22. Epilogue
Epilogue
Lennon
Fire has always been a funny thing. People fear it because it destroys, because it leaves nothing behind but ash and ruin. But they forget that fire also cleanses. It burns away the rot and strips the world back until all that’s left is the truth.
Brett spent so long trying to reduce my life to ashes. My parents’ legacy. My future. My pack. My identity. Piece by piece, he tried to convince me I belonged hidden away while he stole everything that should have been mine. Tonight, the only thing turning to ash is him.
Not because revenge heals. It doesn’t.
Because some endings have to be earned.
Some monsters deserve a funeral, no one mourns, and some fires were always destined to be lit.
Who knew a little maiming was all an Omega needed to get her power back?
For three months now, I have spent at least three days a week down in the cellar of an abandoned bunker on one of Dominic’s properties.
Not only is he well versed across a range of areas, he also has a pretty decent real estate portfolio, one that he likes to keep under wraps, apparently.
That suited us perfectly well, especially when it came to my needing to torture my uncle.
It’s a little extreme to go to such lengths, but the motherfucker chose to fuck around. He has certainly found out.
Turns out, spending weeks tied to a chair gives a man plenty of time to start talking.
After a little encouragement, Brett finally admitted there was correspondence between him and Patrick.
Emails. Phone calls. Meetings. Years’ worth of planning hidden behind fake smiles and expensive suits.
Patrick didn’t just decide to murder my parents on a whim.
And it wasn’t just because he wanted my mother for himself.
Brett was there from the very beginning, feeding him information, promising him a cut of my inheritance if they got rid of the only people standing in the way.
My parents were collateral damage. They were targets.
Their blood bought Brett the future he thought he was entitled to.
He hadn’t known of the role my grandfather played in investing the money.
He had kept everything under wraps for the hope that one day I’d find my way back home.
My grandfather knew nothing. He only had his instincts.
He was right.
Apparently, Patrick didn’t have the heart to follow through with his end of the deal, and instead, raised me as his own. But none of that excuses the damage they caused.
Nothing ever will.
Every birthday they stole from me. Every Christmas. Every hug I never got to have. Every piece of advice they never got to give me. Brett didn’t just steal my parents. Their pack. He stole an entire life from me. And for what? Money. An inheritance he never had the right to touch.
Monsters rarely look like monsters.
He gambled my family’s future for a pay cheque, then smiled in my face while pretending to care about me.
We mourned them together once I learned the truth.
He watched me grieve for people he helped put in the ground.
He let me believe fate had taken them, that Patrick was alone in all this, when all along, it had been him.
And those kinds of things no prison sentence will ever repay.
His begging for his life eventually turned into pleas for me to end it.
But I refused. He doesn’t get the relief a simple, swift death will bring.
No. He has to suffer for what he did to not only me but to my Alpha. To my parents. To every version of me that spent so long wondering why life had been so cruel. Now I know.
Life wasn’t cruel.
Brett was.
Sasha’s bullet wound was thankfully nothing more than a flesh wound. A simple entry and exit straight through the muscle, not hitting bone or anything major. He completed his last round of physical therapy last week and was cleared to return to play week five of the new hockey season.
Every day he got stronger. Every day Brett got weaker.
I like to think the universe has a twisted sense of balance.
Sure, I could have let the law deal with Brett’s ass. I could have easily sued him through the teeth, taking everything he owned before I saw him locked away for the rest of his miserable life. But none of that would have tasted as sweet as watching him suffer.
Justice would have given me a verdict.
This gave me peace.
Watching the man who thought he was untouchable beg for death was worth more than every dollar he tried to steal. My pack isn’t the only ones with questionable morals. Mine were thrown in the trash the moment I fell in love with two merciless Alphas and their Beta.
But the day has finally come. The day that Brett needs to pay for what he’d done. With the season preparations currently underway, I can’t give my focus to both him and the game.
I have a Stanley Cup I want to keep with the team for another year, at least.
The only way I can ensure our future isn’t chained to my past is to let my past go completely. Brett has taken enough from me. He doesn’t get another second.
