EPILOGUE
CICELY
Several Weeks Later
“Again,” my mate demands.
“No more, baby. Please.”
I’m absolutely exhausted. He’s made me come three times. And that’s not even for all of today so far… just this round.
Heat flickers in his gaze along with mischief. His head descends and he licks my clit. When my exhaustion shows and I’m not immediately arching my back, he slides up my body and gently slides in, cradling my face in one hand while his other elbow holds him up.
He rotates his hips and kisses me. “You done in?” he asks gently, running the tip of his nose up my jaw. “Did I fuck my beautiful mate into complete submission finally?”
He pulls back.
“Probably,” I admit.
He laughs and slams forward again, swiveling his hips and pulling a whimper from me before he sucks the mate mark, which makes me dig my nails into his back and finally arch my back.
His knot appears and he manages to pull one more orgasm from me before we both pass out.
***
I wake up sometime later with his mouth around my nipple, his fingers between my legs.
“Ugh. Not tonight, honey. I have a headache,” I tell him.
He looks up at my face and asks, “Seriously?”
“Naw,” I whisper.
But good to know it seems like he’d stop if I did.
I don’t know how he’s still got so much energy. I’m exhausted. Growing a baby evidently takes a lot out of you.
Jared suddenly finding out I’m pregnant yesterday because he can smell our child has had a profound effect.
Because our son has a scent. My mate is elated. And this is the fourth round of sex since he found out less than twenty-four hours ago. Did we conceive the night his wolf claimed me? I feel like we did, that it was a monumental night for us in so many ways.
We’re in Northern California with the camper and it’s been an awesome few days exploring forests beneath giant redwoods and sequoias.
He had an investigation gig and got that done quickly, so since then we’ve gone for hikes, had campfires, found out we’re going to be parents, got a big revelation, and I’ve seen my mate happy, smiling, and ready to make the most of life. With me.
The mask is in the underbed storage area, and I don’t need to carry a taser and a stun gun. Because Jared’s wolf listens to me.
After it was determined that though Jared doesn’t have much of a connection with his wolf, but that I do, we sat with Mitchell Blakely again and Jared decided he doesn’t want to take that experimental drug.
At least not right now. Mitch said he’s leaving some of the drug with Cat in case Jared changes his mind.
I don’t blame him for saying no. Volunteering to experience all the rage and anger his wolf felt for all that time doesn’t sound fun or healthy.
But while Jared doesn’t have all those shifted memory gaps filled, he has been having dreams of being wolf, dreams he’s never had before, and I believe those dreams are based on memories while wolf.
Some of them are just walks, runs, hunts.
But some aren’t good dreams. I think his wolf is still protecting him from harmful memories, trickling in slowly to connect with him, starting through dreams. Time will tell if my hunch is right or not.
Time will tell if they eventually fuse and become one.
But I know one thing for sure from my time spent with Jared’s wolf.
Though we can’t communicate with words, I have a sense of who the wolf is.
Protective. Smart. It just took that lunar event for him to realize that I’m not a threat, that we belong together.
Because of this, I couldn’t wrap my mind around him being a mindless killer and asked Jared if we could talk to his cousin Olivia.
He wasn’t ready, afraid of the truth being what he’s always feared. To his credit, he showed how strong he is by giving me permission to call her.
I got her number from Bailey and spoke to her on the phone a few days ago.
She was glad to hear he’s alive. I haven’t told her much, definitely not about the fracturing of the relationship between Jared and his animal, but I asked her about their childhood, about their alpha, because I told her I believe Jared has repressed a lot of traumatic memories and that I want to help him through them.
She told me terrible stories about how their uncle treated Jared, how he had some of his betas do the same, tormenting him whenever Jared’s father wasn’t around.
Everyone in the pack hated the bullying of a child and knew it was because Jared would likely grow to become alpha, that Michael Stone didn’t want his position threatened, especially by someone he couldn’t smell coming.
Olivia told me she vividly remembers Jared nearly drowning one winter when he was four or five years old after his uncle tripped him on the riverbank and watched him flail in the water after breaking through thin ice.
The alpha forbade everyone from helping.
But Jared’s sister rushed in anyway and pulled him to safety.
She got a bad case of hypothermia and nearly died.
And I think that’s why Jared’s wolf doesn’t like the water.
I tried, while my wolf ran with his, to coax him into a calm stream.
He refused, barked at me and got as ferocious and angry as he did before the night of the amber moon.
I got out of the stream and he barked at my wolf for a long time before he mounted my wolf and I took what felt like a punishment fuck.
