Epilogue #2
The wolf in me recoiled; the man tried to make sense of it. I crouched low, scanning the edge of the forest. I saw nothing, but the hairs on my arms rose, and every instinct screamed that something was out there.
A twig snapped. Not a careless step, but a deliberate warning. I let the shift start, let my eyes go gold, and my hands curl into claws beneath the skin. If it came to a fight, better to let the wolf handle things.
I turned and caught movement by the cedar at the far left, someone short, bent with age, but moving with purpose. Nana Flo.
Relief flooded through me, and I almost laughed. One look at her face in the moonlight wiped the smile right off my face.
“Aiden.” Her voice was steady, stripped of all her usual teasing warmth. “It’s coming.”
Not the weather. Not a storm. Something worse.
My back went tight. “How soon?”
She tilted her head like she was listening to something I couldn’t hear, then clicked her tongue. “Soon enough to matter. Soon enough, you should be paying attention.”
“Fantastic.” I dragged a hand down my face. “Exactly what I needed tonight.”
She stepped closer, eyes sharp as broken glass despite her age. “Change doesn’t wait for anyone. And this one?” She let out a quiet breath. “This one’s going to shake what you think is solid.”
“Meaning?”
She didn’t answer. Just gave that tiny shrug of hers, the one that always meant she knew more than she’d ever say out loud. “You’ll feel it before you see it. Just… stay awake, boy.”
We stood there in the kind of silence that had weight to it, the world listening in. I wanted to ask her how she always knew, how she found me, how she read the air like it was a book. But asking a Sister of the Guild about her Sight was like asking the moon why it pulled at the tides.
Before I could say anything else, the sound of tires on gravel cut through the woods like a buzz saw.
I turned, and down the long dirt driveway, a pair of headlights slashed the darkness.
The car was a low, black muscle thing, sleek and expensive, nothing like what belonged in these mountains.
The way it ate the distance between us and the road felt predatory, deliberate.
Her fingers curled lightly at my shoulder, the touch warm but the meaning cold. “Hold your ground, boy. The tide’s still turning. Don’t strike until you see what rises.”
I didn’t answer. The wolf inside had already decided how this night would go.
I watched the car roll to a stop, the engine still running, headlights painting the front of the house in harsh white.
The passenger-side window rolled down, and a figure leaned out: tall, angular, with short, silver hair under the dome light. I didn’t recognize the face, but it didn’t matter. They were all the same where it counted.
Nana Flo squeezed my shoulder once, then stepped back into the shadow of the porch.
I stood my ground, every nerve on fire, waiting to see if this was the kind of night that ended in violence, or if the Council just wanted to remind me they could reach me anywhere.
Either way, the waiting was over.
The car’s engine throbbed in the heavy night. I stood on the porch, every muscle taut, ready for flight or fight. Inside, Josie and Mateo slept, two fragile lives curled together in a world that wanted nothing more than to snuff them out.
I thought about the way Mateo laughed in his sleep, the way Josie’s arm never loosened from his waist even after she’d succumbed to slumber. I thought about the promises I’d made and the ones I’d broken.
The Council never sent the same face twice. This time, a woman emerged. She wore a black suit that seemed grown rather than tailored, her shoes flat and practical, the kind you wear when you expect to run.
She got out of the car and closed the door with a click as soft as a confession.
Her gaze swept over me, unhurried and clinical, not predatory.
The wolf in me recognized her as a different sort of apex, the kind that kills with a word instead of a fang.
She glanced at Nana Flo, who hovered in the porch’s deepest shadow, and offered a nod. Nana Flo didn’t return it.
“Aiden Cross?” she asked, voice smooth as velvet, cold as stone.
I didn’t answer. Names were just leashes if you let them be.
She didn’t seem bothered. “I bring summons.”
Not an introduction. Not a greeting. A verdict.
She reached into her coat and pulled out a flat parchment sealed in ancient wax, the Council sigil burned into it like a brand. She held it up between two fingers for me to see before offering it out.
I didn’t take it.
So she let it fall against my chest, light as a touch, heavy as fate.
Her face didn’t move. “For Josephine Mae Anderson,” she said, “and Mateo Anderson-Grey.”
Grey. That name hit like a slap.
