Epilogue
Cy.
No matter how many times I try to sneak past her, my mate is simply too smart for me. I sigh.
Yes, my heart?
Sofi smirks—she knows I only attempt to flirt with her when I’m trying to distract her. It doesn’t help that I’m terrible at it. Luckily, she has Rask for all the muscle-flexing she could ever need.
You have plenty of muscles, she protests groggily, using the tether stretched between the two of us, careful not to spill her thoughts into our pack bond while the others are asleep. Won’t you come to bed, though? We have a big day tomorrow.
Technically, today. I’m not sure if it’s my Northern sensibilities or something else, but I can always sense the moment the seasons click before it happens.
The air in our new chamber already feels cooler than it did earlier.
I look up from the work table I’ve been using to examine Sofi’s “gift,” trying to determine how it got here without anyone detecting the delivery.
Attempting to unriddle why the rulers of Drakos would ever send our omega something.
And what they meant by “all your happy news.”
Is it a trap?
Or a peace offering?
Also, since when is there more than one prince on the dark planet?
Perhaps there always has been. Clearly—if the way they handled Rask’s starcraft two lapses ago is any indication—we know much less about them than we thought we did.
And I already didn’t know enough.
I allow frustration to cloud my thoughts, hoping it will be loud enough to conceal the other project running in the background. My holotab blinks in slow, dim pulses. Telling me my latest update isn’t complete yet.
It will likely take all day. Turns out, beaming information across a fair chunk of the galaxy takes a lot longer than simply downloading archives off the nearest Galactic Council satellite.
Instead of focusing on this gift for our mate, I let worries swarm my mind. It isn’t hard to do—I already had many concerns before we found Sofi’s “gift.”
If our omega’s story tells us anything, it’s how fallible the Galactic Council is. Roktusians have been allied with them from our very first contact—but I’m not sure we ever asked ourselves whether that was a good thing.
As far as I can tell, our kind stopped forming packs right around the time we discovered life on other planets. Yet, there’s no record of that shift or explanation for what caused it.
Were our people ashamed to live as groups centered around omegas when we found out others did not?
If we made the conscious effort to limit ourselves to pairs, why didn’t we make note of it somewhere?
Or enact laws to reflect it? And, most importantly, who made the decision to omit any mention of “packs” from our knowledge archives?
I don’t have any answers so far, but I suspect the Galactic Council’s influence had a lot to do with Khanos losing this portion of its history.
In all likelihood, omegas stopped taking multiple alphas for the same reason clans stopped moving about in portable zvorns and opted for villages instead—some mixture of external pressure and the desire to fit in as we pushed toward a new future.
Sofi listens quietly, following the musings that float to the surface of my thoughts.
She hums quietly in our bond. It’s odd; you guys are so careful about not letting technology or advancement for advancement’s sake alter your world…
but no one ever questioned letting the Galactic Council influence it?
As ever, my brilliant mate has a point. I store her observation in the back of brain, resolving to explore it further when I’m rested. Besides, Sofi wants me to come to bed.
That’s probably why she flashed her philosophical musings in the first place. My human knows giving me a glimpse into her thoughts is guaranteed to pull me out of my work. I love so many things about her, but her mind is the one shimmering lure I can never resist.
Abandoning my work, I stalk across our new chamber to the sleeping pad. Stanley huffs as I step around his place beside the carved footboard. When my scent drifts close enough, he snorts, sniffing in his sleep. And—gods help me—I smile.
It is nice, knowing we have a war beast to rip intruders to shreds.
Not that anyone could ever get to Sofi. She’s nestled safely between Rask and Zolkan. The latter keeps his hand pressed over her belly, protecting her womb even though she hasn’t borne a pip yet. Meanwhile, Rask has his wing draped across her torso, covering all three of them.
Our omega’s bright eyes glint in the starlight. A rush of adoration flows through our bond, dousing both my hearts. It works like water for a withering plant, soaking into the oil of my soul. Growing more wild, wondrous things there than I ever could have imagined.
I press my hand to my sternum, tracing my mate’s claim mark as I gaze at her. Surrounded by our pack.
It’s ironic; I spent decades focused on facts and figures, fighting to find the right answers. When Sofi came into my life and insisted on being my companion, I thought she was giving me my first friend.
Instead, she gave both of us a family.
And I might not know everything, but—when it comes to my pack—I know I will spend the rest of my life thanking the universe for proving me so completely, wonderfully wrong.