EPILOGUE
EVAN
Coran and Connell are sleeping, tucked up together in their crib. Their faces are relaxed, and their hands rest by their heads in the way that only babies sleep. I study them, still marveling at how they’re a total blend of me and my brothers, and their mother. They have her full lips and similar shaped eyes. They have our face shape, eye and hair color. They’re perfect. The monitor is on, although we can usually sense when they’re awake. My bear is scratching at the edges of my human form, desperate to be let loose.
“ Goldie .” Where is she?
“I’m in the kitchen,” she replies. “I made cake. ”
“Who for?”
“Us,” Hunter and Robert say, accompanied by a contented sound of appreciation. So that’s what they get up to when I’m on cub duty.
Goldie’s love of baking is something new, and she’s mastered chocolate muffins and a lemon loaf cake, which Hunter devours in one sitting if she doesn’t ration him.
“ I’m coming.”
Downstairs, Hunter and Robert are tucking into slabs of chocolate cake smothered in some kind of ganache. Hunter has crumbs around his mouth and a blissed-out expression on his face. I swear, he gets goofier by the day.
I hold my hand out as Goldie passes me a plate and then I slump into a chair, ready for my sugar fix. The first mouthful is delicious, and I’m going to demolish the whole thing in record time.
“It’s the best one yet,” Hunter says when his plate is clean enough to put back in the cupboard.
“Thanks, Hun.” Goldie’s given us each a nickname. Mine is Ev, and Roberts is Ro. When she’s talking to the cubs, she calls us Daddy Hun, Daddy Ev, and Daddy Ro-Ro. It’s cute as hell.
“So are we doing this?” I ask Robert. He nods as Goldie fixes me with a quizzical expression.
“Doing what?”
“You’ll see.”
“It’s a surprise.” Hunter grabs her around the waist and pulls her into his lap.
“I love surprises,” she says, her blue eyes gleaming like polished sapphires. She wiggles in his lap. “What have you got for me, big boy.”
“You’re always so thirsty.” Hunter smacks Goldie’s hip and when she gasps, the look in his eye is feral. If we didn’t already have something planned for tonight, he’d carry her up the stairs and tie her to the bed in a flash.
“Can you blame me when I’m surrounded by the three of you all day? My ovaries are permanently close to detonating. ”
“More cubs,” Hunter growls. “You want to make more cubs?”
“Yes,” she says, suddenly shy. “But not now. I’m still enjoying our babies upstairs.”
“Me, too,” I say. “And we’re enjoying you.”
“So, are we ready for the surprise?” Robert stands and stacks the empty cake plates, carrying them to the counter.
“We are.”
Goldie practically skips as she follows us to the front door. Her eyes widen as we all start to strip in front of her. She knows what it means, but the sight of our nakedness always makes her ready for sex. We smell her arousal almost immediately, and then it takes cast iron restraint to get us out of the front door rather than straight to bed.
Outside, Robert and Hunter shift immediately, the process no longer something too strange for Goldie to witness. She gasps with awe, as she always does as their bodies twist and grow, sprouting fur, elongating, and expanding to huge proportions. They always return to her to nuzzle her hands, ensuring she’s okay. We’ll always be aware of how different this life is to what Goldie expected for herself.
I take her hand and lead her around the back of the house into a densely forested area.
“Your feet,” she says, looking pointedly at my naked legs. “Why haven’t you shifted?”
“I will, but not yet.”
The air feels cool against my bare human skin, but I’m used to being outside like this in the moments before and after shifting.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. It’s close to the house. ”
As we get closer to the surprise, a wall of tall bushes blocks our path. I find the small gap and lead her through, ducking to pass. Robert and Hunter are already there, waiting with wide chocolate brown bear eyes.
“Oh,” Goldie gasps, dropping my hand to pivot on one foot, spinning around to take it all in.
“How did you know?”
The garden that surrounds us is just as Goldie imagined: heart-shaped, surrounded by tall, trimmed hedges and edged with yellow and orange flowers. In the center is a patch of grass big enough for three bears and a beautiful yellow-haired woman to lie in the sunshine.
“ We saw the night of the second claiming. We saw this place in your mind. We wanted to recreate it.” The rumble of Robert’s bear voice makes the urge to shift even greater.
Goldie takes my hand and presses it to her heart, which is pounding a fierce drumbeat. She wraps her arms around me, pressing her face into my chest and breathing hard. “I can’t believe you did this.”
Since that night, we’ve been preoccupied by the image from Goldie’s mind. When she was close to death, this is where she came. It was beautiful and heartbreaking. We argued over whether we should build it for her, worrying that it might bring back bad memories rather than good ones. Ultimately, we decided it was the place she felt most safe, where she returned at a time of great pain, and we wanted to recreate it on Earth. The boys will love it in their human and bear forms. I envision bringing them here for picnics and story time. They love picture books already, and Goldie has taken to reading them all the fairytales. Of course, their favorite is Goldilocks and the Three Bears! Their second favorite is Red Riding Hood, much to Hunter’s consternation!
Goldie releases me from a tight embrace and wraps her arms around Hunter’s big, fury head, planting a kiss on his ear. He growls low and deep with pleasure, and Robert does the same when it’s his turn.
I take the opportunity to shift, and immediately roll onto my back, finding the grass cool and fresh. The sky above is darkening, the gray of dusk bleeding into the navy blue of night. Goldie, seeing me, immediately settles onto the grass in the center of the garden. She lies back, letting her pretty golden curls spread out around her, as Robert and Hunter circle and then settle, too.
I wish we could take a photo from above, like in Goldie’s dream, to frame and place it in the house, but maybe it’s better this way. Living in happiness every day is better than preserving moments for show.
“ Thank you, ” she whispers through our minds. “ Thank you for making my fairytale dreams come true. ”
“ Thank you, ” we all whisper back.
“ For believing in destiny ,” I add.
“ For being ours ,” Robert says.
“ For loving us ,” Hunter finishes.
This isn’t a fairytale. We’re not looking for a happy ever after. We count ourselves lucky that the creator sent us a mate who’s perfect for us, and if all our days together are as happy as today, I know everything will turn out just right.