Epilogue
FOUR YEARS LATER
Since choosing to stay with Wolf at his cottage, I’ve learned to pick my battles.
My mate is possessive. He’s protective. He worships me in a way that’s hard to describe to anyone who is used to human men. I’m not just his mate. I’m the second half of his soul, and he’d chase me to the ends of the earth so that we’d always be together.
For someone like me… for someone who never felt wanted…
it was a revelation to discover that I’m the most important thing in the world to Wolf.
When the day comes and the forest finally blesses us with pups of our own, I might have to share a sliver of his attention, but since the magic won’t provide a new generation until it’s sure that we’re ready for it, I’m not worried about that.
The magic of Blackmoor is a gift. So I sacrificed my wish when I chose to stay behind with Wolf after he was hacked at by the wicked huntsman. What I got instead was a devoted mate, an enchanted cottage that provides everything that Wolf doesn’t, and the ‘ever’ part of happily-ever-after.
It’s been four years. Technically, I’m thirty-two now, but I haven’t changed one bit.
And I mean that, too. My nails are the same length.
My hair? I took the axe to it once as a test, lopping off a good ten inches of length, and as though it was my turn to play the part of Rapunzel, it was back to its usual growth by the next morning.
It’s the same with my cloak. If I tear it or it gets dirty, all I have to do is place it in the wooden dresser in the cottage and, whether it’s tiny elves with needles and thread or some other explanation, it’s always pristine when I return for it.
I can ask for anything I need—my favorite tank top and black jeans from home, plus an endless supply of underclothes that Wolf enjoys shredding off of me with his claws—and it’s there like, well, magic.
Not once have I regretted my decision to form this peaceful forest life with Wolf. If anything, I do wish I could’ve found a way to reach out to the only soul on the outside that might’ve cared that I was gone and let Goldie know that I was okay. Shit. I was more than okay.
I’m happy.
That’s why, when Wolf came home frantic at the end of the autumn season, desperate to make sure I was safe after he ran into an intruder on his—our—territory, I understood his need to lap at me, to mount me, to claim me.
The clash between Wolf and the huntsman had left him with a deep-seated fear that someone in Blackmoor might take me from him if he doesn’t have his snout up my ass every minute of every day.
His instincts insist that he take patrols around the greenery surrounding the cottage, and he’s content so long as I stay inside and he doesn’t sense any other predators nearby.
It’s only happened once since the huntsman, and after I finally managed to calm my mate down enough to understand his wild reaction, he admitted that he battled a bear.
Like Wolf, the bear is a shifter; unlike Wolf, the shifter is either fully grizzly or fully man, not some combination of the two.
Wolf attacked and the bear countered, and while both males came out of the challenge in one piece, I’d been in Blackmoor long enough to wonder why a rogue bear would go up against my Wolf.
And that’s when, weeks later, he finally remembered that the bear hadn’t been alone.
There had been a human woman with the bear, and I finally understood.
Any of the beasts of Blackmoor would go to great lengths to protect their female which was what the bear was doing and Wolf, thinking of me alone in the cottage, had been trying to do.
In the end, he retreated because he was worried about me, but the more I thought about the human woman, the more curious I became.
It was probably nothing. Because she wasn’t me, all Wolf noticed about her was that she was small and yellow-haired.
And maybe it has everything to do with me and Wolf reenacting a real life Red Riding Hood tale, but I kept thinking yellow hair and bear and, wouldn’t you know, Goldilocks and the Three Bears went off in my head.
Then Wolf mentioned that the bear he battled had two brothers and… well… you never know.
Goldie.
What if it was Goldie?
What if my lifelong friend, so close I thought of her as a sister, found her way to Blackmoor, looking for me? What if this was all fated the way that Wolf has always wanted me to believe? Maybe me and Goldie met as kids because, one day, we would live out our own fairy tales in Blackmoor?
It’s ridiculous. I know it is. That’s why, through the rest of autumn and half of winter, I did my best to talk myself out of it. Only I couldn’t. Just like how obsessive I became over finding my way to Blackmoor and braving the forest, I had to find out. I had to know.
So I asked Wolf. No surprise, he distracted me from my obsessions in ways only my mate can, but I woke up this morning determined to see for myself.
Hours later, I’ve given up on trying convince Wolf to let me.
I’m going to look for myself. Even if it isn’t my Goldie, I like the idea that there’s another human woman lurking around the forest. That I’m not the only one.
