Epilogue
“Why isn’t Nate picking up?” Liam demanded.
“Uuuh because you aren’t our Alpha anymore?” Vic guessed. “No one has to mind you.”
“Like any of you minded me in the first place,” Liam barked. “Come on, I gave all of you two days’ notice.”
“And you’re griping at the ones who are on this dumb zoom call,” Tabian said around a toothpick hanging out of his mouth. He seemed to be sitting outside a gas station, on a curb. “Which, by the way, I didn’t even know you knew how to use technology like this.”
“Nory set it up.”
“Where are you, Dodger?” Nory asked, squinting at the blurry sign behind him. It was hard to see details when most of the Pack were in little video windows on Liam’s phone.
“Arkansas,” he muttered.
“Why?” Tabian asked him.
“I don’t know, Tabian! I just started driving. Yesterday I visited one of those drive-through safari places just to see how tempting it would be to chase a zebra. I’m not doing well. Why are you in Wyoming?”
“Because I need to beg a Pack to let me in, and Wyoming has openings,” Tabian answered.
“Well, that…is…actually fair. I don’t have a plan like that,” Dodger grumbled.
He opened a package of chips with his teeth and started pouring it into his mouth when Nate joined the call. Delta was beside him. They seemed to be sitting on the bed in a cheap motel room.
“Dude, you didn’t have to text me thirty times,” Nate growled.
“Who are you talking to?” Liam asked.
“Vic the Dick.”
“No, Vic has a big Dick, get the nickname right—”
Nate smacked his middle finger on his phone a couple times, and his eyes were already glowing gold. “I don’t miss you, you annoying fuck.”
“Can I go now?” Vic asked. “This has been fun, but I would rather be doing literally anything else.”
Dodger was busy crinkling his package of chips as he dug them out.
Vic was griping. Bridger had set up his phone looking at a brick wall and wasn’t even in the frame.
Nate had also left the frame and left Delta to wave at the others.
Tabian was driving and not looking at the phone, and Liam and Nory?
Well, they were sitting on a pair of camp chairs they had dragged out to the property.
Why? Because they’d decided to camp here tonight.
It was freezing cold, and threatening to snow, but this seemed important to Liam to bond with this place.
He was going to show her his wolf for the first time tonight.
“Nory did something,” Liam started.
“Break up another Pack? Damn girl, you’re on a roll,” Tabian said sarcastically.
“She got us a home.”
“Y’all are already moving in together?” Delta asked. She wore this little hopeful smile as she said it.
Nate sat back down beside her and had a towel as he was drying off his hands. “Where did you settle?” Nate asked curiously.
“Outside of Coeur d’Alene,” Liam said. “Can you see?” He held out his phone and scanned around the clearing slowly.
“Big property,” Vic said, frowning at the screen. “Nice tent. Nory, I hate to break it to you, but you’ll be bored of camping really quick with Liam. He’s an asshole in the mornings.”
“When have you ever even seen me in the morning?” Liam asked.
Vic shrugged. “I just assume.”
“We are just camping for fun,” Nory said. “I’ve still got my apartment through the end of the month, and the first of the houses is being delivered in three weeks.”
Dodger snorted and crumpled his chip bag into a little wad. “Okay, moneybags, how many houses do you need?”
“That depends,” Liam said.
“On what?” Bridger said, sitting down in the camera frame again.
Liam looked at Nory, who was holding onto his arm. His smile was so handsome in the evening light. “It depends on you.”
“On who?” Bridger asked.
“All of you.”
The wolves went silent, and still, and they all wore matching frowns. All except for Delta, who already knew. She’d become a friend to Nory, and they’d been texting about it all week. Delta was smiling and watching Nate’s face.
“I don’t know what you guys have planned for the future,” Liam said, “but for me, our Pack doesn’t feel finished.”
“It is finished. Literally, we have been stripped of our name,” Tabian pointed out.
“Okay. So, we are Rogues,” Liam said.
“Why are you saying it like that?” Dodger asked.
“Like what?”
“Like it doesn’t matter? Like it’s a good thing?”
“Because from where I’m sitting, Rogue doesn’t sound so bad. Elders stay out of Rogue business.”
The matching frowns deepened. “Being a Rogue is shameful.”
“Why?” Nory asked.
“Look, you’re human, so you don’t understand—”
“So, make me understand?”
“It’s just…” Vic shook his head. “It’s just shameful, okay? You grow up thinking about Packs and never wanting to be a Rogue. Rogues are lone wolves. Quality of life is rough for lone wolves.”
Nory shrugged. “So, call yourselves a Pack.”
“That’s…” Tabian chewed on his lip. “That’s not how it works.”
“Well,” Liam said. “They stripped us of our registration, so maybe we make our own rules now.”
“Oh what, are we just going to make our own Pack?” Dodger said.
“Why not? Who is going to stop us?” Liam asked. “Are the Elders going to show up in our private, human-owned territory, drive past the no trespassing signs, and tell us to stop calling ourselves a Pack?”
“Hold up,” Nate said. “Human-owned territory. Let’s circle back to that.”
“Nory bought us thirty acres of land backed up to a thousand acres of protected forest.”
“Technically Liam bought it,” she explained. “He came up with the money, and I signed the paperwork.” She wiggled her fingers. “I signed it with my little human hands.”
