Epilogue
BEING AT THE CASTLE while knowing that Carlyle wasn’t a danger anymore was weird.
Tyne kept jumping at every noise, half expecting Carlyle to be attacking them or to pop up from behind a piece of furniture.
They still had all the protective spells up, and they weren’t planning on getting rid of them anytime soon.
They’d already worked their magic on those spells, so they might as well use them.
But Carlyle was gone.
He was never coming back like he had last time.
He wasn’t just trapped.
He was dead, and his ashes had been scattered in the place where he’d died.
Not even he could come back from that.
Tyne glanced around the darkened living room.
Keylon was sitting on another couch, bouncing his leg as if he was nervous.
He didn’t have anything to be nervous about, but even with Carlyle’s threat gone, all of them were still on edge.
It wasn’t a surprise, even though it was annoying.
Jarvis kept tapping his fingers on his knee, while Penley looked like he was ready to bolt from the couch at any noise.
Dallin kept glancing from the TV screen to the door.
Tyne told himself to stop obsessing over a dead man and try to focus on the movie Penley had insisted they watch as a family.
It was easier said than done, though, and that clearly went for all of them.
Even sitting down to relax felt weird.
After spending so much time on high alert, Tyne suspected it would take them a while to get back to normal life—if they ever could.
He didn’t remember what a normal life was like.
It had been too long since he’d lived one.
Before Carlyle, Peyton had wanted to break their bond.
There had been nothing normal about that.
Then had come the fight with Carlyle, the dragons had vanished, and the mages had been alone for decades.
There had been nothing normal about that, either. Mages weren’t supposed to be without their dragons.
But they had their dragons back.
Unfortunately, the dragons didn’t have their memories, which meant they’d need to build a new normal.
It would’ve been impossible with Carl threatening them, but they were free of him.
The mages were free to move out of the castle.
They could start a new life with their shields wherever they wanted.
They could go back to their birth clans if they wished to.
Tyne wasn’t going anywhere.
As far as he was concerned, he didn’t have a clan anymore.
He’d lost it when he’d lost Peyton, and he was fine never going back.
He didn’t care what his mother wanted or what she felt he should do.
She didn’t have a say in the way he lived his life.
He looked up again.
What would the other mages do? Would they move out? Tyne thought that Jarvis and Marlow would, at the very least.
They had Jason to think about, and it would be easier for him to go to school if they didn’t live in a castle in the middle of nowhere.
Tyne was going to miss them.
He’d miss all of them when they left.
Over the years, they’d become more than friends.
They were family, even though Tyne had often pushed them away and kept them at arm’s length.
He knew he wouldn’t lose them entirely even if they left, but they would drift apart.
They didn’t have the search for their dragons and the fight Carlyle to unite them anymore.
“That expression doesn’t match the movie we’re watching,”
Meyer murmured as he leaned closer to Tyne.
On instinct, Tyne wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Meyer’s eyes widened slightly, but he pressed closer, cuddling against Tyne.
Tyne and Peyton hadn’t done this.
They’d been in love, but once they grew up and their love moved from puppy love to something more adult, they’d avoided PDA.
Peyton had felt like people wouldn’t take them seriously if they didn’t, and maybe he’d been right. People in their clan had been used to seeing them together when they were young, running down the hallways and making out in dark corners.
The mages here wouldn’t care if they did all of that.
Hell, they’d encourage them to make out in dark corners.
They all wanted Tyne and Meyer to be happy, and they knew they’d be the happiest if they were together.
“Seriously,”
Meyer whispered.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“Just thinking about the future.”
“Does it include me?”
Tyne pressed a kiss against Meyer’s forehead and tried to ignore the fact that he could feel some of the people in the room watching him.
“How could it not?”
“That’s not what you would have said a few weeks ago.”
“But it’s not a few weeks ago. It’s now.”
And there was no way Tyne was letting go of Meyer.
Sometimes, it was still odd to turn and see Meyer there.
For a few seconds every time, Tyne thought about Peyton, but it never lasted long.
Meyer had shown him time and time again that he was nothing like the man he’d been before, and Tyne had chosen to believe him.
