Epilogue Ivy
Three Years Later
Iwatch the war on the ice through my fingers.
It's the only way I can watch. The alternative is the JumboTron, which is just as likely to show the Demons as the Ghosts as the two teams battle it out with the time running dangerously low.
They're tied.
Neck and fucking neck.
"Thirty seconds," Rae croaks beside me, grabbing my arm. "Oh my gods, they have thirty seconds."
"Don't tell me! I don't want to know!"
The JumboTron flashes a shot of Whiskey looking downright dangerous, no trace of the happy-go-lucky alpha I know off the ice, Valek right behind him, arcing to the left.
"Twenty-five seconds, Ivy!"
"RAE!"
The Demons have the puck in our zone. Nikolai Vlakov is fucking relentless, clearing bodies every time we try to break out.
He's a menace, and he works in tandem with the blond pretty boy alpha who's fought him no less than three times tonight, even though they're on the same team.
He's gotten four goals tonight and he's hunting a fifth.
The season is on the line and the pretty one decides to go psycho.
He's skating backward with the puck, blowing a kiss at Whiskey and winking in an attempt to confuse and distract him. It worked on Wraith earlier, who glanced around in bewilderment, but it doesn't work on Whiskey.
Whiskey is locked the fuck in.
"Raven's showboating," Caleb mutters from my right. "He does it whenever Nikolai's pissed. Finn watches their footage."
"Finn studies their footage," Finn corrects, sniffing guiltily. "For editorial reasons."
"For gay reasons," Olivia says distractedly, not looking away from the ice, Minnie bouncing on her hip. "Pass, pass! PASS IT!"
Wraith gets the puck.
Everyone comes up off their seats, and I slam my palms against the glass, my heart leaping into my chest. I feel Wraith's surge of energy through our bond. He blows past one Demon, then two, three, his skates eating the ice in massive strides.
Nikolai peels off the blue line to meet him.
Wraith doesn't take the shot.
He never takes shots when Val's open.
The pass goes across and Val catches it, tape to tape, snapping it into the net before the Demons' goalie finishes hitting the ice.
The horn goes off.
The arena goes fucking insane.
Val turns to the glass, finding me immediately, and taps his glove against his chest twice, then points to me.
I make kiss faces at him just in time for the entire team to dogpile him and Wraith against the boards. Both alphas disappear completely beneath the swarm of celebration.
"THAT'S MY BOYS!" Olivia screams, or maybe I'm the one screaming and she's just yelling, Minnie shrieking with delight.
Confetti flutters down in a blue-and-silver rain, everywhere, so thick I can barely see the ice. It catches in my hair, sticking to my face as I jump up and down against the glass, whooping. The Carters hug and yell around me.
On the other end of the ice, Raven has both hands in his golden hair, staring at the ceiling. Nikolai skates over and says something to him, and Raven shoves him, and now they're fighting viciously against the boards.
Pretty sure that's how those two say good game.
"Go," Olivia says, pushing Minnie into my arms. "Hurry. Before the beefcake security guy remembers he's supposed to stop you."
"I'm technically supposed to wait until—"
"You're a feral omega, aren't you? Tell 'em if they get on you. You just couldn't ignore your instincts to run to your mates."
She pats my cheek.
I love my bonus mom.
I rush down the steps and through the tunnel by the bench, passing the security guy Olivia mentioned. He glances up at me, then down at the toddler squealing in my arms, and looks away as if he saw nothing.
I step out onto the ice toward where the photographers are already gathering, confetti and slush crunching under my boots.
Before, I could barely skate ten feet without clinging to my feral mate.
Now, thanks to endless lessons under the stars, I'm walking steadily across Cup Final ice with my daughter on my hip.
"Look, baby girl!" I shift her higher and point. "There they are!"
"DADDIES!" she cries.
The pack has already extracted themselves from the pile.
Whiskey spots us first, the Cup high over his head.
"IVYYYY!"
He almost drops the fucking Cup.
The giant alpha shoves it into Thane's arms as he launches at us full speed, arms spread wide, and I have exactly one second of oh no before he wraps himself around us and effortlessly spins us both around.
"LOUD DADDY!" Minnie squeals, delirious from the spinning.
He sets us down and scoops her up when I push her into his arms, holding her up high over his head and turning in a circle, confetti swirling around them both.
"THAT'S RIGHT! LOUD DADDY FUCKIN' WON!"
Plague skates up to supervise. "Whiskey. Whiskey. Language. And support her neck."
"She's TWO, bro. Trust me, her neck is fine. And she heard worse from you last night when Shadow pulled your fancy-ass tea out of the cabinet."
