Epilogue Thane
It's been a week since Wraith marked Ivy.
And I feel it every time I breathe.
The bond is complete, the tendrils fully forged between us as if we're twins. Five strong threads, instead of four with the one closest to me dangling loose.
Right now, I can feel his nervousness as if it's my own, but it's subtle. He's been at peace. Sometimes slightly less at peace after an outing that doesn't go well, but honestly… he's like a new person.
I pull into my parents' driveway and kill the engine.
"Okay," Ivy says from the passenger seat, twisting to look up over her shoulder. "Round two. How are we feeling?"
Wraith's arm is draped over the back of her seat and across her chest, his scarred hand resting near her lap. He's been sitting like that the entire drive, folded into the back seat sideways, because my new car is more compact and he still refuses to sit anywhere he can't reach her.
He signs with his free hand.
Fine.
"You're not fine, you're nervous."
He tilts his hand back and forth. OK. Both.
She laughs and pats his forearm, then looks down at her phone again, which has been going off for a solid minute.
"What's going on?" I ask, looking over at her screen. "Why are there so many fucking pictures?"
"Shadow," Ivy says happily, showing us both.
It's a photo of Plague sitting on the couch, leaning back with his spine perfectly straight, frozen like a statue.
Shadow is in loaf form on his chest, eyes closed and face perfectly content, shedding cat hair all over his gray sweater.
Valek is leaning over the back of the couch, scratching behind the cat's ears with two fingers, grinning.
Plague is staring directly into the camera with the empty eyes of a hostage.
WHISKEY
SHE'S LOOKIN FUCKIN TAME, brO!
He hasn't moved in 40 minutes! NEW RECORD
I mean, she bites him every time he moves, so that's probably why
BUT STILL
Ivy makes a happy little noise beside me.
"She is cute," I admit.
"Still pretending you didn't want a pet?" Ivy teases me. "I've seen how much you spend on freeze-dried treats for her."
"She was a stray. She deserves good shit," I grumble, dragging a hand through my hair and probably fucking it up after I finally managed to tame it into an acceptable style. Ivy still won't let me cut it.
"I have the sweetest alphas," Ivy says happily, reaching up to help.
She makes it worse.
Oh, well.
I get out first and hold the door for her, then wait while my brother extracts himself from my back seat, joint by joint. He straightens to his full height and rolls his shoulders.
And he doesn't reach for his hood.
I stare at him.
It's hanging loosely behind his neck. He's let it fall down before when he's out, provided no one else is really around, but I wasn't expecting him to do that at my parents' house.
He glances up at the house, then at Ivy as she starts leading the way to the house, and I can see him reconsidering for a second. Then he starts walking up the path with his bare face turned up into the porch light.
The door opens before we even reach the porch. Mom comes out, propping the door open on her hip, drying her hands on a dish towel.
"You're early!" she says excitedly, hugging Ivy first.
Ivy hugs her back and immediately starts complimenting the porch flowers, which is the fastest way to my mother's heart and Ivy figured that out quick.
I'm next, getting a tight squeeze and hard pats on my back.
Then she turns to Wraith.
She takes a deep breath to brace herself, and he's doing the same, both of them hovering a few feet apart. Then she lifts her eyes to him, and reaches up at the same time, gesturing for him to come closer.
Wraith hesitates, then bends and steps up onto the first porch stair with one leg. He's eye level with her as she wraps her arms around his neck and holds on.
She doesn't screw her eyes shut this time.
This time, when she pulls away, she lifts her hand to his jaw. Her palm settles right over his teeth.
She pats him twice.
"You look good," she says. "But you need a haircut."
Wraith goes completely still, blinking. His blue eyes flick to her hand and back to her face, wide with shock.
"Don't look at me like that," Mom says briskly, letting go and turning for the door. "You look like a sheepdog. Come in, all of you, it's freezing and I've got the oven going."
Wraith stares after her.
His hand comes up to his own face, touching where she just patted him, then drops.
Ivy slips her hand into his and squeezes without saying anything, beaming from ear to ear, and he follows her inside.
I stand on the porch for a second longer than I need to, keeping my eyes on the moon above and my hands in my pockets so I keep my shit together.
Because after my mother saw Wraith's face the first time, when he was just a kid and the gaiter slipped, she sobbed for hours while he hid and had to listen to every second of it. I told Ivy this, once, and it's one of those things that replays in my head.
It was only a few weeks before the caseworker came. And then there was a lot of gentle language about being overwhelmed and not being equipped, and how he needed specialized care they couldn't provide.
They still say that's why.
I've never once believed that's the whole of it, and I've never once said so out loud, and I never will, because he loves them, and he doesn't blame them at all.
I do blame them.
He doesn't know that.
But sometimes, I have to put aside my feelings about shit or it'll eat me alive. This is one of those things. Wraith is endlessly forgiving. He isn't like me. My parents' strained relationship with the alpha who became my brother will always be a thorn in my side.
But tonight, she touched his face.
And for once, the lump in my throat is easier to swallow.
I follow them inside, drifting automatically toward the dining room since that's where all the voices and the scent of food are coming from.
