Epilogue
Cat
“Can you hand me that hammer?” I said, teetering on the second to the last step of the ladder perched against the kitchen wall.
Ace had miraculously found a neighbor who wanted to sell the old farmhouse whose land ran perpendicular to the Club’s.
Paying in cash, we’d snagged up the run-down property that had been vacant for six months, with a promise from my mate that he’d have the whole place renovated by spring.
I didn’t care. The house was perfect to me.
All it needed was some TLC and a few coats of paint to make it shine.
Kierston stood up from her overflowing box of kitchen supplies and retrieved the hammer, passing it over to me handle side first. “Here you go. Be careful up there. You don’t look too steady on that rickety piece of termite infested wood you’re calling a ladder.”
She wasn’t kidding. I’d found the darn thing in the shed, and I wasn’t sure if it would hold together for too much longer.
But I’d wanted to hang the sign, All Friends Welcome Here, above my sink, and I wasn’t tall enough to reach it on my own.
Since I had no alternatives, I’d taken a risk on the “termite infested wood” as Kierston had put it, and located a bucket of nails to secure the sign in place.
“I’m a ware now, Kierston. Even if I fell, I wouldn’t get hurt.” I pointedly reminded the witch.
We’d gotten pretty close over the last few months, now that Anna had moved back with her parents.
After my friend had awoken from her “accident”, she suddenly decided she needed a change of pace and that she wanted to move.
Quitting her job at the bar, Anna had terminated her lease early and went back to Connecticut where her parents had told her she could crash until she figured out what her next move was.
I missed her every day, even though we still talked and texted regularly.
Though the whole ordeal had been painful and hard to navigate, I thought it might be for the best that she’d decided to leave Mercy behind.
Los Lobos wouldn’t have a chance to bother Anna out there on the east coast, and the pack would forget she ever existed now that Kane was dead and the fractured club were all squabbling for what remained of their power.
“Yeah, well, I don’t need another member of the Night Stalkers to hate me. One is enough,” the pretty witch stated sadly.
I assumed she was talking about Domino. The Club Enforcer hadn’t taken Anna’s leaving well.
In fact, he hadn’t taken Kierston’s memory spell well, either.
While he accepted why it needed to happen, he’d liked my beautiful friend more than anybody had realized.
Needing some time and space to clear his head, he’d gone into the woods for a bit.
Kierston, feeling guilty about the part she’d played in this situation, believed Domino blamed her personally for Anna’s leaving, even though Mad Dog had tried to convince her otherwise.
“He doesn’t hate you, Kierston. He’s just sad that he lost her before he ever really got a chance to know her,” I carefully explained. “Hell, if he hated anyone, it would be me. I’m the one who made the ultimate decision that sealed her fate.”
I know I still hated myself for it, though I believed then, as I do now, that it was the best option for everyone involved.
My ladder shifted then, and I nearly lost my balance. Kierston ran over and held the wobbly legs in a death grip. That broke the tension in the room and we both began to laugh like crazy at how ridiculous I looked on this rickety, old thing.
“Get down off of there! We’ll get one of the guys to hang the damn plaque. Any one of them is tall enough to do it without a ladder. I can’t hold this thing forever.”
“I don’t need a man to do it. I’m already here,” I told her as I pounded the nail into place and gleefully hung my sign.
Ace strolled into the kitchen then, rushing over to the ladder, taking Kierston’s place. “What the hell, woman! Get down off this piece of junk right this instant.”
I giggled and climbed down. “I’m all done with it. I just needed to hang that one item. You can throw it in the trash now.”
Relieved, Ace helped steady me as I stepped back on solid ground, then quickly broke the ladder down into kindling sized pieces with his bare hands.
I was never going to get used to my mate’s unbelievable strength, or my immense attraction to him.
Even now, after he’d satisfied me three times this morning in our new bed before our pack showed up to help us move, my girly bits were tingling with desire for him.
Tossing the splintered wood into an industrial sized trash bin by the sink, Ace said, “Come outside. I want to show you something.”
I was going to ask him if it could wait, but the look of excitement on his face was just too sweet to deny.
Glancing over at Kierston who was busy unloading the dishwasher after lunch, I said, “I’ll be right back,” and followed my mate, hand in hand, outside.
Our new property was set on seventy-three acres of pristine woodland with a sprawling front yard and abutting a dense forest in the back yard.
We circled around the front of the house and Ace made me close my eyes the entire way. “No peeking,” he warned, as he walked me up to something. When we came to an abrupt stop, he instructed, “Open them.”
My eyes fluttered open and took in the incredible sight. A jungle gym, surrounded by children’s play equipment of every variety, was nestled atop soft wood chips to absorb the fall of tender young bodies should they tumble to the ground.
This hadn’t been there last night. I would have noticed. It also looked custom built, which must have been crazy expensive.
“Oh my God! This is amazing! When did you do this?” I blurted, tears springing to my eyes.
I wasn’t pregnant yet, but Ace had talked about wanting kids soon and this was his way of showing me he was serious about building a life together.
“Gunner is an amazing carpenter. He made this for us as an early pair bonding gift,” Ace explained with a deep smile.
Wares didn’t wed. Well, not in the traditional sense. They went through an age-old ceremony known as pair bonding. Ace and I were going to be bonded under the next full moon, and the entire pack was going to be our witness, after which there’d be a large party and feast.
“One day, as the other pack members become pair bonded, they’ll live alongside us and we’ll form our very own ware community up here.
We’ll build the pack back up to what it once was,” Ace said with a proud expression on his impossibly handsome face.
“All of our children will play together and be raised knowing who and what they are.”
His speech caused a tear to trickle down my cheek.
Our children. They were going to know who they were from a young age.
There would be no fear of finding out what they were later on in life, as I had done, because we’d raise them to know what a blessing it was to be a shifter.
I was so touched, and in love with this man, I didn’t know how to express it in any other way than to throw my arms around his neck and give him a deep, sultry kiss.
Ace laced his strong arms around my back and smiled big when I looked directly into his eyes. “You like your gift then?”
“I love it. And I love you, Ace Aiden Montgomery. Now let’s sneak off into the woods and start making that family you’ve been wanting so badly,” I offered with a dirty wink.
“I thought you were still on the pill?” Ace spoke with a hint of confusion.
I shrugged. “Practice makes perfect. Right?”
“Damn straight!”
Tossing me over his shoulder, Ace carried me into the woods. Peeling off my clothes piece by piece as well as I could while draped over my mate like a sack of flour, I tossed them behind us like a breadcrumb trail leading back to the house that would very soon become a home.
The End