page’s assistants.
What they would gain from taking Dianna, however, I didn’t know. And that made my Alpha instincts tingle in suspicion.
“Are you sure about your choice?” I asked Zairos now.
The pale Fae man nodded. “They shall come with me.”
Teya, Rowenna, and Dianna were already packed.
None of the three looked at me, seemingly occupied with their own thoughts.
I could only imagine; they were chosen to be the liaisons.
And with Kate, Dianna’s sister, barely holding on to life due to her Wildlight, I knew the last thing Dianna wanted was to be whisked to the Underearth, so far away from her.
This was out of my hands, though. Which made me both angry and resigned.
I walked toward Teya and grabbed her shoulders. She raised her eyes to me, rueful yet resilient. “You’re strong,” I told her in a quiet murmur only she could hear. “You can handle this. I know you can.”
Teya nodded silently and gave me a small sad smile. “When my family returns, tell them I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye, and that I love them.”
My chest tightened when I thought of Teya’s family.
Her parents, two of the oldest werewolves I ever knew—who gave birth to Teya in their fifties, against all odds, considering their age—were extremely overprotective of Teya, their only daughter.
They were now traveling through Europe after retirement, and the notion of telling them what had transpired while they were away made me feel an overwhelming amount of guilt.
“I will,” I told Teya now nonetheless, and she gave me a quick hug, which I returned.
Then I turned to Rowenna and Dianna. “You’re lucky,” I told the two of them, as they avoided my gaze. “You get to start fresh without any consequences to your actions. Thank Zairos and the Syndarch for your good fortune.”
The two young women had the decency to look somewhat ashamed.
Relaxing, I nonetheless gave each of them a pat on the shoulder, startling them into snapping their gazes toward me. “Do a good job there,” I told them. “Despite everything, you’re capable enough for that.”
They nodded, seemingly stunned, and tensed when Zairos finally spoke. “I’m taking them now, then.”
I looked at the Fae man and shot him a serious look. “Not a hair on their head,” I reminded him, the threat in my voice undeniable.
But the Fae man, like every damned Fae, simply blinked back and nodded, as expressionless as a bulk of stone.
When Zairos, Teya, Rowenna, and Dianna were gone, I walked into the meeting room next to this one, where Callista, Oz, and Ren were sitting.
Callista looked like she’d been crying. Teya had been her best friend, after all. Ren and Oz seemed grim as well. “They’re gone,” I told them now, not feeling much better. “Any word from Blaise?”
Oz nodded and turned to look at me. His attitude from the past few days disappeared after our visit to the Syndicate, which was a relief.
It seemed as if he finally realized what I’d tried to tell him about Mack, and why I had to do what I did.
“He’s on his way with the prisoners,” Oz now said, spitting the word prisoners.
Of course, he wasn’t referring to the Fae liaisons Blaise picked, but rather to the fact that our pack members had become prisoners of the Syndicate too.
“All right,” I said, sitting down. “Let’s wait for them, then.”
But it was hours before Blaise entered the room, due to the difference in the flow of time in the Underearth. “Alpha,” he greeted me formally, nodding, before he turned around. “Come in.”
Other than the Mathenio, which the Syndarch shockingly “gifted” us, I didn’t know what to expect. First, I didn’t know who had the Mathenio, since the Syndarch mentioned something about it not being a Fae, exactly, or something along those lines, but also, I wasn’t sure who the other two should be.
But other than Drew, Blaise was the only one I trusted out of the entire pack. He’d been with me since Paris. He’d stuck by my side. He hadn’t joined a new pack after the demise of ours, despite the many packs all over Europe that were eager to offer him a position, considering his reputation.
Instead, he came with me all the way to Los Angeles, to a new pack, in a new country, across the ocean.
And he had never failed me before. Which was why I trusted him to choose well.
Yet his choices made no sense. At least not at first glance.
Much like Zairos’s didn’t. Because this group included three young women who didn’t seem very highly ranked, or powerful, like I somewhat expected.
Blaise, though, kept a blank face as he motioned toward the first woman. “This is Ivoria,” he said, introducing the first Fae woman, who seemed just as apathetic as the rest of them. “She is part of the Syndicate’s messenger team.”
The words clicked, and I realized what Blaise wasn’t saying. Because messenger team was a covert term for information traders.
Meaning this woman could be a really good asset.
Blaise then walked toward the other two women, and I noticed something I hadn’t before. One of those two women was unconscious. The other woman was keeping her standing, even though she was obviously passed out.
I watched as Blaise gently pried the unconscious woman from the one holding her, even though the other woman at first refused to let go. But Blaise murmured something to the woman that made her freeze and retract her hands, letting him carry the unconscious woman in his arms.
“These two Fae women are sisters,” Blaise now said, glancing at the conscious sister, whose face was curtained by a mess of dirty, tangled curly hair so long it reached her knees.
“This one has the Mathenio,” he added, pointing at the conscious one, before jutting his chin toward the one in his arms. “This girl is . . . her sister.”
I narrowed my eyes at Blaise’s hesitation. Blaise never hesitated. He spoke with precision, explained his decision thoroughly, and didn’t bother talking in circles. He was one of the most straightforward men I knew.
But his hesitance now, about the qualities the unconscious sister brought as a liaison, gave me pause.
“Names,” I said, trying not to growl as I caught Blaise’s look, trying to decipher, despite my irritation, what he was getting at.
Before Blaise could speak, the standing sister suddenly took a step forward and pushed her hair away from her face, revealing a pair of familiar gray eyes. “I can talk for myself, though I don’t like your tone,” she said bad-temperedly, glaring at me.
I frowned, trying to figure out why her eyes seemed familiar to me. “I’m the Alpha here, Faeling,” I said quietly, not threatening, just warning. “Here, what I say goes.”
If looks could kill, the woman’s glower would have. “We’ll see about that,” she murmured ominously before she straightened and said, jaw locked in stubbornness, “I’m Willow Colter. And this is my sister, Julianna.”