EPILOGUE
NIA
The rain taps gently against the glass, a steady rhythm like a lullaby. Outside, the forest sways in soft submission to the storm, the evergreens bowing beneath the wind’s whisper. But inside, it’s warm. Inside, it seems peaceful.
For once.
But there’s blood on the sheets again.
Not mine, this time. Not his. It’s old—dried and flaked, a memory more than a mess—but it clings to the threads of the fabric like it’s trying not to be forgotten.
I leave it.
I let the scent soak into the cotton. Let it remind me of what we crawled through to get here. Peace isn’t white and it’s not pure. It’s rust-colored and fraying at the edges, stitched together with things no one ever wants to name.
My hand curls over the swell of my belly.
I’m too big. Too heavy. Too damn sore and sleep-deprived to be comfortable.
A tiny foot presses back against me from the inside, strong and sure.
He’s been more active lately. He’s restless, like his father.
Or maybe impatient, like me. But he feels calmer too, steadier.
As if he already knows his place in the world.
As if he’s already desperate to claim it.
As if he’ll never have to fight to be wanted.
I move slowly through the hallway, barefoot, dragging my fingertips across the cold wood wall like it might steady me. It doesn’t. Nothing really does anymore. Only him. And he’s not here. Not yet.
I breathe deep. Resin. Ash. The lingering echo of a storm. And underneath it all, him. His scent is everywhere in this house, in this skin. In this child.
I don’t need to ask where Luke is. He’s where he always is when he’s not with me. He and Lawson are out in the woods, circling. Watching. Hunting threats before they get too close. Killing prey that’s foolish enough to wander into their path so he can bring it back home.
He’s been more ever since I started showing.
More feral. More focused. More fucking unbearable.
And I love him for it.
“Are you coming home?” I ask him.
I feel the irritation radiating through the bond, and I take another breath.
“You’re not funny,” Luke snarls through the bond. I’m bothering him and he makes sure I know it, letting his emotions roll over me like thunder—sharp, instinctive, and possessive. “Don’t distract me when I’m working.”
Lawson, ever the less restrained of the two, growls low and mean. “You’re making us lose focus, little mate. Keep teasing, and I might come home just to remind you what happens to girls who don’t behave.”
I roll my eyes, but I feel the shift in them instantly. The flicker of heat that starts low and spreads. He can’t stay mad. He never could. Neither of them could.
But if Luke’s protective, then Lawson is predatory.
Where Luke guards, Lawson claims. Where Luke waits, Lawson strikes. He doesn’t just want Lyall and me safe—he wants us silenced. Stilled. Bound in their den like the precious, breakable thing we’ve never been.
He hates that I still test the walls. Hates that I pace when I should nest. That Lyall bites back.
And Lyall is biting back.
She’s prowling just beneath my skin. Pacing. Watching. Daring. She hasn’t been quiet for weeks. She hates the way they hover. Hates the way Luke looks at me like I’ll shatter. She wants blood and breath and freedom—and when Lawson pushes too hard, she doesn’t growl.
She laughs.
She wants to dominate him. Lyall’s already bested him in every way that matters, in the dark place inside us where the real battles happen.
She didn’t win with claws but with will.
She’s older. Crueler. More god than girl.
And she makes it very clear that if Lawson thinks this pack is his to rule, he’s sorely mistaken.
And she’s made it very, very clear: if Lawson thinks this pack is his to rule, he’s wrong.
He’s hers.
Especially after what she did to the High Lords.
They came sniffing around once my belly started to swell, once they realized that I was fertile and that meant I might enhance their power.
Lyall let them circle just close enough to taste her before she shredded the weakest one without warning, without a word.
He didn’t even get the chance to beg. The others ran. She didn’t chase.
She didn’t need to.
Neither did Lawson.
Now, they don’t come near our territory. Not unless they want to die choking on their own tongues.
“Let us do our job, Nia.”
There’s not a chance I’m letting that asshole tell me what to do. Not when we’re carrying his fucking heir. Not when it’s my body splitting apart to build something that might survive us both.
They act like we’re some delicate relic to be protected. But this body is a battleground. This womb is a fucking altar. I’m bleeding and breaking for their legacy.
For our pack.
They don’t get to bark orders at us while we’re the ones growing a goddamn wolf.
“Your job is looking after me, and right now, Lawson, I need taking care of.”
I hear them stop. Dead.
I feel their arousal. Burning.
I smirk and rub my stomach.
“Keep your hands on that belly,” Luke growls, his voice a shiver down my spine. “And keep your legs exactly where I left them. Spread. Resting. Waiting.”
Lawson chuckles darkly, the sound curling low in my gut. “Don’t make me come back covered in blood just to fuck the defiance out of you.”
I hum in amusement and lie back on the bed. I let the smirk stretch across my lips. I know exactly what I’m doing.
And so do they.
I pace around the house, finally settling in bed to listen to the clock as it counts down to their arrival.
The front door swings open a little after midnight.
I’m already awake. Waiting.
The storm has quieted, but the air still crackles. The way it always does after Luke has been out in it—dragging the forest in with him, wearing the night like armor.
I don’t move. Not when I hear his boots hit the floor. Not when his jacket drops, damp and heavy, onto the stone.
I let him find me.
I feel him before I see him, and before I smell the blood.
Not his.
