Epilogue
brONTE
Northland, Aotearoa New Zealand, January 2001
I ’m snacking on strawberries in the kitchen, listening to the children play outside and thinking about one of the early visions I had, where I met Ellie here long before we ever purchased this holiday home, when West wanders in, shirtless and damp from the pool, squeezing my ass before wrapping his big arms around me.
“You smell like chlorine,” I say, wrinkling my nose, but I still lean back into him, allowing him to take some of my weight. My back has been aching, and I’m ready to put my feet up.
“Sorry, I’ll go shower in a minute.” He kisses my neck, rubbing his hand over my pregnant bump. Baby number three popped much earlier than the first two, and I swear I already look eight months pregnant when I’m only six months along. It’s made me nervous that I’m carrying another alpha, but West has assured me that that , at least, is truly impossible. There are only ever one or two alphas per pack at any given time, and fate and magic never allow for more.
Still, I even went as far as digging out my old textbook on shifters, just to check what that had to say about it. West had caught me reading over the notes last month before we flew out here, and I think if I weren’t currently an emotional pregnant lady he would have teased me much more about it. Instead he’d made only one mumbled comment about me “ studying pack structure ,” giving me a look to check that I was listening to his remark.
I’m biting into another sweet strawberry when we hear a particularly loud screech from outside, making us both wince. It’s Ellie. It’s always Ellie when it’s that loud.
“I don’t know how the fuck such a small child can be so fucking noisy,” West complains.
“She’s human, she doesn’t have ears like wolves,” I say. “Her tolerance level is much higher.”
“The screeching drives me fucking insane.”
I pat his arm in sympathy. “Amaia is coming by in an hour to take them all ’til at least nine tonight — she called just before.” We travel with a nanny — our current one is a middle-aged orc woman who loves the privileges of working for a household that lives the glamour-free life behind closed doors — but she had to go back to the States early due to a family emergency, so I’ve been swapping playdates with Amaia, Ellie’s mom, in order to get West and I some time alone.
“Good. I’ll go shower before she gets here.”
I step out onto the large deck, taking a seat on one of our big daybeds, and watch as the kids continue with their water fight across the back lawn. I love it here. I love the warm summer weather, the smell of the ocean, and the placement of this house atop a cliff at the end of the bay. I get to fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing below each night, and it’s as if I’m back on Lykia.
My pups have barely seen the First — we’re still not truly welcome there — but coming here for six or seven weeks each year means they get to have the experiences I had as a child. Running outside to go swimming in the ocean that’s on your doorstep, playing on the beach... it’s important to me that they do these things, and I’m grateful that West understands that.
He also knows that coming here is a break for me, a chance to exist away from the sometimes-stifling life as the pack alpha’s mate. I never feel judged by our pack for being a werewolf, but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware of what I am and what I’m not when existing in these shifter spaces. I know West never feels relaxed when we’re on Lykia — he’s always in full alpha mode, looking over his shoulders, ready to shift at any second — so we both know what it’s like.
When we come here to New Zealand, we carve out time for ourselves where we can just be . West and I can be a couple without the weight of various wolfish expectations, and the kids can be themselves — both werewolf and shifter, without doing the mental check of which culture do I follow right now?
West joins me on the daybed after his shower, cuddling close. I take his hand, pressing it into the spot where the baby — another boy — was just kicking. “He might move again,” I tell him. “He’s been disco dancing in there all day.”
“Hmm. I hope he gives you a break tonight.”
“Somehow I doubt it,” I mutter, leaning further into my husband. I’m exhausted — this little one likes to kick all night — and under the warm afternoon sun I feel myself quickly growing drowsy. “Are we going to stay here, or portal back home?” I ask him, yawning around the end of my sentence.
“Stay here,” he says. “I don’t want you wasting your energy unnecessarily.”
It’s my magic that truly enables us to live here for two months of the year, despite the fact that West’s pack is on the other side of the world. While we have to fly into New Zealand on an aircraft — with West’s company, we’re too famous these days to get away with using portal magic to jump around the planet — I do open up a portal for West every few days, aligning it with the timezone back home, sending him through to the redwoods so that he can satisfy his need to stay connected to the pack.
