Epilogue
EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER
Emmanuel
I hand Crystal a tissue as she sniffles quietly beside me. She wipes her eyes, but it’s no use.
The tears keep falling.
Despite the tears, she’s beautiful in olive trousers and an ivory V-neck, her green and blue hair brushing her collarbones.
“It’s just a kindergarten graduation,” Gage whispers to her.
Puck hisses at him, “Leave our girl alone, shut up, and enjoy the pomp and circumstance.”
Hannah skips across the patch of carpet deemed the “stage” in the back of her kindergarten classroom, smiling broadly and waving at us. Her dirty blonde hair is in curly pigtails, framing the white mortarboard that took Crystal and Eve ages to pin on. Eve sits on the edge of the aisle, clicking her phone rapidly as she takes photos.
Maverick hops to his feet. “Yeah! Go, Hannah!” he shouts, earning dirty looks from the other families.
But Hannah doesn’t care. She beams and runs off the “stage,” diving into Maverick’s arms.
It turns out that Uncle Maverick is the favorite.
Whoever could have seen that coming?
Crystal’s laugh is quiet, but it breaks her out of the tears, and for that, I’m grateful.
Over the past two years, I’ve noticed that Maverick does ridiculous things to help the rest of us out of our dark thoughts. It’s not been easy because none of us got out of Prism unscathed, but we at least have each other to lean on.
I’m especially surprised at how well it works on Puck. Sometimes, I’ll wake up to take a piss in the middle of the night and hear the two of them goofing off and playing video games.
“We have to call my parents when we get there,” I tell my Omega as we pile in the car after the ceremony on our way to a restaurant and arcade combo Hannah requested. “They want to congratulate her.”
Knowing they weren’t getting any grandchildren out of us, Maverick’s and my families decided to adopt Hannah as a surrogate grandchild. She’s incredibly spoiled, but still so sweet and appreciative that none of us sees a problem with it.
“What’s your pain level today?” Gage asks from the backseat.
I roll my eyes as I hit the blinker and stop at the red light. “Two, same as it was an hour ago.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Maverick whoops. “So the trial is working?”
“The trial is working,” Crystal says happily. “The first one had the right idea, but the wrong execution. Luckily, Walter let Dr. Knight run with it. The man is a genius.”
It’s been twenty-seven days since I had a migraine.
Though my baseline pain is not at zero yet, with the barest of headaches lingering, my life has improved so much.
“I still hold firm that it was your bonding bite that did the majority of the work,” I say, peeking at my Omega from the corner of my eye. “It was clever of you to do it in an acupuncture spot.”
We pull to a stop at the restaurant and pile out of the car. Puck, Maverick, and Gage head in, leaving me with my Omega. I pin her against the car, pulling her hips to mine.
“Yes, Alpha Manson?”
“Just wanted a moment alone with you before the sensory overload that awaits us.” Taking her lips in mine, I soak in how she melts at my touch. I’ll never get tired of it.
We make out like teenagers for a few minutes before I pull away. Her lips are swollen and red, her pupils dilated, and a beautiful flush colors her cheeks. I give her a final kiss on her nose before grabbing her hand. “Now, when we get in there, can you help me beat Maverick in Dance Dance Revolution?”
“Anything for my lead Alpha.”
* * *
Puck
“Keep your eyes closed!” I admonish my Omega, who was seconds away from peeking. She groans and stomps her foot, looking too much like our niece.
“It’ll be worth it!” Maverick calls from across the room. “Promise!”
She groans and crosses her arms over her chest. “I better be walking into the dirtiest of orgies, or I’m gonna be pissed.”
A choking laugh from Manny has me struggling to maintain composure. But I manage, and move in front of Crystal, holding her by the shoulders.
“Open your eyes, Queenie.”
When she does, I step away, standing beside her in an attempt to see the gallery through her eyes.
Directly in front of us is an interpretation of Mav’s tattoo, a broken crown surrounded by flowers. To the right is a sleepy giraffe with bottle cap eyes that somehow looks a little like our lead Alpha, and I’m not sure how that happened.
The gallery bought five pieces, including a replica of Burger and a brain cracked down the middle and falling apart. When Mav told me about “Pack Broken Brain,” I couldn’t stop laughing and knew I had to make it.
But I take her hand and lead her to my favorite.
Her.