Not of my life.
Not of my pack.
Days after Sasha’s surgery, I finally told Dom, Holden and Sasha that I wanted to be their Omega. I have never felt more loved or seen in my entire life.
I’m finally living.
We’ve been patiently waiting for my next heat to hit so they are able to bond me. Sure, we could have done it earlier, but waiting for my next heat felt like the right choice. Some things deserve to happen exactly as nature intended.
That way, we also had the perfect excuse to be held up in my nest for days on end.
After a few days of elevated temperatures and heat spikes, we know my heat is going to hit any moment now.
I can feel it in my stomach, lingering beneath my skin.
Waiting to strike. Almost like it knows I have one last thing I need to do before I am ready.
I need to kill Brett.
Only then can I belong to them completely.
Each one of my pack mates offered to kill the motherfucker for me more than once. But I denied them. I need to be the one that delivers the killing blow.
This part belongs to me.
It always has.
I need the closure it will bring.
After tonight, there will be nothing left standing between the woman I was, and the Omega I’m about to become.
Brett’s body hangs from the ceiling, hidden in a decrepit bunker just outside of Vadena.
He barely resembles the polished businessman who walked into my apartment three months ago.
His entire body is covered in dried blood, the wounds deliberately left to fester over the last two weeks.
Infection has long since stolen the fight from him, leaving only the hollow shell of the man who believed money was everything.
One eye is swollen shut. His lips are split beyond recognition.
Every shallow breath rattles through his chest like his body is begging for permission to finally give up.
It never gets it.
Sasha throws a bucket of gasoline over his body. The liquid soaks into torn skin and open wounds, dragging a scream so raw from Brett’s throat that it echoes through the bunker long after he’s finished making the sound.
I don’t flinch.
Three months ago, I might have.
Today, all I feel is relief.
The end is finally here.
At one point in time, I would have been horrified at seeing the sight before me. But fate chose perfectly when they named me the Omega of a pack whose name is quite literally translated to the “Art of Dying”.
Once the screaming dies down, I flick the lighter in my hands a few times, watching it ignite and fade. Fire doesn’t care who you used to be. It doesn’t negotiate. Doesn’t forgive. It simply consumes until there’s nothing left worth remembering.
Maybe that’s why this feels so fitting. Brett tried to reduce my life to ashes. But tonight, I get to watch him burn.
With a smile, I flick open the lighter and throw it in the puddle of gasoline pooled at Brett’s feet.
His screams are like music to my ears as the flames encase his entire body.
He thrashes violently, like that will somehow help his case.
The fire races over him with a hunger that almost feels alive, swallowing the lies, the greed, the man who thought he could rewrite my family’s story for his own gain.
The threads of his clothes burn and melt into his flesh, the scent fucking horrific, but I withstand it.
For my parents. For their legacy that was almost destroyed by the face of a person they had once trusted.
I withstand it for my Alphas and Beta. For myself.
For all of the pain that I suffered through.
For the fight I had to go through in order to keep the things that were rightfully mine.
I withstand it because grief made me weak. Love made me dangerous.
I endure it for the Omegas and women who weren’t able to fight their demons. Who fell at the hands of the people of their abusers. People who were supposed to love them.
For every person who never got to watch their monster burn.
Eventually, Brett’s body goes slack, the fire finally claiming his life.
The screaming stops. The begging stops. The man who haunted my nightmares becomes nothing more than another body feeding the flames.
I don’t feel joy.
I don’t feel guilt.
Only peace.
The kind that comes when something broken is finally laid to rest.
I don’t bother to stick around to watch the fire burn. There is nothing left for me in these ashes. Not when I can feel my own heat taking control of my body.
It rolls through me in slow, relentless waves, circling beneath my skin like fate itself has finally decided it’s time for me to move onto my next chapter.
Behind me, my past dies in fire.
Ahead of me, my future waits beneath the moonlight.
When I turn and walk straight out of the bunker, letting my pack mates deal with the aftermath like they promised, I don’t look back. Brett dies with the version of me that spent her life wondering who she was. The woman who walks out of this bunker has a pack waiting for her.