He steps into the doorway of our bedroom and stares. Just stands there, silent. Soaked to the bone and looking at me like I’m the only thing in the fucking world that’s real.
“You’re late,” I say.
He tilts his head. Slowly. Wolf-like.
“You’re awake.”
“Did you bring me anything?”
His eyes flick to the bag in his hand, then back to me. “Rabbit.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Disappointing.”
“You said you were craving raw.”
“Not food, Luke.”
He growls low, stepping into the room, and the door slams shut behind him.
I smile.
“Don’t test me tonight,” he says, shedding his shirt. His skin is scraped, dotted with dried blood, smudged with dirt. His tattoos glisten wet in the dim firelight. “I’ve already gutted three things that looked at our house too long.”
“And yet, here you are. Looking.”
He’s across the room before I can blink. His hands slam into the mattress on either side of my hips. He doesn’t touch me—he just cages me in. Smells me. Breathes me.
“You’re dripping,” I murmur.
“So are you.”
My thighs clench. He grins.
“You missed me,” I say, tilting my head.
“Always.”
He drops his mouth to mine like it’s the only answer I need, and it is. I taste the rain on his lips, the iron on his tongue. His kiss is deep and consuming, but he doesn’t rush. He never does. Not anymore. He learned the hard way that I don’t break.
I bite.
His hand slips between my legs and he groans. “You’re soaked.”
I hum. “You keep saying that.”
He slides a single finger through the mess he made without even being here. “You’re filthy.”
“I’m pregnant. What’s your excuse?”
That earns me a growl that rumbles all the way through the floor. And then he’s on me. Mouth on my throat. Teeth scraping the spot that still drives me wild.
“I missed you,” he mutters, teeth grazing my skin. “You’re getting bigger.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I say that like I can barely fucking think when I look at you.”
His hands slide down, splaying over the tight swell of my belly. “He’s strong.”
“He’s yours,” I whisper, and I feel him exhale like the confirmation still undoes him.
It should. It undoes me.
A scream echoes through the house and both of us freeze. I hear Lawson growl and Lyall’s ears prick up before she tells Lawson to calm down.
“I’ll go,” Luke says.
“I can—”
He growls back. “Don’t fucking push me, Nia. You stay exactly where you are while Lawson and I go deal with this. You’ve got your hands full already. And by hand, I mean womb. And by full, I mean mine.”
I snort, but my chest aches with how fast I fall in love with him all over again.
“And don’t roll your eyes at me, Nia. I can feel it through the bond. Good girls get to come, bad girls get spanked. Hard.”
“Aurora is just fine, Luke.”
“No, she’s not, Nia. Our daughter is vicious. Terrifying. Worse than you and Lyall. And that’s what worries me. She’s three, sweetheart, and she took out Cole and Riley yesterday. As if it were child’s play.”
My smile widens. “She takes after her mother.”
“Goddess help the poor soul who’s her mate,” Luke growls under his breath as he slowly pulls away like it hurts to leave me here.
Aurora wasn’t supposed to happen. Not after what my body had endured. Not after what had been done to it. Malcolm even whispered that he wasn’t sure I’d be able to conceive once. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t dare hope.
And then she happened.
A spark. A flutter. A war cry in miniature.
I remember the first time Luke heard her heartbeat—how he dropped to his knees like he’d been shot, like the sound of it cracked something open in him that hadn’t ever healed right. Lawson curled around me for days after, guarding us like the secret was too precious to speak aloud.
They were gods and monsters both, but when Aurora was born, they became fathers. She toddled straight into their den and claimed them. Lawson lets her tug his ears. Luke lets her ride him when he shifts, her fists tangled in his fur as she howls at the wind.
She rules them.
And they love it.
I love it too, and love them more for how gentle they are with her.
He comes back smelling like steel and storm. Shirtless again, because of course he is. I swear he only wears them to rip them off.
The mark I gave him still adorns his skin, woven between the tattoos he already had like it was always meant to be there.
Like he was always meant to be mine. Its silvers and purples shouldn’t be there, not like that.
This wasn’t part of any ritual. It was instinct.
Mine. Lyall’s. I tore into him during the blood moon and the scar took root like it belonged.
It fits, and I stare, transfixed, at the crescent moon nestled between the wings of his old tattoo. A high mark. My crest, if I had one. My claim.
He wanted it. Begged for it, in his way. Quiet. Starving.
He told me once he’d tattoo my name into his bones if I asked.
I didn’t.
But I think he still might have.
“Did you kill whatever it was?” I ask, dragging the sheet down just enough to remind him where his mouth belongs.
He stalks toward me, shedding his pants like they offend him.
“No. I promised it I’d come back.”
I raise a brow.
“Aurora told me not to bother. That she’s got it handled.”
I laugh, breath catching when he grips my knees and parts them. “Goddess, that girl…”
“Can wait,” he growls. “She’ll cause quite enough trouble when she wakes up again. Now, I’ve played house and even brought you dinner. I’m fucking starving, Nia, so be a good girl and let me eat mine.”
His mouth trails heat up my thigh. Slow. Brutal.
I reach for him with one hand, the other never leaving the swell of my stomach.
“Touch me,” I whisper. “Make me forget anything but you.”
His eyes flash dark. “You’ll forget your name before I’m done.”
And then he does.