Large amounts of scrap copper have been shaped into a woman with her knees bent and her head thrown back in ecstasy. I even went to one of those new-age shops and asked if I could sort through their dumpster, and found several shattered, pulverized, or otherwise unsellable crystals, which I used to create a colored effect on the ribbons and computer parts I used for her hair.
Found art isn’t delicate. It has rough edges, and you have to suspend belief to see it as it is supposed to be seen.
But when you open up your heart, it can be beautiful.
She grabs my hand and pulls me down to kiss my cheek. “It’s stunning. I’m amazed this is what you’ve been doing out there in the shed.”
“It’s a labor of love, for sure,” Gage says, popping up from the other side of the sculpture. “Burger looks awesome, man.”
“I have him to thank for a lot of the scraps since he tries to eat everything in sight.”
Gage laughs and shrugs. “I thought he’d grow out of it, but I guess not.”
He doesn’t need to know I feed the mangy mutt treats whenever he brings me something good.
After the showing, when we are all back home, I pull Crystal onto my lap as I sit on the couch. Gage turns on the television, and it’s a re-run of Lunarcrest After Dark.
“Turn it off!” Mav calls, skidding into the room on socked feet. “I can’t take another one!”
“It’s my night, so we’re leaving it on,” I say with feigned indifference.
Maverick wails, dropping to his feet in front of me. “Please, oh powerful Puck, go easy on me. My psyche is fragile.”
“Fragile like a bomb,” Gage mutters, tossing me the remote.
Mav climbs to his feet and throws himself haphazardly into Gage’s lap. “I mean, sure, yeah, but what does that say about you that you’re in love with two bombs? Me and cherry bomb.”
“Oh, is this the episode where Maverick shows up to a set without pants?” Manny asks from the kitchen. He’s making popcorn and grabbing drinks for all of us.
“Sure is,” Crystal replies, taking the water from him when he slides into the room.
Maverick runs his hands through his shaggy brown hair. “In my defense, I thought it would be a cool gimmick. Manic Mav’s Unmentionables. I thought there was going to be a theme night.”
There was, in fact, no theme that night. Everyone, even the other cast members, showed up in luxe outfits, and Maverick was just in his boxers and a flash drive necklace.
I laugh so hard that Crystal shakes in my lap at the force. “What was the theme? Embarrassment? Manic Mav’s Mortification?”
“You’re just jealous you don’t look as good in boxers as I do,” he mutters, sinking further into Gage’s lap.
The Beta throws popcorn at my face. “Be nice to my Alpha! It’s not his fault that he makes poor choices.”
“Yeah! Wait.”
Our laughs overshadow the sound of the television, and my chest warms with the joy I feel from Crystal’s bond.
How is this my life? How did I end up in a pack with three guys who are so different from me and each other, but we all work together so well?
I never thought this would be possible. The moment Monica went missing, I assumed that there was no hope for me when it came to settling down. That my life would be dedicated to her, and I’d die before I got to this point.
Once I started working for Kieran, that feeling increased. I just knew there was no way out for me but death.
And yet here I am, picking on my packmate with my Omega’s sweet, buttery scent in my nose.
Crystal stretches her legs across Manny’s lap, and he picks up her feet absentmindedly, rubbing the soles as he watches this episode of LAD, which we’ve seen at least four times.
We’ve had a lot of big moments, and no doubt we will have many more, but the big moments aren’t what makes a pack. I feel true serenity in moments like these, where we exist as a unit that I know would work even without these magical draws to one another.
I’m so fucking happy I could burst.
“Hey, Queenie?” I whisper in her ear.
“What’s up, Puck?” She doesn’t take her eyes off the TV.
“I’d do it all again to get to this moment. To you. To them. Every horrible second.”
Her bond transforms, filling me with a melancholy kind of love that tells the story of someone who has sacrificed so much to get to where we are now. I don’t need her to repeat the sentiment. I just needed her to know that I felt that way.
“Hey, Puck?” she whispers back at me.
“What’s up, Queenie?”
“I would, too.”
* * *
Maverick
Crystal backs her ass up into me, moaning. “More, Alpha.”
I wrap my hand around her hair, gently pulling her head back as I pound into her from behind. “Do you like that, Omega? Are you ready for my knot?”
“Yes, yes, Alpha,” she chants, and I don’t need any more encouragement. I explode in her, my knot swelling and locking us together. Before we can collapse, Gage comes into the nest.