I shed my clothes, then reach into the back of my car for a jersey I had prepared earlier, pulling it over my head so it is the only thing covering me.
It hangs almost to the tops of my thighs, carrying the familiar scent of cedar, leather and ice that has slowly become my home. The fabric settles against my skin just as another wave of heat rolls through me, stealing the breath from my lungs.
Perfect timing.
My pack freezes once they finally make their way out of the bunker, billows of dark grey smoke following them. Orange firelight dances behind them, casting their shadows impossibly long across the forest floor.
They look like nightmares.
Wraiths of the night.
Predators.
Mine.
The smoke clings to them like ghosts. Ash dusts their skin. Their eyes lock onto mine with the same primal hunger that’s been simmering beneath the surface for months.
Death has always looked terrifying from the outside. Standing here now, I finally understand why nobody ever warns you how beautiful it can be.
It's a good thing I am ready to be their prey.
My pulse races. Not with fear. With anticipation. Because I know exactly who is hunting me. And I know they’ll never let me fall.
“Come catch me.”
I turn, taking off in a run, straight into the thick woods. I crash through the thick brush, sticks and branches trying to slow me down but I refuse to let them. Sweat pours down my body as I squint my eyes, trying to use the silver hue of the moonlight to guide me.
I slow down after a few minutes, the sounds of the woods filtering in.
I startle when an owl hoots from somewhere above me.
I shake my head at myself, annoyed that I let it put me off.
I try to calm my breathing, not wanting that to be the thing that tips them off too early to my whereabouts.
My scent is already doing that enough on its own.
The sticks beneath my feet creak and snap beneath each step I take.
I try to tread quietly, choosing carefully where I step with painful precision, but the snapping of a branch behind me has me whirling around, my heart lurching in my throat.
Three shadowed, masked figures stand between the trees, their shirtless skin glistening beneath the light of the moon, looking less like men and more like death given form.
If I thought they were nightmares before, it is nothing compared to the darkness they embody now.
The gunmetal skull masks glimmer beneath the silver moonbeams shining through the trees, hinting at the intricate, almost lace-like metalwork detail that conceals their faces.
Each of their chests heave with exertion, sweat glistening across their sunkissed skin.
The figures before me aren’t men. They are beasts. Completely surrendered to their baser instincts. I can smell it on them. The men are more wolf than man.
I know it. I can feel it in my blood. Because I am too.
“Caught you, Omega” the middle one, Sasha says. I know he is smiling under his mask, that predatory glimmer in his blue eyes making them almost incandescent in the dark.
“It seems you did,” I reply back, my voice breathy.
I don’t move as the three men close the distance between us. They don’t touch me. They don’t have to. Their proximity is enough to set every nerve ending alight.
“Are you going to let us bond you, Omega? Are you going to let us make you ours?”
I nod at Dominic’s question. It's a no brainer. They deserve to be loved and so do I.
“Yes, Alpha. I am yours.”
Holden steps forward, taking my cheek in his hand. “Thats right. Our fucking Omega.”
A twig snaps behind me. Before I can react, Sasha is there.
One hand settles at the small of my back as he shepherds me the final step until my shoulders meet the rough bark of the tree.
His palm slides from my waist to my jaw, his thumb brushing slowly across my cheek as he tips my face toward his.
Dominic and Holden drift to either side of him, boxing me in without ever making me feel trapped.
Protected.
Claimed.
Sasha’s blue eyes search mine.
“So…” His voice is rough with amusement. “You finally ready to tell the whole damn world we’re dating the coach?”
A laugh escapes me despite everything.
“I think we could just keep this between ourselves.” I smile. “I kind of like that you’re my dirty secret.”
The humor disappears from Sasha’s shadowed eyes, his mask doing nothing to hide the primal, territorial man lingering beneath.
“No.”
His grip on my jaw remains impossibly gentle, but his voice leaves no room for argument.
“I’m not your fucking secret, Lennon Welsh.”
The silence that follows settles over us like a promise. One I intend to keep.
“No. You're my happily ever after.”
THE END