Epilogue
One year later
The night smelled like rain and warm stone. Our balcony opened over the south gardens, where the new fruit trees were just beginning to bud. Lanterns hung from the pergola and swayed a little with the breeze. Below, the city moved as people made their way home for dinner.
We had completely refurbished this wing of the castle with windows that spanned floor to ceiling and a huge wrap-around balcony. The old king’s quarters and the adjoining nursery where Maelis had been kept were sealed forever.
Kaelric had set a small table out on the balcony near the railing with two plates.
A dish of dried figs, soft cheese, and rosemary bread.
The heel of a round loaf was still warm from the kitchen.
He poured wine into our glasses and peered up at me with a devilish grin.
It was my birthday, and we were celebrating.
“Hungry?” he asked, as if it were a joke. I was always hungry.
Except now.
“Not really,” I said, clearing my throat.
He frowned, peering at me with concern. I had planned to wait until the plates were empty, but I wasn’t sure I could eat.
I felt sick to my stomach. I took his wrist and set his hand on my lower abdomen.
He looked down at our hands like he didn’t trust himself to speak.
We’d been trying for a year to have a baby and thought that with my being a changed Wolfkin, it may have caused some complications.
“I am late,” I said.
He stilled, chest heaving as if he was trying to hold in his emotions.
“Three weeks.”
His gaze rose from our hands to my eyes.
Something moved in his face that was borderline fear.
Like he didn’t want to allow himself to believe this.
We’d been close before, but my monthly bleeding always came a few days later.
I’d never gone three weeks. I’d never had all the signs Fiona and Elia told me to look for.
Sore breasts, food adverse, sick to my stomach. Until now.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I know my body. And the smell of those figs is making me want to vomit all over this table. Elia said that’s how you know.”
He grinned and tossed the figs off the balcony. My eyebrows shot up in surprise as laughter bubbled out of me. Slipping from his seat, he kneeled before me as if in reverent silence. His palm sent warmth through the cloth of my dress.
I smiled down at him and eyed the bread and cheese. “You might have to start eating meals with Godric, or you’ll starve.”
He waved me off. “If my mate doesn’t eat, I don’t eat.”
I laughed, “Oh? Let’s see how long that lasts.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Is that a challenge?”
“Yes,” I said boldly.
“I accept.” He grinned and looked back at my belly. “We have never decided how many we want,” he added.
I blinked. “Children?”
He nodded. “I just realized we never spoke it aloud.”
We’d spent the last year praying for just one.
“What is your ideal number?” I asked.
He thought for a second. “Three?” He sounded unsure.
“Three?” I tried the number on my tongue. “My mother had twelve. Three seems… lonely.”
His mouth tipped into a grin. “Lonely?”
“I like noise,” I said. “I like tiny feet running down the hall. I like the way a house feels when a joke is told, and there is so much laughter it echoes off the walls.”
He leaned his face against my leg and peered up at my face with his head tipped as if he were listening to his favorite poem. “If you want twelve children, Brynn,” he said, “I’ll give you twelve.”
“I am not saying we should try to outdo her,” I laughed. “But I am not afraid of a crowded table.”
He looked toward the gardens, where the new trees stood, their leaves bright even in the evening. “We make our own numbers, then,” he said. “Seven sounds good.”
I laughed before I could help it. “All right. Seven.”
“We will be tired.”
“We are tired now,” I said. “It will be a different kind of tired.”
His hand came up to my cheek, and he brushed a strand of hair back as I leaned into his palm.
“Happy birthday, my love,” he whispered.
He went to the door that led back into our rooms and returned with a small box the color of rich honey. He set it on the table between the plates.
“You didn’t need to get me anything,” I said, which was true. I had everything I could ever hope for. Especially now.
“You deserve all the gifts in Lunaria,” he declared.
My heart pinched, and I opened the box.
A bracelet lay on a piece of folded linen, gold, thin, but sturdy. The clasp had been hammered to look like two small wolves sleeping back-to-back. Along the inside, where only I would feel it, were words etched so finely I had to lift it to the lantern.
May your plate always be full.
My chest hurt for a moment as I had to fight back tears. I slid the bracelet onto my wrist, and the weight of it felt like a promise that Kaelric would always be there to make sure I wasn’t the starved girl he met in the Dregs.
“It is the kindest thing anyone has ever wished me,” I said. My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. “Thank you.”
He took my hand and turned it so the words pressed against my skin. “Not just food,” he said. “Friendship, work that makes you proud, a bed that always warms you, and children’s laughter to fill our house. I wish you all of it.”
I nodded, because speaking would make a mess of me right now.
I leaned into him, and he kissed me with the kind of care that comes when a man knows something new is growing inside you.
His mouth was warm; his breath tasted like the sharp tang of wine.
He slid his arms around me, and the world got small.
He lifted me to carry me into our bedroom. His hands held my hips, firm, and I wound my arms around his neck and pulled him close.
He moaned, and I felt it in his throat. He kissed down the line of my jaw and across the small hollow where my pulse lived, slow and sure.
He set me on our bed as his hands found the tie at my shoulder and undid it. Mine slid under his shirt and felt the heat of him. We did not hurry. We explored each other’s bodies like they were sacred.
I didn’t think about the morning. I thought about his mouth and the way he said my name without having to speak it.
I thought about the bracelet warm against my skin and the words cut into the inside where no one but me would ever feel them.
I thought about a table with seven bowls and a child stealing from mine with both hands.
When the world went soft, I let it. When it came back, I stayed where I was, chest against his chest, my hands splayed over his ribs. His pulse beat steadily under my palm. The lanterns outside had burned lower. The garden looked like a map of shadows and small brave lights.
“Seven,” he said in the dark, half asleep, as if his mouth wanted to hold the number even while his mind went elsewhere.
“Seven,” I said back, and smiled where he could not see it.
He pulled me closer. His breath moved against my hair.
Outside, a late rain began. It tapped the stone like a small, steady prayer.
May your plate always be full.
I closed my eyes and slept with that wish pressed against my skin. I wished it for every person in Lunaria, Hildreth, Aerlyn, and beyond.
That night, I dreamed that we had a little girl. We named her Valkaryn.
I awoke with a smile on my lips.
The End