My vision narrowed. My pulse went mean. “That’s not his last name.”
“The Council recognizes him under that lineage. Your disagreement is noted and irrelevant,” she replied.
Behind me, I heard Nana Flo inhale, the kind of sound a person makes right before the world tilts.
I finally spoke. “Mateo is not his.”
Each word carved out a new place in the air, sharp enough to draw blood.
“Not yet.”
I stepped forward. The headlights lit me up like I was on stage for a threat I hadn’t agreed to perform. “You want to test me on this?” I asked, voice low.
“No.” She slipped another parchment from her coat, this one thicker, sealed twice. She handed it out with a small, almost ceremonial incline of her head.
“This one is for you. A summons to stand before the Council and explain the incident in Oakville.”
Explain. Cute.
The woman didn’t move. “The Council is prepared to be generous, given the circumstances. Your recent actions…” she hesitated, as if leafing through an invisible folder, “…are understandable, but unsanctioned. They require… context.”
I didn’t move. “So you drag a child into this because you want ‘context’ from me?”
Her smile iced over. “Do not confuse mercy with hesitation. If you ignore these summons, the Council will interpret it as defiance. And defiance…” She flicked her finger toward the house. “Defiance rarely ends with only one person paying the price.”
Every muscle in me locked. I heard Nana Flo step off the porch, her presence a living warning.
“Aiden,” she murmured, just for me. “Choose your next breath carefully.”
The emissary watched us like we were a prophecy unfolding.
“You will comply,” she said.
“Not on your terms.” I finally took the parchment addressed to me, but only so I wouldn’t rip it apart in her face.
For the first time, something like irritation cracked her mask.
“You misunderstand your position.”
“No,” I said. “You misunderstand mine.”
The pressure tightened; it was the kind of shift wolves feel in their blood before a fight breaks open. Nana Flo moved closer, voice low and cutting.
“You delivered your message,” she said. “But don’t forget what comes next isn’t yours to control.”
The emissary gave her a cold, assessing look. “The line has already moved, Sister.”
Nana Flo’s jaw tightened.
The wolf inside me surged up, not to the surface, but to a place where the man and the beast were the same thing. My senses stretched out and in at once. I felt the heartbeat of everyone in the house, Josie’s, rapid and light; Mateo’s, slow and deep; Nana Flo’s, steady as bedrock.
I felt my own, double-tempo, desperate to outpace fate.
For a second, I wondered if this was what it meant to be a father.
Not the DNA or the blood, but the willingness to bleed for someone else, to take the shot so they could see another sunrise.
The Council wanted them. They’d take them for leverage. For revenge. For proof. There was no safe move. The only play was to draw fire, give Josie and Mateo a head start.
The woman watched my thoughts race behind my eyes, and for a second, I thought she might reach for the gun I knew she carried at her hip. Instead, she just waited.
Then she stepped back toward her car.
“Twenty-four hours, Aiden Cross. Use them well.” She paused, eyes flicking to the window where Josie and Mateo slept. “Say your goodbyes.”
The words landed like a bullet, neat and precise.
She slid into the car. The engine revved. Headlights swept over us again, bright, merciless, and then the car glided down the drive until the darkness swallowed it whole.
Silence collapsed around us. I let out a breath that felt stolen.
Inside, Josie stirred. I watched her through the window as she rolled over, searching for the warmth beside her. I wondered how many more nights I’d get to see her like that. I wondered if Mateo would remember my face, or just the sound of my laugh.
Nana Flo put a hand on my back. “Told you it was coming,” she murmured. “Didn’t say we’d roll over for it.”
“I know.” My throat felt tight, but the words came anyway. “We have to run. Now.”
She nodded once. “I’ll get the bags.”
I watched her move, light-footed and strong. I thought about all the ways this could go wrong, but I also remembered the feel of Josie’s hand in mine, the way she gripped like she’d never let go, no matter what.
Maybe that’s what hope was.
Not the promise of safety, but the promise that you’d fight for something, even if you knew you couldn’t win.
The sun was still hours away, but the sky had begun its slow, bruised transition. I stood in the yard and waited.
I thought about the blood moon, and the way nightmares always start with someone you love, and how maybe, just maybe, you could end one by loving them more than your own life.
Twenty-four hours. That’s all the world had left.