When Jared shifted to wolf the day after that, I took another run with him and he was over his anger, but barked at me when I got close to the water again, so I didn’t push my luck with the issue.
Jared has no memory of nearly drowning, nor of Ellery almost dying from hypothermia. I know one thing for certain – we are definitely naming our first daughter after his sister.
And the big revelation: Olivia told me, after I asked what happened to Jared’s mother and sister (telling her Jared knows they’re gone but doesn’t know how), that after Jared’s wolf came back the night after killing the alpha to take out more betas, that a beta named Charles decided to take the alpha position.
She described this Charles as a slimy fucker who told others he was going to claim the very beautiful seventeen-year-old Ellery as his own.
Ellery didn’t want his advances and fought him.
Jared’s mom stepped in to help, hitting him over the head with a frying pan.
Charles got enraged and killed them both.
Jared’s wolf came upon that scene and killed Charles and two of three other betas who had come in during the fight.
The one left lived to tell the pack what happened.
Nobody else wanted to be the alpha; the remaining betas were too afraid of Jared’s wolf returning.
I held my mate close while I relayed this news to him after the phone call, which I’d had in the camper while he took a walk.
He crumbled to pieces with relief in my embrace.
And then he was so angry he wanted to tear shit up, so I told him to give in to the urge to shift and we took a long run together, which seemed to help.
His wolf wasn’t in a fit of rage upon arrival, but we ran together for a good long while and when he shifted back, Jared was exhausted and slept for fourteen hours. When he woke up, he smelled our child.
***
I’m mixing virgin mocktails in the blender and Jared is outside barbecuing chicken for dinner when his phone rings.
I answer it. “Hey, Linc. He’s outside at the grill. I’ll bring you out.”
“Hey, Sis. Thanks, but stay with him while I talk to him, yeah?” There’s static. It’s not a great connection.
And it also sounds like something is wrong. My belly bottoms out unpleasantly. I get out there. Jared’s eyes are on me.
“Linc’s on speaker,” I say and set the phone on our fold-out picnic table behind the tailgate grill.
“Linc? Hey,” Jared greets.
He’s smiling, happy. And I’m trying to hide my worry that something is about to change that.
“Hey bro, how goes it?” Linc asks.
Jared smiles wider. “Good, man. Really good. My woman’s pregnant.”
Jared’s eyes travel the length of me and the heat in his gaze has my knees going to jelly. He wants me again. And my body responds accordingly as I bite my lip and give him my best flirty gaze.
“Fuck, that’s awesome. Congratulations!” Linc says, his voice breaking up.
Definitely a shitty connection.
“I smell the baby, Linc. I smell him.”
“Fucking awesome, bro. Thrilled for you guys.”
“Thanks,” he says, joy oozing from him.
I’m worried and I’m not hiding it very well.
His eyes land on me again and his face changes. He realizes something might be off. And that’s huge, because he walked around before as if things were always on the verge of going bad. And I love that it’s no longer his default emotion.
“Something up?” Jared asks.
“Blakely called and left me a voicemail. News on your old man isn’t good.”
Jared waits, jaw tightening. I move closer.
“He’s in a maximum-security prison in Alaska. His file is so classified even Blakely can’t get his hands on it, but he was able to visit and says there’s nothing there, man. Your father has been catatonic for years. I’m really fuckin’ sorry.”
Jared lets out a long exhale, looking off into space.
I snuggle into him. He wraps his arm around me, putting the tongs down and giving me a full hug.
Linc keeps talking. “Man, hate to ask right now on the heels of this news, but is there any chance you can come up here?”
“Where?” Jared asks.
“I’m in Alaska, too. I’m on a job.”
Jared’s eyes flit to me.
I nod, showing him I don’t mind.
“Calendar is clear for the next month,” Jared says.
We had been planning to do more exploration here and along the Oregon coast. He has no other jobs booked until after that. Our gallivanting can wait if Linc needs help.
Linc is talking but static makes it impossible to understand what he’s saying.
“Say again, Linc. Static.”
“I thought you might wanna come up here and investigate what might’ve gone down with your dad, but also, I could use your help.”
“On the job?”
“Yeah. I’ve identified her. My mate,” Linc says.
“That’s awesome!” I exclaim.
“It would be,” Linc agrees, “except for the fact that the alpha that hired me to do this job wanted me to track his fated mate who’s hiding from him.”
“So, you need me to take over and find her so you’ve got time with your woman?” Jared asks.
“It’s a fuck of a lot more complicated than that,” Linc replies. “I found the girl he’s sayin’ is his. But she’s can’t be his.”
More static.
“Linc?” I call when it clears.
Linc growls, “She can’t be his, because she’s mine.”
The End