Epilogue
TEN YEARS LATER
Gabe
Most people went on vacation for their wedding anniversary, or bought themselves expensive gifts. Not that Keith's tattoos were cheap, but getting an upper-arm piece of our three baby meerkats on the same arm as my tattoo of Mika was all I wanted to celebrate ten years of marriage.
I checked my watch. We were two minutes early. I'd always wanted to be punctual. With Mika's help, I finally was, most of the time.
My dear alpha had the week off, so I had scheduled an appointment for my new ink at a time when Keith's husband Dave was upstairs in his studio. We planned to swing by afterward to see the repurposed wood designs Dave had sketched for our next art project: baby furniture.
While they wouldn't shift into meerkats until they were teenagers, our children were hell on furniture.
Jett had destroyed his crib and combination dresser and changing table before we moved him to his own room to prepare the nursery for Rose.
When Sienna came along, it was time for all-new furniture again.
I was done popping out babies, and I knew we would make more money if our line of baby furniture was just as flimsy as the (increasingly expensive) pieces we'd purchased, but I didn't care about the money.
I wanted new parents to have furniture they liked that would last. Friends and siblings could pass around the same set of furniture as needed without the fear that it would break apart or possibly injure their child.
Thankfully, our children were indestructible.
They needed to be, with how curious they were.
By curious, I meant prone to trouble. With Becca's three little wolf cubs, they had tipped over and broken every plate in Becca's curio cabinet, destroyed two swing sets, and started a small brush fire.
The last, they'd put out by peeing on it, and I couldn't even be mad.
The alternative would have been destruction of the entire compound, so we were lucky Jett had smelled the smoke before it spread.
Becca stepped up to the counter beside me, her girls nowhere in sight. "Fancy meeting you here."
Despite having seen her only a few hours ago, I pulled her into a side hug and kissed her temple. "Hey, Bestie. Did you decide on a design?"
Her high ponytail brushed my chin as she shook her head. "Jamie's drawing something for me with three wolf cubs."
"Thief," I said in mock outrage.
"You had a good idea. I can copy it if I want." Her laughter cut off abruptly. "Wait. Why is it so quiet?"
I thought Mika was watching the kids when I stepped up to the counter to check in for my appointment with Keith. Vector, the blue-haired piercer who moonlighted as our server when they didn't have a client, flashed me a smile and pointed to the mystery ball machine. "Looks like we've got a winner."
At the sound of Vector's voice, Jamie poked his head out of his cubicle and waved to Becca. My fearless bestie shrugged and pointed. "I'm gonna go get my tattoo now."
"A thief and a traitor." We both laughed, and then she darted to safety in Jamie's cubicle.
"I didn't touch it, I swear!" I returned my attention to my oldest child, now backed up against the opposite wall facing the machine.
"Mystery balls don't come out on their own." Mika reached inside and pulled the plastic capsule from the gaping slot.
"It's only good for a month," Vector said. "He won't be old enough to get the tattoo by then."
"He didn't have a coin," Mika said, shaking his head. "It was the weirdest thing. He turned the crank, the machine flashed white, and this ball fell out." Mika held it up.
Keith rushed out of his cubicle. "Not again," he said. "Is it number twenty-three?"
We stared at the unopened ball in Mika's hand. He handed it to Keith with care, as though it were a tarantula with its fangs out.
Keith popped the plastic dome off its base and removed the slip of paper inside. "Twenty-three." He sighed. "Sorry, kid. You'll have to wait until you're at least eighteen."
Jett frowned. "I don't want a tattoo!"
"It's not like it would take," Mika said.
"I've been working on some new inks for shifter skin." Keith winked. "Trust me, you'll want to come back when you're eighteen."
Jett crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. When he was calm, he looked like Mika, but flustered, he was all mine with the wrinkles between his brows. "Why?"
"You'll want to meet him." Keith raised his arm to point at number twenty-three on the wall. I blinked. He wasn't a real animal, this gorgeous flash drawing on the wall. He was a phoenix.
I glanced at Mika. "They exist?"
"They exist," he, Keith, and Vector said at the same time.
"I don't care," Jett said. "I don't want to meet no firebird."
"The machine flashed, kid." Keith glanced at Mika, who had seen it, and he nodded. "That means he's your fated mate."
"I don't want a mate!" Jett stomped his foot.
Five-year-old Sienna hugged him around the waist. "It's a long time, right?" our little peacekeeper said. "Maybe you'll change your mind."
"Maybe." His frown said he didn't believe it, but he would say anything to make his littlest sister happy.
"In the meantime, your daddy's here for another tattoo." Keith motioned for me to follow him to his cubicle. "You ready?"
I nodded. "Let's do this."
So much for an uneventful wedding anniversary. Once again, I had a new homework assignment, this one about phoenixes.
Mika
Once the kids were tucked into bed after coaxing us into telling them three separate stories, Gabe and I sat against our headboard, admiring Keith's work. Gabe flexed his biceps and flinched. "I wish I could shift to make the pain go away."
I leaned over and kissed his shoulder. "Did that make it better?"
"Maybe."
I trailed kisses along his shoulder to the mark on his neck. "How about now?"
He laughed. "Jury's still out."
I rested my hand on his good shoulder and tugged him toward me until I could reach his mouth. We kissed until we were both breathless.
"Mm-hmm. That's much better."
"I don't want to hurt you," I reminded him.
"You won't." He climbed into my lap, straddling my hips. Then he groaned and pressed his forehead against mine. "I did this to myself," he whined.
"It's all right," I said as he rolled off me and slipped under the covers.
"It is not. It's our anniversary, and my over-the-counter pain meds didn't work."
I kissed his shoulder, careful not to bump his tattoo, and curled against his side. "We don't have to do anything tonight. We have a whole week off."
He sighed before shimmying back against me. I wrapped my arm around his waist and tugged him closer. He settled against me, his arm resting on top of mine. In no time, his breaths evened out into soft snores.
I kissed his nape and curled tighter around him.
After ten years, I still couldn't believe my luck, er, fate.
My omega was smart, spirited, and so very talented.
With Keith's husband's help, he and Becca had both quit their jobs to run an art studio in Costa Diablo.
They took turns teaching classes and hosting workshops, when they weren't creating new product ideas or counting inventory for their shipments to stores all over the Pacific Northwest.
I was so proud of him and grateful to be his. "Love you," I whispered against his nape.
"Love you, too," he mumbled back between snores.
Talking in his sleep was another quirk I loved about him, along with his lists, which kept us on time without forgetting anything, and his giant bag of everything and anything we could need when we left the house.
If he ran out, Becca was there to pick up the slack.
The two were still inseparable, but that meant Bruce and I had time to reconnect, too. We were even closer now than we had been when we were kids, and we had our own kids to thank for that. Each had their own personality, entertaining in their own way. I loved them all.
Love surrounded us, and I loved Gabe most of all. Sometimes, I wondered what my life would have been like if he'd rejected me for a more alpha-like alpha, but I didn't linger on those dark thoughts. He chose me with the help of his magical meerkat tattoo, and that was all that mattered.
THE END