We're having eggplant parm tonight. It's in the middle of the table, bubbling in a glass dish, no meat anywhere to be seen. She didn't need to be reminded this time. I tried to, via text, but she told me I was silly, and of course she knew Wraith was a vegetarian.
Wraith stares at the eggplant parm, then turns to sign a quick thanks to my mother. She waves him off, flustered, and starts serving everyone way too much of everything.
Dad pours wine. Ivy sits in Wraith's lap again, which my parents have now decided is simply her "culture," which is fucking hilarious and mortifying at the same time. My father is still raising his eyebrows about it.
"Thane, you're looking well fed," Mom says, setting a plate in front of me.
I groan into my hands. "Seriously?"
Thought for sure I'd managed to somehow get away with it without her noticing.
"What? You are. You've filled out. It's good. You were too lean last season, I said so at the time—"
"You didn't say anything last time we were here," I mutter.
"Last time, I had other things on my mind," she says, and her eyes flick briefly across the table to my brother and back to her plate.
Yeah. She was too busy trying not to look at him.
"What can I say?" Ivy pipes up cheerfully, reaching for the bread. "I like big alphas."
Dad reaches for his wine glass.
"Hmm. And scarred alphas," she adds, patting Wraith's forearm where it's wrapped around her middle.
My brother makes that gravelly huff-huff-huff against the top of her head.
My mother turns pink from her throat to her hairline and busies herself with the salad tongs, dropping the contents multiple times, and my father turns his usual tomato shade and takes a long, dedicated interest in the contents of his glass.
"Well," Mom says faintly. "That's. Great. That's… that's very great."
"Ivy," I grit out through my teeth.
"What?" She grins at me.
Mischief in omega form.
Wraith's chest is still shaking.
Traitor, I sign to him while my parents aren't paying attention.
"SO!" Mom says at triple her normal volume. "Ivy. Tell me about your family. When am I going to get to meet your mother?"
Ivy just shrugs one shoulder, going back to buttering her bread. "Um, well, my mom and I aren't really on speaking terms right now."
"Oh." Mom's face falls. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry. Is it because of everything with…"
"Something like that." Ivy smiles up at her. "It's fine. Seriously, it's for the best. It was a long time coming. Don't worry about it."
She says it lightly and moves the conversation along, asking about the bookcases, whether it's true my father built the ones in the study himself, and my mother is fortunately easily distracted.
I look down at my plate.
Because I've seen Ivy's mother's social media. It's private, but Ivy showed me before blocking her. She'd posted a picture of Ivy as a teenager, going off about how her little girl threw a wonderful alpha away for a pack of freaks.
I'm the only one in the pack who saw it.
She let the others find out there were still issues between her and her mother and she let it stay vague, because no one would ever pressure her.
She didn't need to give everyone a full explanation.
But she let me hold her while she cried, and she told me the same thing when she was out of tears and blowing her nose.
That it's for the best.
I take a long sip of wine and let my mate and my mother chat about wood stains.
Dad sets his fork down halfway through the meal and loosens his belt, clearing his throat. Everyone stops, because when my father clears his throat like that, it's time for the commissioner to speak instead of the alpha who lets my mom win every argument.
"The league closed the review this morning."
Ivy almost drops her fork. "Wait, really?"
"Instinct defense held," he says, leaning back in his seat. "Fully. The disciplinary committee accepted the mark."
Wraith doesn't move, staring.
"No one was going to touch it after the mic audio anyway, but it's formally dead now," Dad continues. "Nothing pending."
"And the lawsuit?" Ivy asks.
"Dropped two days ago." Dad picks up his wine again.
"I wanted to wait a bit to make sure there wouldn't be something else before getting your hopes up.
But once the audio was out and public opinion went the way it went, they realized they were going to have to put Wade on a stand and let a jury of people who'd already made up their minds listen to him run his mouth. So they didn't."
Ivy makes a small noise.
"It's over," Dad says again. "All of it. You're clear."
Holy fucking shit.
It's over.
I feel it hit the bond before I see it hit Ivy.
All five of us are wound together now, with Ivy at the center, and when something hits her, it hits us too. I feel her relief through it, and miles away, I feel Whiskey's answering blast of joy so loud it's practically fucking fireworks, drowning the others out.
He'd better not set off the real ones again.
The police came last time.
Wraith's arms tighten around her, his eyes closing with a long breath.
"There's one more thing," Dad adds, cutting into his eggplant hard enough to make the butter knife scrape on the plate. I wince at the sound. "Wade officially retired."
"He retired?" Ivy repeats.
"Well, the leg wasn't coming back. So it was inevitable." Dad shrugs. "I hear he's going into lifestyle content."
Ivy blinks. "Like… what, gym videos? Smoothies? Skincare?"
"Skincare," Dad confirms.
Ivy stares at him. Then she starts laughing in disbelief, and my mother, always one for contagious laughter, starts up too.
"My gods," Ivy says, wiping at her eyes. "I really dodged a bullet, huh?"
"You could say that again," I say dryly, grinning at her.
Wraith huffs his gravelly growling huff of a laugh, and nobody at this table jolts or looks away.
I lean back in my chair, still grinning, so much it hurts.
Gods, I'm happy.
I'm so fucking happy.