EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER
I drive with the window down, letting the fresh earth and pine scent of the forest awaken my senses. It’s been a long drive, hell, a long journey. It’s hard to believe this morning I was on a completely different continent. But after an eight-hour plane ride and a four-hour drive, I’m nearly there.
Afternoon swims into evening as I pull down the familiar dusty track, trees lining either side like friends welcoming me home. Flags wave from where they’ve been stuck into the soil, signs of the festivities that have just taken place.
By the time I pull up and switch off the engine my head is light, and my heart is beating wildly.
Six months.
I haven’t seen Jasper in six months.
Sure, we’ve spoken nearly every day. Except for the week of his finals and that couple of days I spent camping by the Urubamba River with a band of Peruvian rogues who live off-grid at the base of the Andes.
But still, it’s the longest we’ve gone without being in each other’s space since we met.
My arms vibrate knowing that soon they’ll be wrapped around him again.
The duffel bag containing all my worldly belongings slung over my shoulder, I head down to the campsite where I know he’s waiting.
And thank the moon gods I don’t have to wait much longer to see him.
“What took you so long, slowpoke?” he calls from outside the Alpha’s Lodge.
Feet already moving, I drop my bag and run the rest of the distance into his outstretched arms. He folds me into his chest, and I breathe in the sweet cherry blossom scent of him.
He holds the back of my head, his muscles firm against me, clasping me like a giant crab claw.
I feel warm. I feel home.
With both hands cupping his face I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him.
“I’ve missed you,” I say, pressing back against his chest.
“Hold up.” He leans back, straightening out his arms, holding me at length so he can get a proper look. “You look different.”
My face heats up. “I do?”
“Mmm, worldly,” he says. “Intrepid.”
“You mean tired.” I roll my eyes playfully.
“No, you look . . .”
He moves a curl out of my face. My hair is longer than it used to be.
With all the moving around I’ve not had much of a chance to visit a barber, and I know my pale skin is bronzer than it was.
Plus, with all the hiking and lugging my bags around I’ve stacked on a bit of muscle for the first time in my life.
But I also haven’t slept in about sixteen hours, and it must show.
“Rugged,” he says finally, with a smile and nod.
“Whatever, I probably just need a shower.”
“No, you look good. Tough. It’s sexy.”
“Uh-huh.”
I take this chance to fully absorb his appearance as well.
For the most part he looks the same. A little more stubble around his chin maybe. His hair is cropped a smidge closer than normal. He’s wearing a loose gray T-shirt and black joggers.
He catches me looking. “It’s okay, I look the same, you can say it.”
My thumb traces his cheekbone and down to the corner of his lips.
There is something there in his eyes, a sort of openness that’s new, something I can’t quite put my finger on and then I realize. He looks relaxed.
“You seem happy,” I say.
“That’s because you’re here!”
With that he pulls me back toward him, wraps me up, and lifts me off the ground, kissing me in midair.
Our lips stay pressed together as he spins us in a circle before lowering me to the ground.
“The kids all gone?” I ask when I’m back on the earth, glancing toward the cabins.
“Last stragglers left this afternoon.”
Jasper was the alpha’s representative at this year’s Blue Moon Festival, just one of his many responsibilities as the future alpha, responsibilities that are stacking up now he’s done with college.
“Any drama this year?”
He presses his lips together and shakes his head. “Nope. Just lots of hormonal werewolves running around the woods, finding their soulmates. It was kind of boring actually.”
“Well.” I shrug. “We’re used to things being pretty spicy.”
“True. You want to get cleaned up and eat something?”
As if on cue my stomach, dependable as always, rumbles with the might of a thunderclap.
“That sounds great.”
Jasper jogs back to where I left my bag, grabs it, then swoops in, taking my hand and walking me toward the lodge.
“After, I thought it might be nice to take a walk, visit our spot?” he says.
“Perfect.”
The forest hums with the buzz of cicadas and the chirp of crickets. Stars peek through the canopy and the earth is soft underfoot. Fireflies dance between trees like fairies.
“It’s sort of wild,” I say, stepping over a fallen log. “The last time I was here this place felt more like some kind of apocalyptic wasteland.”
Jasper is a few steps ahead of me, he turns back and offers his hand to help me up a short rise. I take it and use a mossy boulder as a step to hoist myself up.
“And now?” he asks.
“It’s like magic,” I say.
He makes sure I’ve got my balance then continues.
