Epilogue
WILLOW
One Year Later
The late afternoon sun beat down on my face and cast long shadows across the freshly turned earth in the pasture. A gentle breeze blew by, carrying with it the scent of cut grass and wild clover.
“Ooh,” I gasped, the sudden kick in my abdomen surprising me.
My hands curled around the subtle swell of my stomach. It wouldn’t be long before I’d no longer be able to hide it. It was a secret we had kept to ourselves for weeks now. But I suspected Aileen and Torin knew, each catching me multiple times struggling with bouts of morning sickness.
And if Torin knew, it was certain Aidan knew. Chances were that Aidan had also told Liam.
So I had a feeling that our secret wasn’t as mysterious as Kaelen thought.
Cosmo gently bumped his head into my belly, resting it there, and I giggled. It seemed like so long ago when I had first worked with him at Snowfield. The scared black stallion that now let me cuddle him and feed him from my hand.
I laid my head on top of his, running my fingers through his mane. He towered over me, his magnificent black coat gleaming in the sunlight. A quiet nicker left him as he nosed my tiny bump, making the baby kick gleefully.
The rhythmic puff of his breath against my palm calmed me. I trailed my fingertips along his velvet skin. Cosmo was among the first horses we rescued. Technically, the rescue hadn’t been opened yet.
But when Snowfield reached out, asking if we would take him, I couldn’t say no. He belonged with me. With us.
Cosmo was still skittish, a fear for everyone except me and Kaelen.
Every time I stared into his dark eyes, I couldn’t help but wonder what horrors led to him being tied up in a warehouse.
Alone and wounded. Aidan and Torin promised to find who did it, but it had been months and they still hadn’t found any leads.
It had taken weeks for me to earn Cosmo’s trust. Hard fought hours of me sitting in the pasture, waiting for him not to sprint away whenever I appeared. Eventually, I started joining him in his stall, but only when Kaelen was with me.
My alpha worried that Cosmo might lash out and kick me. Not on purpose, but out of fear. After a week, he took an apple from my hand. Day by day, he opened up more, letting me touch his neck or brush his mane.
Something in him called to me. A kindred spirit. I recognized his pain, and he saw mine.
My gaze drifted to the west, where the mountains rose in a rolling wave against the horizon. It was quiet here. Peaceful.
So different from the city.
I was different.
The last year has changed me. On the day my dad brought me to Kaelen and tried to sell me to him, I snapped at him like a frightened animal.
The scent of coffee and whisky carried on the breeze, and my lips curved before I even turned around. I didn’t need to look. I knew that scent. The scent of my alpha.
A man who worked in a ruthless world, but with me, he remained tender and worshipful.
Two thick arms banded around my middle. My back collided with a wall of muscle. Kaelen rested his chin on my shoulder, his purr singing for me. I carded my nails through his scruff.
A massive, callused palm curled around my stomach. He drew slow, reassuring circles around my navel. A glow of black fur raced past my feet, Shadow sprinting happily around the pasture, chasing tufts of grass and yellow butterflies.
Despite being uncomfortable around most people, Cosmo was content with Shadow’s presence.
Kaelen’s lips brushed against my ear, his teeth grazing the lobe, making me wiggle in his hold. I had become increasingly needy the last few weeks, regularly yanking my husband into our bed or whatever secluded spot I could find, begging for my alpha’s knot.
Pregnancy hormones.
He didn’t seem to mind, though.
“How are my two favorite girls?” he murmured, his timbre a possessive staccato that did nothing to help the damp panty situation between my thighs.
I leaned my head back against his chest. His eyes twinkled as they gazed down at me, the hand not holding my stomach, moving higher and gently collaring my throat.
“We’re good. Your daughter is very active today. She likes Cosmo.”
“How could she not?”
As if he understood, Cosmo nickered, kicking at the loose dirt of the ground and prancing in a circle. Kaelen bent at the waist, his lips meeting mine in a long, languid kiss that was both a question and a promise.
A question of what I needed, and a promise to always give it to me.
When he finally pulled away, my lips were swollen and my heart was full. He dropped to one knee, the tilled grass leaving stains on his Armani trousers. He must have come straight from a meeting in the city and didn’t have time to change.
Both hands cradled my stomach, his lips pressing sweetly over my navel.
“And how are you, little one?”
My fingers tangled in his hair, pulling it free like I had done so many times.
In that moment, with the sun setting, the grazing horses in the distance, Shadow chasing butterflies, and Kaelen on his knees in front of me, I knew what true happiness was.
It wasn’t the fragile, delicate thing I once believed. It was a fortress. Something forged in flames, blood, and battle. It was devotion and love. The kind of love that could move mountains and temper steel.
Kaelen was a demon, someone who couldn’t afford to show weakness. Yet he did just that, giving all of himself to me.
We were two sides of the same coin, and with him, I finally felt complete.
For so long, I had been a willow, bending in the wind, a lonely tree in a forgotten field. Then I found him, a tempest tearing through the woods. In his arms, I found my roots. My alpha showed me how strong I was. What I was capable of.
I loved my demon. My alpha. My Kaelen.
And I would spend the rest of my life telling him so.