Chapter 22
Julian
After all the tears had dried, and the food had been eaten, all I wanted was to rest, preferably on the bed in Zinnia’s cabin. Our cabin, she insisted on calling it, though I knew I would need to build on an extra room or two if the boys’ plans to visit every year were to happen.
We’d decided to take a trip each year to the Meridion packlands in the fall, with the boys traveling to Mountain in the spring—if Bo could manage it, though he swore he could.
“The girls have been runnin’ things this whole time,” he’d argued.
“They ain’t burned down the Pack House while we’ve been here—least we ain’t had a call about it.
I reckon they’ll make it through an Alpha vacation every spring. ”
I’d agreed, though Zinnia’s willingness to travel away from her secluded home had surprised me. “I’ve got you and the boys now,” she’d explained, like that was all I needed to know. “It’s different.”
I supposed it was. Finding out I had living family four years ago had pulled me away from my own seclusion and back into the world.
At least now, shifter society was less dangerous. And even with no claws and blunt teeth, I knew I could still protect Zinnia if it came down to it. I was a skilled fighter, and I felt stronger than ever.
“You think we could stay for another week or two?” Bo asked at the end of the meal. “I still need to learn Alpha stuff, and you’re the only one I’d trust to teach me, Dad.”
“I’d be honored,” I replied, before Zinnia broke in.
“But what about your mate? She’s at Western, or at least she was.”
Leroy and Bo exchanged a look that held an entire conversation. “We know. We’re gonna send her a letter for now.”
I blinked in surprise. “A letter?”
Zinnia let out a small growl. “You’re not going to her?”
“Mom, look at us.” Leroy waved at his dirt-stained legs and arms, and his scrubby beard. I ignored the sniffle from Zinnia at the word Mom. “If we showed up right now, before we’re ready—”
“Before I even got my pack sorted out,” Bo interrupted. “I ain’t even a proper Alpha yet.”
“And I’m still learnin’ how to be the best true mate I can be,” Leroy said with a shrug. “I know how to cook and grow vegetables now, thanks to you, Mom. But I still need to figure out laundry, and how to give a really good back rub. I heard girls can’t resist a male who knows how to do a shihtzu.”
“That ain’t it, Leroy. Shihtzu’s a little purse dog, remember? It’s shi-at-su that feels good.”
“See?” Leroy sighed heavily. “I ain’t ready. I don’t know my shits from my zoos.”
Bo nodded. “Yeah, and what happens if we go fetch our mate and take her back home, and half of them gals still only think of us as the little chickenshits we were back in the day? And they tell her what kinda stuff we used to get up to, and she decides we ain’t worth the risk?
We need to go back and resuscitate our reputations.
Or at least convince some of ‘em to tell the good stories.”
Leroy added, “Bo’s gonna have to fight a bunch of Alpha challenges too, I bet.
You think those fellas are just gonna roll over and show throat?
He’s half the age of some of them old farts, and now that females are startin’ to be Alpha—a few of ‘em anyways—who even knows? Bo might have to fight his way through the whole pack before they make their vows.”
Bo’s cheeks had turned an odd, pale shade as Leroy rattled on. Now he leaned over the table toward me. “Uh, Dad, do you think you’d be able to come back with me, maybe vouch for me?”
I closed my eyes, the missing part of my soul suddenly aching again. To face my old pack again, but without my wolf? I wasn’t sure I was that strong yet. “I’m not sure I can, Bo. I’m not Alpha anymore.”
Leroy grunted. “Our pack never loved you because you were the Alpha. We all loved you because you’re Sergeant.”
“Being Alpha ain’ what matters.” Bo shrugged. “It’s bein’ pack. And you’ll always be our pack. With or without fur.”
“Someday,” Zinnia answered for me, reaching out to squeeze my hand gently. “Someday, when Julian and I have… found our balance. Then we’ll come and support you both. I promise.” She closed her eyes just as a swallow flew over, swooping down over her head. “We have company coming. It’s Ida.”
The boys and I were equally shocked at her words; there was no scent on the air of wolf. Though I supposed I wouldn’t have the best sense of smell now. My nose wasn’t human-dull, but close.
“How did you know?”
She smiled. “A little bird told me?”
I wondered how true that was. Could she speak the language of nature now?