“You need to take your meds,” he reminds me, holding out his hand to show that he has them with him.
“Kinda stuck here.” I gesture at where I connect to our Omega. She turns her head to the side and blows him a kiss.
Gage rolls his eyes and grabs a water bottle, stomping over to me. “Open,” he says firmly.
“Yes, sir,” I mutter, opening my mouth and sticking out my tongue. He takes a sip from the bottle of water before dropping the pills on my tongue and then spitting the water out into my mouth.
Into. My. Mouth.
“Swallow,” he commands.
I can do nothing but acquiesce to his demand.
“That was unnecessarily hot,” Crystal says in a dreamy, sated voice.
“You’re telling me. I didn’t know I could get hard with my knot inflated.”
Gage laughs, stretching out beside us as I maneuver Crystal to her side, so I can spoon her as we wait for my knot to deflate. He plasters himself to her front, giving her sweet kisses across her nose.
“Did you have fun with our Alpha?” he asks her softly. My stomach does the little flip thing it does whenever he calls me his Alpha. I’m not sure I’ll ever get tired of it.
She weaves her fingers in with his. “I did. Did you have a good day at work? What kind of tattoo kept you so late?”
“I was doing another Medusa,” he says softly. “It was the only time she got off work.”
Gage has made a name for himself with Medusa tattoos. They’re a symbol of resilience and survival, and when he entered Crystal’s and their story into a magazine for a feature, he became overrun with requests to do them.
He’s started offering them for free to victims of Tyler’s ring. Even though it was broken up ages ago, victims are still coming forward with their stories.
“Do you have a set tomorrow?” Gage asks me, changing the subject.
“No, but I have that festival this weekend. You all are coming, right?” Lunarcrest After Dark is officially done, but it got my name big enough that I don’t have to hunt for gigs. It’s kept me in steady, good work. I’m excited about my gig this weekend, though. Festivals always have a different energy, and this is the first one my entire pack has committed to coming to.
Even Puck, the grumpy bastard.
He pretends I annoy him, but I know better. He loves me just as much as the others do.
“Hey, Maverick,” Crystal says, craning her neck to look over her shoulder at me. “Not to be weird and bring this up while your knot is in me, but your sisters…”
“No!” I shout, reflexively pulling back from her, but going nowhere. “Please, can we not?”
She snorts, shaking her head. “Fine, fine. I hope I don’t forget.”
“Oh, thank God,” I mutter, relaxing into her. “Please, let’s change the subject.”
“Sure. I would like to petition the pack for another dog,” Gage says. “Burger is lonely. I figured we could call the new one Fries.”
Crystal’s snorting laugh always gets me chuckling alongside her. “I agree. Another dog would be fun. Maybe a cat, too?”
“No cats!” Emmanuel calls from … wherever he is. “Gage is allergic! He won’t tell you because he won’t want to disappoint you.”
Gage blushes but doesn’t deny it. “Having a pack with someone who’s known me my whole life is annoying,” he grumbles.
“Good looking out!” I holler back.
We should consider putting in an intercom system.
“Okay, so no cats. But another dog, yes?” Crystal peeks over her shoulder at me with wide eyes. “Pleaseeeeeeee?”
“You need to ask Daddy Manny and Grandpa Puck,” I say with a shrug. “You already know my answer.”
“Well, good, it’s three against two. We can easily overpower them.”
A shadow looms over us. As one, the three of us look up to see Puck leering over us. His muscular arms are crossed over his broad chest, and his face is fixed in a frown.
“Grandpa Puck?” he says gruffly.
I look anywhere but at him. “If the loafer fits.”
And then he falls, his massive body collapsing on top of mine. I notice he manages to keep from crushing Crystal. His fingers dig into my sides, and I wail out a mix of sobs and laughter.
“Tickling while knotted should be a crime!” I shout, trying to escape the Alpha’s wrath. “A crime against humanity, I tell you!”
“Thanks for holding him still for me, Queenie,” Puck coos, kissing Crystal before turning back to me, fingers curled menacingly as he descends upon me.
* * *
Gage
“It’s hot,” Trina whines. “I closed the shop to be miserable?”
Win wraps their arm around her waist, clicking their tongue. “Shush, my love, we are supporting Mav. Besides, the sun will go down soon.”
Mav has the headlining set at the Electric Music Festival, and I could not be more proud of him.
