EPILOGUE
SOREN
THREE MONTHS LATER—SHADOW FEST
Shadow Fest reaches my nose from the road: hot oil, spun sugar, and every kind of shifter in the valley. Somewhere past the lights, The Howling Pack is playing louder than they are good, and the whole town has turned out under the Harvest Moon anyway.
Sable and I have only ever watched festivals from the dark. Tonight we walk in through the front gate with our mates.
No one screams, and a few humans raise their phones instead. The woman from my first public sunset waves from the pie table, and Treasure waves back for all of us.
Treasure keeps her hand tucked in the crook of my arm. She made her yellow dress herself, stretch panel and all, and the little round bump under it has half of Shadow Wolf Creek stopping us at the gate. People greet the bump and then remember to greet us.
Shifters ask about the dress before they ask about the bump. The measuring-tape woman has been telling the whole valley who dressed the gargoyles. Treasure keeps a list of orders on her phone now, sizes no store in town carries.
“Quit fussing,” she tells me, patting my arm. “I’m pregnant, not injured.”
“You are made of everything I have,” I say, and stay exactly where I am.
Andy’s diner booth sits front and center with a line down the midway. He is mid-bark at Devon when he spots us. “Family eats free!” he hollers, and goes right back to barking.
Devon slides Treasure a funnel cake with extra powder before she can ask. The boy remembered her craving. I add it to the list of reasons he stays guarded.
Treasure hands me the funnel cake to hold and has her phone out before the powdered sugar settles.
She lines us up at the rail with the Ferris wheel behind us, then drags Lena and my brother into the next one.
For the big one she waves the whole booth over, Jenna tucked under Tyson’s arm and Andy still in his apron.
Shelly jumps in the big one, then stations herself at the rail with a corn dog and scans the crowd. “Every shifter in the valley came out tonight,” she says. “One of them has to be mine.”
“These are going in the frames,” Treasure announces. “Every empty one on that wall is getting filled tonight.”
My brother plants himself at the ring toss and loses on purpose. Lena sets the rings in his claw, and he misses wide. The ticket pile between them keeps growing anyway, since the booth man is too nervous to correct a gargoyle.
My brother grins through the whole performance, and I am still not used to seeing it.
Treasure follows her nose into the cook-off tent. Half the packs have pots going, and the woman at the far table has a line longer than all of them put together. I know her story from the diner. Nyra is the wolf who married her human right here in this town.
Jalen slides in beside her table with his phone out and recording. “Creek babies, we are LIVE at the cook-off, standing next to the pot they should just hand the trophy to. Nyra! Is it true your man only proposed after he tasted this chili? Asking for the whole town.”
Nyra does not look up from her pot. “You will move away from my table now.”
“He gets one bowl,” Marcus says, and hands it to him. “To go.”
They turn back to their line and leave Jalen holding his chili. Treasure tugs me down the midway while he’s still deciding who to bother next.
Jalen’s next mess comes through the stage speakers. The Howling Pack has gone quiet mid-song, and Jalen has the singer’s microphone.
“SPECIAL EPISODE, creek babies! Live from Shadow Fest!” He points into the crowd. “First order of business. Andy. The whole creek knows about that health inspection, baby. We keep no secrets here. Second order of business??—”
“GET OFF MY STAGE,” the singer says into a backup microphone.
“—the First Lady of the gargoyles is here tonight! She’s glowing, she’s gorgeous, and she’s carrying the first gargoyle baby this creek has ever seen!” He shades his eyes against the stage lights. “Where is she? Stand up, Treasure!”
She is already standing. She waves with both hands and blows him a kiss, and the town applauds my mate. I put my face in my claw while my ears pin flat.
It takes me longer than it should to notice what Jalen is doing between the jokes. He works the crowd in loops that keep running wider, and he never stays on one face for long.
He is hunting.
I find him behind the cook-off tent after the band gives up for the night. Sable lands beside me.
Jalen spots us and puts both hands up. “Before you start. Congratulations, big guy. A whole baby. You did good, and your lady is a queen.”
“Thank you, Jalen,” I say, and bow my head to him.
He spins his phone in his hand. “Now. One exclusive. The lovely couple, the miracle baby, one hour in my studio, and I’ll even let you pick the music??—”
I stare down at him.
“Okay, man.” He pockets the phone. “Okay.”
“She did not come,” Jalen says.
“You believed she would,” Sable says.
“Every supernatural in the valley standing in one field.” Jalen looks out at the lights. “If I were a witch shopping for ingredients, I wouldn’t miss it. She knows I’m looking. Which means she’s got somewhere better to be.”
“Say the rest,” I tell him.
“That solution was never brewed in anyone’s kitchen. It came off a production line with a label and a safety seal.” He turns around, and there is no grin left on him. “There’s a corporation behind our witch, and I’ve got a name. I’m going after it. And I need friends who don’t burn.”
Sable looks at me. Somewhere back in the lights, our mates are laughing at the same story.
“When you call,” I say, “we answer.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” he says.
He looks past us. Treasure and Lena have their heads together over her phone. Down the midway, Jenna is pulling Tyson into the Ferris wheel line, and Nyra is packing her table while Marcus folds chairs. Jalen watches all of it, and for once he isn’t reaching for his phone.
“You will find her, brother,” I tell him.
He shrugs it off with half a laugh. “I stopped looking a long time ago.”
I know that quiet. I carried it across an ocean and up this mountain, right up until a waitress in a diner apron decided my statue was worth talking to. I would not wish it on an enemy, and Jalen is no enemy.
He claps his hands, and the show comes back on. “And yes, I vetted the fortune teller myself. We are not doing that again. Now excuse me. She’s doing mate readings, and I’ve GOT to hear what she tells Lamar.”
He goes loud into the lights, and I let him go.
I go find my mate. She has a paper boat of fried everything in one hand and the other hand going while she tells Lena a story. My brother stands behind Lena with his wings hanging easy. He is out in public with his guard down, in pants no one made him wear.
There was a time my brother and I had nothing but each other and the stone.
Treasure catches me watching her and aims the phone at us. “Brothers! Get together! And smile, we’re paying for these memories!”
Sable drops his arm across my shoulders. Neither of us knows how to smile on command, so we show fang. The flash goes off while Treasure is still laughing at us, and the picture comes out crooked.
That one goes in the big frame on the long wall, crooked fangs and all.
When my good friend calls, my brother and I will answer. But tonight my mate hums behind the wheel with our child under her heart, and I follow her taillights home, courting her all over again.
I am the richest monster alive.
The End.