That, maybe, I could have my one true love and a friend who knows exactly what it’s like to be claimed by one of these possessive males.
Especially when Wolf braces his big paws on his hips, tail lashing, as he growls deep in his chest. “No.”
“Yes.”
Wolf bares his fangs at me. “No.”
Reaching out, I grab his tail, give it a tweak. His growl dies in his throat, turning into a rumble in an instant. His eyes flash as he looms over me.
I roll mine. “I told you that I was going to go visit our neighbor whether you want me to or not.”
In response, Wolf yanks down his linen trousers. His cock leaps to his hand, my insatiable mate watching me with such a predatory look, I can’t help but shiver.
Okay. That was my fault. From the first time that Wolf used his tail to get me sopping wet for him, we’ve incorporated it into our play time.
All it takes is a quick tug with my fingers and it’s like it goes straight to his dick.
Not like he isn’t always ready to go anyway, but I tugged his tail and he needs to distract me so of course he’s going to attempt to convince me to head to the nest instead of out into a snowstorm.
I mimic his earlier pose. Boots on the floor—because I refuse to walk around in the woods without my feet covered if I can help it—and hands on my hips, I jut my chin up at my mate. “Not now.”
He whimpers, giving himself a rough stroke. “You refuse me, Charlotte? Your Wolf?”
What a drama queen. “Of course not. But if I let you fuck me, you’ll have me in your nest until I’ve forgotten why I grabbed my cloak and yanked my boots on.”
His golden eyes flash, a spark of orange as vibrant as the flames dancing in the fireplace. “If you let Wolf fuck you, you won’t want to leave.”
Not this again. I always know he’s getting ramped up when he reverts to referring to himself in the third person. Over the last four years, we’ve worked on it, but sometimes… sometimes he can’t help it.
Moving into Wolf, patting his chest while trying not to delight in the way his fur cushions my fingertips, I tilt my head back so that he can see the earnest—and honest—look on my face. “I’m not leaving you. I didn’t all those seasons ago, and I’m not going now.”
“But the bears—”
I thumb his nipple. I’m playing with fire, the way his heart thrums beneath my heated touch, but I can’t stop myself. “I’m not afraid of any bears, baby. Not when I have my big, bad wolf with me.”
His brow furrows. “Wolf can… Wolf can come?”
Going up on my tiptoes, I brush my lips against the nearest fang I can reach.
“Of course you can.” As if I ever thought I’d be able to go off in search of the human woman without him.
Besides, he’s not the only one who harbors trauma over that huntsman fucker.
“And then, after we’re home again, I’ll make sure you come again as many times as you like. ”
Wolf fists my hair, yanking with just enough force that he can angle my head where he wants it without eliciting a yelp of pain—or surprise—out of me.
When I first realized that I’d caught the attention of a werewolf, I figured I would never be kissed again.
Between the snarls and the fangs and the wild hunger, it didn’t seem like a good idea, and if I hadn’t been stunned and out of my mind with lust the first time he started licking my pussy, I would’ve been terrified that he’d puncture my labia with one of those bad boys.
Turns out, I was wrong. It took a little time, a little patience, and a lot of figuring out the mechanics when, to Wolf, mating was instinctive yet kissing wasn’t, but my mate definitely knows how to work his tongue.
His grip on my hair tightens just enough to hold me in place as he lowers his mouth to mine. He pauses like he always does, like he’s remembering those long ago lessons, before he takes my mouth with the same possessive edge as he owns my body.
When he breaks free, leaving me with weak knees and the taste of Wolf on my lips, he bows his head, resting his forehead to the top of my hood. “Charlotte,” he grates out, his voice raspy yet thick. “You stay.”
Charlotte… nine times out of ten, I’m his Red. It took me just as long to teach Wolf what my name is, but he prefers to use his nickname for me. It doesn’t bother me anymore, though when he does revert to Charlotte, I know he’s trying to reach me.
I huff out a soft laugh as my hands slide up his chest, fingers catching in the dark fur there. “I’ve stayed for years, Wolf. You know that.”
“Still. I need to know that you choose Wolf again.”
Something in my chest softens at his need to be wanted as much as I do.
Reaching behind me, I ghost my fingers over the mate mark that’s as noticeable today as it was when Wolf first bit me. “Every day,” I promise.