Epilogue
Pierce threw the last of Kai’s clothes into the bag on the bed in the guestroom at Luc’s monstrosity of a compound.
Luc had sent some of his lackeys to load everything Pierce and Kai were taking with them onto the plane.
Everything that mattered was already loaded—he just had a few more things of his left to go, that he had here at his sister’s.
His family was waiting. He and his son had spent the last week there at Luc and Payton’s.
Luc had taken Patrick and Kai somewhere in the house to do something with child-sized race cars that went all of two miles per hour.
Luc had a huge multipurpose area where the boys could drive.
Or…thought they were. Patrick’s was controlled with a remote by his father.
Kai’s could be toggled between a remote and being operated by Kai.
Kai loved it with Luc and Payton, but Payton had assured them all that they spent a great deal of time in Texas now.
She had discussed with her superiors moving to just doing consultant work with the FBI very soon.
It wasn’t practical to have the wife of a billionaire working in the actual FBI building, complete with her own security detail.
Not with the kind of threats Luc’s family had been receiving lately.
To be honest, Pierce wanted her better protected, too.
Payton was the heart of the Asher family. He wanted to protect her.
Protect. Hell, he would never think of protect in the same way again.
He would not ever forget the warped, twisted version of protection John Stenson had used to justify the horrors he had inflicted. He just wouldn’t. Pierce had had nightmares about that asshole getting to Kai next, or something. Or…Pierce not getting to Miranda and Asa Stenson in time.
Miranda had gotten lucky. It could have ended in a totally different way.
Pierce was coming to terms with that. And damn it, he’d considered Bryan Stenson a friend after all those years. To see him hurt like that…Thank God the other man was going to pull through. Bryan didn’t deserve to pay for his brother’s ghosts. He just didn’t.
But they had finally caught the bastard.
That had to matter for something. And Terra Gibson was safe, alive, and able to build a relationship with her sister now.
To have a life. That was more than he had ever expected to find.
For so many years, he had imagined that little girl out there rotting like trash.
He was going to remind himself that she was alive. That was what he was going to do.
But for now…he had his son to find. He had explained to Kai that they were moving to a different place.
A warmer place, where there wouldn’t be as much snow.
Kai had been concerned that Santa Claus wouldn’t be able to find him at Christmas time without the snow.
Pierce hadn’t known what to say—so he’d just said Texas was where Santa went to warm up before going to the other half of the world.
It had worked for now. He had told Kai the truth—that he wouldn’t be a policeman any longer, but would be helping Uncle Luc keep Uncle Luc’s sisters safe from bad guys, instead.
Kai had met Luc’s siblings, and their children now. He was excited to get to play with the kids on a regular basis. Maybe a new environment would be enough of a new start. Maybe they could make progress now.
He found Kai and Luc in the multipurpose room, with two of Luc’s younger sisters, his brother-in-law, and two small children who looked enough like Luc’s sister to be her children. He shook hands with the brother-in-law, a big shaggy blond guy around his own age and size, then looked for his son.
Kai was laughing like he couldn’t stop. Pierce smiled. He loved it when his kid laughed like that.
“So, it’s a done deal, then?” The brother-in-law, Murdoch, asked. “You are going to take the job of guardian of the vampiresses?”
Well, that wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. “Excuse me?”
“You are now the Sacred Guardian of the Goddesses…or so I have recently heard.”
“Murdoch, don’t be a lunatic,” his wife told him, a loving but firm tone in her words that had Pierce’s hairs rising. He was starting to think someone was hiding something from him. “Pierce deserves better than that.”
“Pierce deserves legions of werewolf warriors to do his bidding. Mountains of gold and silver for what he is about to endure. Medals for bravery and honor. Body armor for dealing with Scary—” His wife elbowed him in the chest. He finally shut up.
“I’m sure watching over your wife and her sisters isn’t going to be that complicated.” Pierce said. “Luc told me we’d work on the details sometime next week.”
“It’s not us you’ll be watching,” Luc’s younger sister Penelope said.
Pierce looked at her for a moment. She had been through a massive trauma back in October.
Five months wasn’t really long enough for her to heal.
So had Zoey and Murdoch, and the two small children ‘racing’ cars around Luc’s multipurpose room. “It’s them.”
“Who are they?” Pierce was really starting to wonder if he’d made a mistake here.
Luc’s brother-in-law just laughed and laughed until his wife hit him in the arm. “You are so about to find out…”
Pierce will find more than he ever bargained for in Finley Creek. Watch for his book coming in 2027!