The slow blinks dragged a giggle from Nory, and Liam took a screen shot of all their faces.
“I’m sorry,” Vic said, pushing his finger against his ear a few times. “I think I misheard you.”
“I want you to come back,” Liam said simply.
“We have a guy that customizes those sheds into houses, or you can get an RV, or hell, tent camp all winter if you want. You’re responsible for whatever house you drag out here, but, well, we have the space.
” He cleared his throat. “I was thinking we could call ourselves the Rogue Pack, and if anyone has a problem with that, well, they can fight us.”
Bridger leaned closer to the camera, and said, “Text me the address.” And then his video window went dark as he hung up.
Nory hugged Liam’s arm harder. One down.
“This is crazy,” Vic pointed out. “The Elders aren’t going to let us do this.”
“Why not?” Liam asked.
“First off, we aren’t supposed to form Packs outside the Elder’s structure, and second, whatever Pack moves into our old territory will have an issue with us living so close.
They will for sure want to fight us for territory and—” Vic’s eyebrows raised and he paused.
A grin flashed across his face. “Actually, that sounds fun, I’m in.
Text me the address. Bye bye dickheads, annoy you soon. ” His screen went blank.
“Well now I’m definitely not joining your pretend Pack,” Tabian griped. “No rules on Vic? Do you think that’s going to go well? He will be at the other Pack’s front door the second they move in, starting fights with them.”
“I am also in,” Dodger said, and his screen went dark.
Nory laughed. God, she loved these delinquents.
“Come on, man,” Liam said. “Where else are you going to go?”
“Anywhere else. I don’t like any of you.”
“Well, why don’t I send you some pictures of the territory, and you just think about it, and let me know.”
“I’m out,” Tabian said, shaking his head. His screen went blank as he hung up.
“Oh no,” Nory murmured.
Liam leaned over and kissed her on her forehead. “There was a lie in his voice. He’s in.”
Relief flooded her.
“What do you say, Second?” Liam asked Nate. It was just them on the video call now.
“You mean pretend Second?”
“It’ll be real to us. Fuck the Elders, and the big hunts, and the registrations.”
Nate chewed the corner of his lip and stared at Liam. “Would we run it like a real Pack?”
“Yep.”
“And when all this blows up in our face?”
“Whoever wants to leave, can take their home and go,” Liam said. “But…”
“But what?” Nate asked low.
Liam leaned closer to the phone, and cast a glance at Nory, and back to his Second. “I’m going to work my ass off to keep us all together. From the ground up. I’m going to build this. I need my Second.”
Nate ran his hand over his jaw and looked at Delta. “Why don’t you look surprised by any of this?”
“Because I knew,” she blurted out. “It’s been so hard to keep it secret.
We didn’t want to say anything until Nory’s offer was accepted and they closed on the land.
And Liam had to liquidate everything he had to come up with the down payment, and it was a chaotic, stressful week, and I want to go back, Nate.
Please. I want to go somewhere they can’t take from us.
I want to be with Nory, and with those stupid boys, and I want to be under Liam, and I want your rank back.
You spin out without rank, and I am proud to be mate of the Second.
” Delta got really excited and clenched her fists and closed her eyes and did this strange little shake, and then she gasped out, “I want to go make a home. I want to be Rogue Pack.”
Nate puffed air out of his cheeks and swung his gaze back to Liam. “I guess text me the address, man. We will come look at it at least, and price out some home options. I’ll see if I can get my old job back if Delta really wants to do this.”
Liam’s smile filled Nory’s heart. This right here was her new favorite smile.
He was happy. Truly happy.
“We’re going to figure this out,” Liam promised.
“We will see you soon.” And right before Nate hung up, he said, “Alpha.”
Liam hung up and rested his elbows on his knees, staring into the fire they’d made.
His chest rose and fell with his quickened breath.
He leaned forward and picked up a small, Y-shaped twig from the ground, and she knew what he was doing without him saying anything.
He was keeping it for the memory box they were building.
He wanted to remember this moment—the moment he called his Pack back to him, and they’d said yes to this life.
His thoughts and emotions must’ve been all over the place, so Nory got up and sat in his lap, slid her hands to his shoulders. “Your people are coming home.”
Liam pulled her against him and cradled her there in his strong arms, searching her eyes. “Our people,” he whispered.
And with those two words, Liam gave her the home she’d never known she was missing. He was giving her people. He was giving a sense of belonging.
She couldn’t wait for them to get here and see this place, and see the potential.
She didn’t know exactly how it would all go, and she imagined it would be rocky, and pull at all of the emotions as they learned to co-exist here, but she believed in Liam’s Pack.
And even more than that, she had faith in Liam.
He was a man who was decisive, and firm, and strong, who took no grit from anyone, but who was caring in the ways he needed to be.
He was the caretaker of her heart, and now she would get to watch him build this, in his words, from the ground up.
Delta had said she was proud to be the mate of the Second. Well, Nory understood.
She was proud to be the mate of the Alpha.
It didn’t matter so much anymore that she was human or that he was a werewolf. They’d found a way to use their differences for good.
So much was up in the air right now, but she was certain of one thing—Liam.
They were going to grow this life together.
He leaned forward and kissed her lips, and she melted against him.
Her days had been bland and predictable before, but now?
She couldn’t wait for the adventure ahead of them.