But I regret coming early. I should’ve tried to slip in right before his set started.
There’s a special partner entrance to these things, right?
Whooping from behind me has my head whipping around. Crystal is on Puck’s shoulders, wearing a tiny bikini top, shorts, and more body glitter than I knew existed. Her blue and green hair is up in little space buns.
She’s proud to show off the back of her neck now, where Puck’s bite has claimed the once blighted spot.
Manny trails behind them, holding cotton candy in one hand and a massive water jug in the other. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s here. This seems like a recipe for a migraine. But when I questioned him and mentioned that no one would be upset if he stayed home, he leveled me with a look that made me want to roll over and show him my belly.
“Happy looks good on you,” Trina says quietly. “I love seeing you smile like that.”
I blush at her words, but I don’t deny them. I am ridiculously happy.
After telling my brother Alan about Kieran, we’ve started working on our relationship. I still haven’t gotten over the hurt that he didn’t even try to take care of me, but I understand him more now. He spent so much of his childhood caring for Mom that he couldn’t bring himself to give up any more time for me.
Do I wish it were different? Hell yeah.
But I’m starting to forgive him.
I thought he was going to puke when I told him I ended up in a pack with Manny, though. He still can’t believe it, even though he’s visited with his wife a few times.
Eventually, we meet up with Mav’s Omega sisters, Tilly and Tabby, and get positioned in the special family area that’s roped off beside the stage.
Manic Mav’s energy is unmatched, and he puts on an incredible show. The crowd is jumping and screaming, lasers are spitting around, and the energy of the night is so contagious that it’s hard not to get into it.
But it’s loud as fuck, and I find myself covering my ears. Manny taps me on the shoulder and hands me a pair of earplugs.
“Good looking out,” I shout, even though I know he can’t hear me.
“Alrightttttt, Lunarcrest!” Maverick croons into his mic. “I’m so fucking stoked to be here! Thank you for supporting me and loving me. Are you ready to go manic?” They go wild at his catchphrase, which he firmly says he’s allowed to use since he does, in fact, have bipolar disorder.
But some people on the internet have issues with it. He says you can’t make everyone happy and that he won’t hide who he is or how it feels to live with the condition.
The set is longer than I expected, and I’m exhausted by the end. As the night wears on, he grabs his mic again. “This is it, Lunarcrest,” he says breathlessly. He’s especially gorgeous tonight, with his hair sticking to his face with sweat, a fishnet shirt over his bare chest where I can see my tattoo peeking through, and a pair of strappy black pants. “I’m almost done. But before I go, there’s something I wanna do.”
And then he takes off his fucking pants.
Why is he taking off his pants?
“Puck, my man, your material is getting old. Here’s something new to make fun of me for!”
Crystal nearly falls off Puck’s shoulders, laughing, and the big Alpha isn’t doing much better. He’s supporting himself on the fence railing, shaking his head at my ridiculous partner.
“Oh, also,” Mav continues. “Crystal, it’s time, yeah?” She starts to hit Puck on the back of the head, and he puts her down. She hops the fence and runs to the stage, where a couple of security guards lift her up. She scrambles over to our Alpha and gives him a big kiss.
He gives her the mic, and she spins to look at us with a massive smile. “Mav and I have been working on something, and we thought where better to unveil it than here, in front of thousands of people who have no idea who we are and don’t give a shit about our pack?”
Manny places a hand on my shoulder, not bothering to try to contain his laughter at the two of them. He leans down to my ear.
“Twenty bucks says whatever it is is going to be mortifying.”
“That feels like an easy bet since Mav is already pantless,” I reply, shaking my head.
But the image projected behind him changes when Maverick points across the crowd and gives someone a thumbs-up.
It’s an image of a snake twisted into a circle, with a cherry bomb in the middle of it, in classic Americana style. Underneath it are the words “Manson’s Marvelous Tattoos”.
Trina and Win turn to look at me with twin smiles. “Congratulations, Gage,” Trina says, taking my hands in hers. “They’ll have to work on that name, though, ouch. Win and I are moving out of the city, so the place is yours now.”
“Wait,” I stutter, taking a step forward. “You’re leaving?”
“You’ll be just fine on your own. You’re not the kid I picked up off the side of the road anymore.” She pulls me into a massive hug. “I reached out to Crystal when we decided to sell. I thought you wouldn’t want to give up the place where you met both of the loves of your life.”
