Epilogue One
SIN
I… was building.
None of the others stuck out quite as much as me with my red eyes, but I was just fine staying close to home in the forest.
The property was massive, with some beautiful trails, and I’d started a project of building them out.
Cutting back overgrowth and adding stones to level out parts that were too rough.
Crescent helped me some days, and she loved to decorate the trees, which meant the small hikes had little wooden gnome watchers, and strings of decor hanging from trees—often with dozens of glittering keys Crescent had leftover from nest decorating.
I hadn’t set up a nest yet (my instincts didn’t seem to need one for myself), but had helped my packmates start decorating the interior rooms. We didn’t sleep in the bedrooms, but they’d been claimed for hobbies or lounge space.
But my favourite project was the treehouse.
I’d picked a perfect tree—in the exact place that allowed for that horrible ray of sun to violate Crescent’s sacred nest in the evening—and, with the help of the others, I began working on a treehouse.
I had lost track of the amount of time I’d spent building it, when at last it was stable enough to invite her up.
Her golden eyes were bright as her head popped up through the hatch from the ladder below. It made me warm and fuzzy to see her haul herself in and look around for the first time.
“We’ll need to seal it a bit better to stop the draft if we want to spend a night up here every once in a while,” I said. “And add some blankets and pillows. I thought of hanging a screen across there—” I pointed to a tree a distance away. “For movie nights.”
“It’s beautiful…” She trailed off, her eyes narrowing. I looked from her, to the small space, trying to figure out what it was she was staring at. “Did you say pillows and blankets?” There was a deep smugness radiating from her in the bond, a smile tugging on her lips as she looked back at me.
What?
Again, I looked from her, to the cozy wooden space. Perfectly sized. Good for cuddling, big enough for the whole pack if they wanted to come up—
I… Ah.
Okay. I might have been wrong about my instincts not needing what Crescent did.
Because this was definitely a nest.
PHANTOM
The breeze was cool against my sweat-dampened skin, and I wiped my brow with a cloth as I exited the courtyard, Karma at my side.
There was a basketball under my arm, and it was sprinkling with rain, though that hadn’t stopped us from going for hours.
It was a small town, but the court had a few regulars.
They were all friendly, and I was still shaking myself that they looked at me like I was… normal.
And they were helping teach basketball to Karma, who was loving it.
Some of them were even into the Premier League trading cards I’d been drooling over. I didn’t have the money to buy many yet, but some had come in the mail. A little gift from the Kingsman pack—who were apparently tracking our internet search history, otherwise how would they have known?
When we got to the car, he tried to get to the driver’s side.
“No—!” I grabbed him back.
“But it’s—”
“Your test’s coming up,” I snapped.
“Exactly, I need to practice!”
“You are not going to kill me right as I get my second chance—” I shook his shirt in my fists.
I’d seen him pull the car around in the long driveway.
He was grinning. “It’s a straight line.”
“No!”
I’d been licensed since I was a teenager, so all we’d had to do was apply for another one. The Kingsman pack had lent us a car, but I was working on getting us actually… functional in society—which meant jobs.
Well, the others could do what they wanted, but I wanted a job. I didn’t care if it was a desk job. I wanted all the normal things, stupid or not.
Summer barbecues.
Hating tax season.
Folding laundry.
Christmas decorating with family.
Fighting over the thermostat.
I shoved Karma out of the way. No way was I dying before I got all the normal shit in the world.
And I had a pack to share it with.
He groaned, but I spun on him, jabbing the keys into his chest. “We have a very hot omega at home we need to get back to, and she likes it when we’re sweaty!”
That was what got him moving to the passenger side of the car, if huffily. I knew I’d be hearing about it for the entire drive home, but he knew we didn’t have time to waste in getting back to Crescent.
I’d go to the court even if she didn’t attach to us like a barnacle when we got back, but I had to admit… It was a very nice bonus.