I yawn again, readjusting myself on the furniture so that I’m resting on my side, my head on West’s lap, a small outdoor cushion tucked under my baby bump, a second in the small of my back, and a third between my knees. West’s fingers run through my scalp in a repetitive motion while he pushes love at me through the bond, and at some point I fall asleep.
I hear voices before I fully wake. West’s deep tone, explaining to someone that “the baby kicks every time she lays down for bed,” and the sympathetic noises the other person makes in reply.
Amaia.
“ Kia ora Van, Lacey. Come on kids, grab your things, you’re coming back to ours. We’ll give your mum and dad a break for a few hours, eh?”
“Can we bring our GameBoys?”
“ Ae , you can bring them. But we’re only using them after tea, okay? First we’re gonna play on the beach — the tide’s out so the paddling pool is there.”
“Yay!”
“Thank you for doing this,” West says, and I crack my eyes open, watching him chat to my friend. There’s very few people I trust with my children, but Amaia, a down-to-Earth Māori woman, is one of them.
“No problem,” she tells West now. “Thank you for having Ellie all day.”
I watch both Van and Lacey sprint past me, heading inside, returning a moment later with their GameBoys and a handful of other toys stuffed in a beach bucket. “Have fun, darlings,” I say quietly, and both of them turn around, surprised that I’m even awake. I blow them each a kiss, and sweet little Lacey blows one back. Ellie is already standing by her mother, waiting to go. I smile as I watch her crouch down, her blonde hair blowing in her face as she stares at something on the lawn. She’s obsessed with bugs and plants, and always seems to spot the tiny details.
“Be good for Amaia,” I say quietly.
“We will,” Van replies. I believe him. He’ll be nine in three weeks, and he’s already so responsible.
It’s because he’s an alpha.
I don’t know where the time has gone, and I want to slow it down. Four more years. That’s what we have, before his first shift. Before his wolf fully awakens, and with it the animosity between the two alphas in this family.
Lacey is already across the lawn, chatting away to Ellie, but Van hesitates.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“Just sleepy. You go have fun. I love you baby,” I tell him.
“I love you too, Mom.” He heads off, pausing halfway across the lawn, before sprinting back towards West.
My mate crouches, catching our son with ease as Van barrels into him. Van’s “I love you, Dad,” is muffled in his father’s shirt as West squeezes him tight.
“I love you too, Son. Never forget that. I always will, no matter what happens.”
When Amaia and the kids are gone, West turns around to find me crying quietly.
“It’s just the pregnancy hormones.”
“Of course,” he says gently, and it’s obvious he doesn’t believe me. He carries me inside, laying me down on top of the bed. He’s always the big spoon now that my belly is in the way, and I sigh as he tucks himself behind me.
It’s at that moment, right as I’m ready to sleep again, that I feel the falling sensation that hasn’t hit me in so long. “West!” I often suppress it these days, but something is telling me that this one is important.
“ Go, ” West says. “I’ll be here when you w —”
I’m on a vineyard. I’ve been here before in my visions, enough times now to recognise the place, and the view across the water. Auckland City.
I walk across the wooden deck. It’s empty apart from a single table, where two near-identical men sit together in comfortable silence, each sipping a beer. If it weren’t for West’s grey hair they’d be twins. West turns his head sharply, and I know he’s realised that I’m not from here. “Sweetheart,” he says, patting his knee. “Come join us.”
I let him pull me onto his lap, his body strong and solid beneath mine, and smile at Van. He’s out of glamour — we all are — and I know from other visions that this is a permanent thing — at some point, the universal glamour disappears, thousands of years of hiding from humans undone for good.
Knowing what I know of my future as the High Witch, it makes me nervous, though I know that this is exactly what West has been hoping for his whole life.
“What have you two been up to?” I ask. Van shrugs, and it’s such a West gesture that it makes me grin. “Not much,” he says, but I’m only half listening, focusing on his appearance. He has smile lines around his eyes and mouth, and a smattering of grey hair at his temples. He’s in his early forties, then. “— and then Dad said that you two were going to do further renovations on the Wānaka house. If you need a place to stay when things get noisy, I’ve got the property down there. You’re welcome to use it.”