She solves the argument by grabbing a fistful of Plague's hair and yanking, which she does every single time he gets within range. He lets out a wounded croaking sound and tries to free himself carefully.
"She has a grip," he says, wincing, prying her fingers open one at a time. The moment he's free, he steps up to me and removes one of his gloves to thumb a wet fleck of confetti off my cheek. He tucks my hair behind my ears and presses his lips to mine.
When he's left me breathless, he pulls back.
"Does she get the feral streak from you, or…?"
"Probably," I say, grinning. "We'll see how she holds a fire extinguisher."
"Minicat gets everything from you, wildcat," Whiskey says, finally setting her on the ice.
That's how she came to be called Minnie. He's been calling her Minicat since she was the size of a raspberry.
It stuck.
She immediately plops down on her butt and starts grabbing handfuls of confetti, screeching in maniacal glee.
Whiskey points. "That too."
"You dropped her," Plague grumbles, stooping down to check her unnecessarily.
"No Daddy!" she says, giggling, shoving dirty ice confetti in his mouth.
"Minnie! No!" he splutters, horrified, swiping at his lips.
And that's why Plague is No Daddy.
"She sat down," Thane says, skating up, helmet already off, dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. It's almost as long as Plague's now. Whiskey was right. It looks great like this.
I lean up to kiss Thane, who's adorably just Daddy to Minnie, and he kisses me too, grinning. There are visible tears swimming in his dark eyes as cameras flash somewhere behind the glass.
"We won, Ivy. We won our second fucking Cup. Fuck, I love you so fucking much."
"I noticed. My ears are still ringing from my bonus mom." I pull him closer by his armor, kissing him again. He smells so good, the adrenaline from the game strengthening his woodsy scent. "I love you, too."
"Our bonus mom," Whiskey corrects me with a huge, playful grin.
Minnie has suddenly lost interest in the confetti.
She's spotted Wraith, and everyone else might as well disappear.
She pushes up onto her feet, wobbling, arms out for balance, already taking quick little steps toward the far end of the pile where the biggest alpha on the ice is still extracting himself from the rest of the celebrating team with Val.
Val escapes first. He ruffles Minnie's hair with his glove, eliciting happy squeals from her, but she's on a mission. He drapes an arm over my shoulder from behind and murmurs, "Khorosho, da?" against my hair, kissing my temple, and yeah.
Yeah. It's good.
I lean up to kiss him, too, his white lashes fluttering shut.
Whiskey fist bumps him over my head. "Fuckin' sick, bro."
"Thank you."
Wraith skates up the moment he's free, reaching up to unstrap the protective face cage, the one that makes him look like a wolfish folk hero. He lets it hang from his fingers at his side as his eyes meet mine, warm and blue and happy.
Then his eyes go down to Minnie, coming toward him on the ice.
He drops to one knee.
I watch my daughter toddle across the ice, through drifts of confetti while Thane glides along behind her, one hand hovering an inch from her back just in case, our eternal protector even here, even now.
She makes it all the way to Wraith.
The whole arena is watching, the roaring quieting down as everything seems to fall away, and I know exactly what the crowd sees. They see a little girl with a feral alpha, grabbing his scarred jaw with her tiny hands, patting his sharp teeth.
And I know exactly what she sees.
"Spooky Daddy!"
Wraith picks her up and nuzzles her head, confetti settling onto his choppy dark hair and hers, the JumboTron lighting up with them both.
He doesn't even care.
His eyes are on Minnie, not the screen.
"Now it's your turn to cry," Whiskey teases me, lifting me up onto his shoulders. I'm laughing as I cling to his messy chestnut hair, but he's right.
I'm crying, too.
Wraith skates up to me, Minnie's tiny hands fisted in his jersey. He passes her off to Valek, who she's reaching frantically for, crying out "Papochka!" because of course our daughter is growing up multilingual.
And I know all five alphas are about to get caught in a neverending cycle of holding Minnie while she wants the next in line. Once Valek has her, though, he isn't going to let her go without a fight.
Riding high on Whiskey's shoulders, I'm the tallest in the pack for once, even taller than Wraith. That makes me giggle all over again.
But not quite enough to stop crying.
Not even when Wraith drops his gloves and the face cage and reaches up to cup my cheeks in his scarred palms, and this time, I have to bend to kiss him.
When I pull away, he gazes at me with those blue eyes—now tied for the bluest eyes I've ever seen—and signs to me, thumb and index and little finger extended, middle and ring fingers folded down against his palm.
I love you.
I make the same sign, pressing it against his hand.
I love you, too.
THE END