I rub my chest, struggling to maintain my composure.
I lose the battle, my tears pooling in my eyes. I hug Trina and Win tightly as Mav finishes up his set. Manny and Puck bump me with their shoulders, never too far from me, as emotions threaten to pull me under.
How did I get so lucky to have a family like this?
When the night is over, and all of us are talking way too loudly in a twenty-four-hour breakfast restaurant, wedged between my Alpha and my Omega in a booth, I finally get the chance to thank them.
But the words don’t come.
Instead, all I can say is, “We have the best fucking life.”
“And to think,” Maverick says, kissing me on the cheek, “it started with me going to a brothel and you stealing a phone number.”
“When you say it like that, it makes Crystal being on my medical care team not sound as scandalous,” Manny remarks around a mouthful of hashbrowns.
“Any way you slice it, me being the second in command to a crime boss after I handed her over to him sounds bad, so…” Puck trails off as we all burst out laughing.
* * *
Crystal
I close the book Eve loaned me last week with a smile. Monster wrestlers. Who knew it’d be so much fun?
Well, I guess Eve knew. That’s why she recommended it.
I open up my laptop and click into my email. When I saw the notification that it was the one I had been waiting for, I did what anyone who had been anxiously awaiting something would do.
I ignored it and read an entire romance novel in one sitting.
But now I have to see. I have to know.
Should I get my pack to support me in case it’s not good? Absolutely.
Will I?
Hah. No fucking way.
I scan over the first few lines, and my breath catches.
I go back and read it again.
And again.
And again.
“Holy shit!” I yell, jumping out of bed. “Holy fucking shit!”
Heavy footfalls precede four very anxious men who fall over each other to get into my room. Maverick is shirtless, and Gage is in just his boxers, which are tented something fierce, and his face is red.
Whoops. I interrupted something fun.
Emmanuel looks half awake. The puppy, Fries, which we found on the side of the road last week in a box, was up all night, and he was on potty break duty.
Puck has on an honest-to-God apron because he’s been trying to make bread, and he wears so much black that the flour immediately coats his clothes. He hates it. And is that-
“Why do you have your gun?” I shriek. “What the hell, Puck?”
Old habits die hard, and despite my dislike for the weapon, Puck keeps one on hand. He’s concerned that former associates of Kieran will try to come after us at some point. He’s probably not wrong.
He holsters it at his hip as Mav asks, “Seriously, what is happening right now?”
A grin stretches my face. “I got into med school.”
“Shut the fuck up!” he screams, running to me and lifting me, spinning me in a wide circle. “I knew you could do it!”
“Dr. Crystal Manson has a nice ring to it.” Emmanuel pulls me from Maverick’s arms. “Think how many people you’re going to be able to help.”
Gage sandwiches me between him and Manny. He buries his face in my hair and squeezes around my belly. “This is so cool, Crystal. So so cool.”
Puck is quiet, and I pull back to find him staring at me, slack-jawed. He, more than any of them, knows how good this feels for me, how this is what I would’ve done years ago if Kieran hadn’t sent him to Joseph’s funeral.
“You did it,” he says quietly, and I throw myself in his arms. “You fucking did it, Queenie.”
“We’ve gotta celebrate!” Maverick shouts, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling the families! I’m calling everyone! Do you want the Knights? The Lupines? We’ll get them all here! We’re having a massive fucking party to celebrate!”
Emmanuel gently removes Mav’s phone from his hands. “Well, let’s plan the party first. And then we’ll invite everyone.”
“Oh shit, does this mean you won’t work with the Lupines as much?” Gage asks. Since everything went down, Puck has gone full-time with the Lupines. Officially, they’re “private detectives,” but we know better.
They’re vigilantes, cleaning up the trash the LCPD won’t.
I’ve continued working at the clinic, but I’ve also performed several extractions with Lupine and assisted some of the Omega victims in reacclimating to society. After everything that happened, I need to do it for my own sake.
“No, I won’t stop. I’ll go part-time at the clinic while I study, and then if Lupine needs me, I’ll step in. I hope, once I’m done with school, that I’ll be able to help even more.”
With my pack around me, chattering away about this new phase of our lives, I am under no impression that this is going to be easy.
But nothing worth having is just handed to you.
I ripped my happily ever after out of Kieran Cobb’s hands.
And I’m never letting it go.