“Nature has a way of healing like that,” he says, and I love the wonder in his voice, a hopeful sort of optimism I’m not used to hearing from him. “Tell me more about where you’ve been lately?”
“You know where I’ve been.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t told me in person. I want to see what your face looks like while you’re remembering how you hiked with wolves in the or explored the catacombs in Paris with French werewolves.”
My eyebrows lift of their own accord. “The Parisian packs were wild—very snooty, or snouty even, but amazing taste in pastries and clothes. Plus, they’re way ahead of us in terms of rogue integration.
But that was months ago now. The last couple of months I’ve been in South America, meeting with rogues all over the place.
Helping them connect with each other. Last week I stayed with the desert tribes in San Pedro. ”
He lifts a confused eyebrow.
“In Chile. They took me to the Valle de la Luna in the Atacama, it’s this incredible valley with the most insane sunsets. They say the landscape is as close to walking on the surface of the moon as you can get without, you know, a spaceship.”
“Sounds amazing.”
“Yeah, it was. And the stars were on another level. We’ll have to go sometime.”
He tightens his lips, but smiles and says, “Yeah, we’ll go.”
“Before that I was in Santiago, and before that Colombia. I met this bunch of rogues who live in the forests there. Only they’re not forests like this, they’re more tropical.
Seriously, the humidity was intense. I was sweating buckets.
And what’s so cool about them is that there are only, like, five or six families living there but they’re just so full of life and they make all their meals together and eat outside. It’s this whole different way of life.”
He looks back at me with this mix of pride and smugness.
“What?”
“You’re really doing it,” he says. “You’re out there having adventures and helping people. It makes me happy.”
“I think—no, I know it’s what I’m meant to be doing.”
“Good.”
Jasper plows on, speeding up a little.
“So tell me,” I say. “How are things with the pack?”
“Good, busy as always.” He marches forward, moving branches from his path easily and finding footholds as we climb uphill. “Dad’s sanctuary initiative wasn’t met with the most enthusiastic response at first. Feels like it’s taken the better part of the last two years to really make any headway.”
“Some people don’t like change,” I say.
“Yeah, and some people just can’t see how helping others doesn’t mean they’re losing out on anything.”
Jasper’s told me all about how Jericho, with the help of Mal and a few other well-respected rogues, has been trying to turn things around, and the struggles that have come with making change.
Unfortunately, there are still a large number of Elite wolves who believe letting rogues share in their good fortune is somehow harming them.
“But we keep fighting,” Jasper says. “We actually just opened a new shelter for displaced wolves in Brooklyn.”
“The one you told me about? The one you were spearheading.”
Jasper’s face reddens. “Yeah.”
I slap his arm. “You didn’t tell me it was opening already!”
He glances sideways and grins modestly. “I wanted to tell you in person.”
“Jasper, that’s amazing. I’m so proud.”
I slip my hand into his and give it a squeeze.
“There’s a lot of work to be done but we keep trucking,” he says. “It’ll be easier now that school is done and I can focus more on pack matters.”
The trickle of running water meets our ears as we near the stream that cuts through the forest. The water is silver and glints in the starlight.
We find a spot where it’s narrowest and Jasper leaps across, ready to catch me with both hands as I do the same.
But my foot slips and I end up completely smashing into him.
Luckily, he’s strong enough to make sure we don’t topple over into the shrubbery.
“Sorry,” I say, safe in his arms.
He shakes his head with a grin. “Some things never change.”
We keep walking.
“How’s Aisha?” I ask. “I haven’t heard from her for a while.”
“Busy. She’s just about to wrap up the last leg of the national tour of her company’s latest ballet, which is probably why she’s been incommunicado. I caught it while it was in New York, she was amazing, as always.”
“I bet. I’m sorry I missed it. Katie saw it, she said it was the best thing she’d ever seen.”
“How is Katie?”
“Loving school. She’s the head of her sorority, if you can believe it.”
He nods sagely. “I can.”
“And she’s the captain of her gymnastics team and in the a cappella choir.”
“She’s certainly making the most of her collegiate experience.”
“Yeah, but she’s super stoked to be home for the summer. She’s got every day scheduled down to the minute to make sure she’s making the most of her time with Todd and Simon while she’s back.”
“The bro twins doing okay as well?”
“Yeah, they’re on competing lacrosse teams which is, like, of course they’re still finding ways to continue their rivalry.”
Jasper’s chuckle makes my chest flutter. He still does that.