Epilogue
Everett
“They want to see who?” Kleio rushed to keep up with my long footsteps as I made my way down the hall and to the top of the stairs. I had to see them with my own eyes. These people—I didn’t know if you could even call them that. There was one of us with them. A tan shifter.
“The guard at the gates mind-linked me. They want to see my father,” I said.
Kleio’s breath got caught in her throat. She stopped following me, bending over, coughing over the spit she’d inhaled. I didn’t have time for this. Still, I stopped and turned around, whacking Kleio on the back a couple of times to help clear her airway.
“Everett! You’re doing it too hard!” She swatted my hand away as she stood up, her neck and chest red from choking.
Elise poked her head out of the room where the pack’s pups were playing. She’d taken a liking to spending time with the youngest members of our pack. Seeing her with the young ones stirred something deep within me. “What’s going on?”
“Lyka, Kleio and I were— ”
“What were you doing too hard?” Elise asked, eyeing Kleio’s red neck and chest.
“Me.” Kleio’s lips raised playfully in my direction. Damn her.
Elise blinked, closing her eyes for a moment before the left corner of her lips raised ever so slightly. She was using her mind-link. They were teasing me. She’d gotten entirely too good at that.
“Everett!” Jack’s voice bellowed from the room Kleio and he shared at the far end of the hallway. “If you touched Kleio, I’m gonna kill you!” He emerged from the room, his chest puffed out, and his eyes on me.
“So, Kleio can join me in hell the next time she chokes on her spit?” I asked.
Jack made it over to his mate in record time, eyeing her up and down before pulling her against his body possessively.
“I wouldn’t go to hell!” Kleio sunk into his side as he wrapped his arm possessively around her waist, digging his fingers into her hip. “I’m a good girl—and good girls go…somewhere nice.”
“That’s not where she’s going,” I growled.
Elise’s eyes widened right before I bent down and threw her body over my shoulder, her hands pounding at my back and her feet kicking my chest. Her and Kleio—the fucking duo that caused the most chaos in the packhouse.
I should have never put Kleio in charge of Elise during the tournament. It had caused…this.
“Put her down, Everett! You can go all caveman on her later. Remember—they’re here.”
Shit. My lyka had a hold on me that made everything else disappear. I’d forgotten that they, whoever they were, were downstairs asking to see my father. The man who’d been dead since I’d killed him for trying to kill Elise. What could they want?
“Who’s here?” Elise asked, her voice strained from the pressure my shoulder was putting on her stomach. I set her down on her feet, but not before I let every inch of her body slide down mine.
“People looking for my father,” I said as I grabbed her hand, pulling her close to me. There weren’t secrets between us anymore. We’d made an effort to be open with each other, no matter how hard it might be.
“Why would they be looking for your father? He’s dead.”
Kleio almost choked on her spit again as she laughed behind us. “Elise’s so blunt—I love it.”
“That’s what I’m going to find out,” I said as I tucked my mate behind me.
We were on the third floor, high above where the guards had the intruders corralled on the main floor, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Kleio stood at my side as we reached the wooden railing and peered over the edge, down to the main floor, at a hodge-podge group that looked like they’d went unprepared for a hike and gotten lost for days in the woods.
They were dirty—their skin and clothing brown with earth, everyone’s hair plastered to their heads from a mix of oil, sweat, and dirt.
Elise popped her head around my side, peering over the railing. “Pumpkin! Is that you?” Everyone in the group turned around, looking between them.
Elise pulled her hand out of my grasp, running toward the stairs. A growl left my throat as I followed her. She was always running toward danger.
“I mean Dafni! Dafni? Is that you?”
The group parted, revealing the woman with green eyes.
I followed Elise down the stairs, keeping my eyes on the group.
No one had better move a muscle in the wrong direction.
The closer I got, the more I could see that her hair wasn’t the muddy brown that I’d seen from the third floor but a red color, almost orange, underneath all the filth.
She walked forward toward Elise, reaching out to touch her extended hands.
I growled, the entire group paused before taking a step back. The whole group except the tan wolf, who growled right back. Fur sprouted from the back of my neck; claws extended from my fingertips. Was that a challenge?
“What are you doing here?” Elise kept her hands extended, even though Dafni pulled her hands back once she caught a glance in my direction. A brown-haired girl standing next to the wolf petted its hackles flat, trying to calm it.
“We’re here for you…there are witches out there that need your help.” Dafni glanced behind her at the door they’d just walked through.
“Witches?” Elise asked.
“I’d like to see the True Alpha.” An older woman stepped forward a single step, separating herself from the small girl trembling at her side. The little girl looked pale, her face gaunt.
“Who are you? And why do you want to see the True Alpha?” I asked. If they didn’t know he was dead, we’d pretend he was alive until we got the information we needed from them.
“Everyone here is in need of shelter.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“It doesn’t matter who—”
“It does matter who. Who am I providing shelter to?” I didn’t need an outside pack or Matilda to come knocking on my door, challenging my pack. It’d been a hard enough year as it was.
She shook her head, as if she was clearing it before she continued. “He said that if there was ever an emergency, the pack would take them in.” She motioned to the little girl and the wolf standing behind her.
“Who did?” I asked.
“The True Alpha.” She lifted her chin, maintaining eye contact with me. She was brave, I’d give her that. Not many would look me in the eye.
Kleio gasped behind me as the little girl collapsed onto the floor in a heap. The tan wolf lunged toward her, licking her face. The woman crouched down next to her limp form, placing the little girl’s head in her lap.
“And why would he do that?” I asked.
“Because he’s their father.”
I took a step back. Their father? That would mean we shared a father…that they were my siblings.
Elise opened the door of the packhouse, revealing the sea of witches standing outside.
I could tell, even from where I stood, that something was wrong.
Their faces were disfigured, and they stood slouched, huddled in groups with their heads hanging and their eyes on their feet. Something had happened to the Coven.
“Elise!” I barked, stalking over to where she stood in the doorway. I grabbed hold of her, pulling her behind me.
“Don’t be scared,” the man with dark bags beneath his eyes said. “We aren’t contagious. It’s something with the dirt. The longer we’re underground, the worse it gets.”
“But we replaced the stone,” I said, motioning to the green foliage around us. The woods had been healed. I’d seen it with my own eyes.
“Sometimes a pretty surface disguises the insides.” Elise stepped out from behind me. “The rot was deep beneath the soil. It will take time for the soil to recover.”
Grabbing hold of Dafni’s hands, Elise looked at her face, then ran one of her fingers over the bump above Dafni’s lip.
“Can you help us?” Dafni asked.
Elise put her arm around the girl’s shoulders as they looked out at the witches. “Of course, I will help.”
My mate guided Dafni into the packhouse, the rest of the ragtag group following.
I mind-linked Kostas to pull out the tents we’d used for the Deca Tournament and to set them up on the packhouse grounds.
The witches would need shelter…and food.
I mind-linked Bunny next, asking her to cook enough to feed—I looked out again, trying to count the witches standing just outside the door. Two, maybe three hundred?
“Are we really doing this?” Kostas mind-linked back to me.
I looked over at where Elise was examining the little girl, my half-sister, taking time to make sure she wasn’t scared.
Elise was a healer—she’d already healed the woods on the surface, but healing the witches…
maybe this was what we needed to do to finally rid the woods of the rot.
I had faith in my mate, my lyka. She’d find a way to heal the witches, find a way to bridge the gap between us.
The witches and shifters would be stronger working together instead of against each other.
I sent a silent thank-you into the unknown, thanking whatever divine intervention had brought Elise to my woods over a year ago.
She was my lyka, my luna, my mate—the savior of the North Woods.