I made a note to ask later. “I expected Brand, or one of the others.” My pack—Bo’s pack now—would have felt the Alpha power move from me to him.
For all they knew, I’d died. They would’ve called Mountain for answers. “Maybe Grigor.”
“The shifter boogeyman,” Zinnia murmured. “I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard stories. Bloody ones. I suppose he could be coming and cloaking his magic. They say he’s incredibly powerful.”
Leroy made a strangled sound, which Bo echoed. “Ah, we was thinkin’ it’d be a good time to do some perimeter runs. Maybe a few miles downriver, just to make sure—”
Leroy finished for him, “—that we ain’t anywhere near Mr. Grigor. He told me he’d magic off my tail the next time I wagged it wrong.” He clutched at his human-shaped backside. “I don’t think my mate’d want a male without a tail, Sergeant Dad. May I be excused to run away?”
“Ask Bo. I’m not your Alpha,” I said gruffly, though I was trying not to laugh. Bo was halfway to the trees already.
“Bo?” Leroy shouted. “Bo, don’t leave me behind!”
“Catch up then!”
The two of them were out of earshot before Zinnia and I could stop laughing long enough to assure them their lives weren’t in danger. “It’s just Ida,” Zinnia told me with a chuckle.
Ida arrived an hour later, her arms filled with baskets full of food. When she saw Zinnia and me standing together, the frown she’d been wearing dropped away. She dropped the baskets under the birches. “Thank the moon,” she choked out.
“Thank the earth, too,” I replied, grabbing the food and carrying it to the table outside the cabin. The two women vanished inside, Ida peppering Zinnia with questions. I could almost make out their entire conversation, though my hearing was far less keen than it had been. Than my wolf’s had been.
Hearing Ida come out of the cabin, I met her troubled gaze as she approached the table. She laid a soft hand on my arm, taking in the altered markings there. “It worked.”
“It did.”
Her voice caught as she murmured, “If I’d known she was yours, if she’d told me who she’d been following, I could have helped you find each other.”
I smiled. “You did. Just in time.”
Her hug was equal parts softness and strength, but when she pulled back, her eyes were watering. “Your wolf. I’m so sorry for your…” The word loss hung in the air, but I shook my head, trying to find a way to explain how I felt.
There was grief, of course. But so much more.
While I fought for words, Zinnia emerged from the cabin and ducked under my arm. A slow, molasses-like current of energy slid into me from all the places our skin touched, strengthening me and chasing away the sadness.
I kissed the top of her head where a few flowers were still twining among the strands from that morning.
Smiling at my old friend, I spoke the simple truth.
“I have no regrets. I had a choice to sacrifice an old life for the chance to step into a new one with my mate. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. ”
We ate and talked until fireflies began to dot the evening air around us, and the moon rose above the mountains beyond the pines.
Bo and Leroy kept us all laughing, Ida had them professing their undying devotion when she pulled out a second cherry-almond pie, and Zinnia smiled more than she had since we met.
Of course, that may have had something to do with the homemade gin she’d brought out from the cabin.
Ida finished another glass of her own and winked at me, then scowled at my mate. “So, are you going to make an honest male of our Sergeant, then?”
Zinnia blinked, and the fireflies around her all copied her movement. “What do you mean?”
Ida made a disgruntled noise, leaning forward to pour some more gin. “You know very well.”
Zinnia’s voice shook as she began, “Ida, you know our wolves are…”
“Together with the moon. But you’re both still here with us.
There’s a mating ceremony for every occasion, and if you want one, I know my boy Brand would love to officiate.
” Zinnia and I stared at each other as Ida went on.
“I’d love to introduce you to the rest of the pack when you’re ready, and that seems like a good way to do it.
With a celebration, maybe on the full moon?
I’m sure I can throw together a decent party by then. ”
A party. A celebration. Not a mating, as we weren’t exactly shifters anymore. We couldn’t bond with bites like wolves.
“You mean, like a… human wedding?” I asked. “Would you like that, Zinnia Star? Would you marry me?”
Zinnia was biting her lip, the fireflies around her head flickering faster by the second. All around her feet, night-blooming flowers sprang up and started to bloom.
She didn’t need to speak to answer my question, but she did. “I will, Julian Rain.”