I have no idea what Van is talking about, but thankfully West does. “That sounds good. You’re happy, right, Bronte?”
“Yes, I’m happy.” I have no idea what I’m supposed to be happy for, but I am happy to see these two alphas sitting together, chatting away with no indication of any animosity between them. I smile at West and he grins back, sharp canines and all. He’s just as handsome as the day I first met him in a vision, his face simply more weathered now. I bite my lip as he pulls me further onto his lap, the hard bar of his cock a welcome presence under the curve of my ass.
“You two aren’t subtle at all, just so you know,” Van says, taking a swig of his beer. “On that note, I’m heading in for the night. I’ll see you both in the morning.“
“Enjoy the long trek home,” West jokes.
“Yeah, it’s such a hike. Don’t know how I’m gonna make it down the hill,” Van retorts, nodding down said hill to the house at the base of the sloping vineyard. From this angle I can just see the corner of the wooden deck that wraps around the back. That’s where I was standing when I first met Van, mere hours before I conceived him.
Fate is the strangest, most wonderful thing.
West and I watch our son walk home in silence. I sigh as he kisses my cheek, and when he whispers, “So what’s going on in your world right now?” I grin.
I twist in his lap so that I can stare at his face and look into the depths of those gold eyes.
“I’m pregnant.”
“How far along?”
“Six months. It’s another boy,”
“Ah.” His lips turn up in a self-satisfied smile.
“What?” I ask nervously.
“Wait ’til you see this one, that’s all. If you think Evander looks like me… the next boy has my hair colour, too.”
“I should have known. I’m always cloning you.”
He lifts his hand to my hair, stroking it back from my forehead. “You gave all of our children your heart, Bronte. They may look like me, but all their best features are from you.”
I don’t have the words to reply to a statement like that, so I kiss him softly, though it quickly deepens until I’m breathless. I think it’s almost deliberate.
“Are you avoiding telling me about the future?” I ask as he kisses my neck.
“Never.”
“I think you are. I want to know more about how the High Witch can be sitting here in the Second right now.”
West’s eyes crinkle in the corners as he smirks, chuckling to himself. He knows what I’m talking about. “I don’t think it’s very ethical for me to give you all the answers now, Bronte.”
“When have you ever cared about ethics?!”
His laugh is just the same, just as deep and rich, and my heart will always feel as if it’s about to burst with the amount of love I have for this man. He lifts his hand to my face, wiping away my tears of joy with a calloused thumb. “When it comes to you, sweetheart, I care about everything. You know that.”
“Am I happy? At least tell me that.”
West hums, kissing my neck, gently pulling back the collar of my shirt to reveal the scar on my shoulder. He kisses me there, over the mark of his bite, lighting my body aflame with a single touch. “You should ask yourself,” he whispers, a soft murmur in my ear. “Your wolf always knows. Are you happy, Bronte?”
He’s right. My wolf always knows the bigger picture, even when I don’t.
Am I happy?
I can hear teenagers playing in the distance, the male voices not yet deep enough to be full-grown men. There’s a splashing sound that I recognise immediately as the pop of a water balloon, followed by a feminine shriek, and lots of laughter. “I’m going to get you, Rowan!” a teen girl calls, her voice echoing over the hills.
“Love to see you try!” That boy has a Kiwi accent, the sound of it instantly recognisable. He’s definitely a wolf, though, his growls loud.
I hear multiple sets of feet running on the grass, the growl of a she-wolf, and another splashing pop. “Ah, fuck! Damn it, Jen!”
“You deserve it!”
I don’t know these pups, but something in my soul tells me they’re mine somehow. They must be grandchildren.
Am I happy? I ask my wolf.
Bittersweet morphs into a burst of pure joy. Yes, she answers. All of our family are together now. All is right in the world.
“What does your wolf say?” West asks.
“That I’m happy.”
“Good. So am I.” He holds me tight, face pressed to my neck as he whispers, “It’s going to work out, Bronte. Everything will be right in the end.”
It’s the last thing I hear before I’m falling again, back into myself.
When I open my eyes we’re in the bedroom in Northland again.
“Where did you go this time?” West asks, pulling me closer.
“To you,” I reply, loving the feel of his arms around me. “I always go to you.”
THE END