He didn’t know if Meyer would eventually break his heart or if it was safe with him, but he’d find out eventually. In the meantime, he would enjoy whatever he and Meyer did next.
He really hoped that Meyer wouldn’t break his heart, though.
He wasn’t sure he’d survive it.
If anything happened and they broke up, Tyne would become a hermit.
He might climb into the mountains, or he might just lock his bedroom door and never come out.
But he didn’t want to think about Meyer breaking his heart.
Trusting Meyer was the hardest thing Tyne had ever done, but he needed to take a chance.
They had the possibility of being happy together.
He wouldn’t let anyone ruin that, not even himself. It didn’t matter if it was hard or complicated. He wasn’t afraid of hard work.
Meyer’s gentle smile created butterflies in Tyne’s stomach.
“I’m really glad it’s not a few weeks ago and that we’re finally done with this mess.”
“Me, too.”
“You don’t look glad.”
Tyne hesitated, then decided he might as well say what was on his mind.
If he wanted the relationship between him and Meyer to work, he’d need to be honest with him.
He’d been hiding for too long.
Trusting someone else was terrifying, but his heart was safe with Meyer.
“I just don’t know where to go from here.”
“You don’t have to know.”
“But I want to know. We mages moved in together because we all lost our dragons and wanted to work as a team to find you, and that’s over now. We have you back.”
Meyer slowly nodded.
“And you don’t know where that leaves your family.”
“I don’t want to lose any of them.”
“I don’t think you will.”
MEYER TRULY BELIEVED that.
He understood why Tyne was worried, but he’d seen the mages together.
Hell, initially, he’d been jealous of the close relationships they shared.
He’d thought he would be the only one who had to leave by the time this was over because Tyne had wanted nothing to do with him.
But he wasn’t going anywhere, and he didn’t think any of the mages or the dragons were, either.
The castle was big enough for all of them, and they could open portals to wherever they needed to go.
With Carlyle gone and the dragons reunited with the mages, they could travel when they wanted and for however long they wished without having to fear being hurt.
They didn’t have to move out, and no one had mentioned doing so. Even the humans who worked here hadn’t said anything about it.
“You know, you’re supposed to watch a movie in silence,”
Penley said.
He raised the remote control and paused the movie, and everyone turned toward Meyer and Tyne. Tyne cringed and pressed closer to Meyer, but he was a big man. There was nothing he could do to hide from his family.
“Sorry about that,”
he said.
“It won’t happen again.”
Penley snorted.
“Of course it’ll happen again. With so many of us here, there’s always someone talking during the movie. What’s gotten you all twisted up?”
Tyne slowly breathed out.
Meyer had been watching him with the other mages for weeks, so he knew Tyne wasn’t one to talk about feelings, not even with people he considered brothers.
He hadn’t even told them about Peyton until after Meyer had arrived at the castle.
He’d kept that pain in his heart for decades, never showing it to anyone.
He’d been an idiot, and Meyer was glad he’d finally gotten his head out of his ass.
“I was just thinking about the future,”
Tyne admitted.
Penley cocked his head.
“I’ll admit that isn’t what I was expecting to hear. What about the future?”
Tyne looked like he wanted to run out of the room, but instead, he waved at the people sitting around.
“All of us are free to go now. We moved in together to search for our dragons, and we found them. There’s no reason for us to continue sharing the castle.”
“Why would any of us want to leave?”
Keylon asked. He’d finally stopped bouncing his knee, thank God.
“You’re my family. I’m not going anywhere, and I hope none of you is thinking about doing so.”
Penley was nodding.
“I agree. This is my home. Bennett and I aren’t leaving, and I don’t want any of you to, either. I mean, Bennett and I will probably go on vacation, but we’re not leaving permanently. Where would we go?”
Meyer could tell from Tyne’s expression that he was stunned by those answers.
He’d truly expected the others to move out, hadn’t he? What had he thought he and Meyer would do? Haunt the otherwise empty castle?
He’d really thought that they’d have the entire castle to themselves.
God, that would be hell to clean.
“Jarvis and I are looking into schools for Jason that aren’t too far from here,”
Marlow offered.
“But Jarvis has already decided he’ll portal us in and out of the castle every day. We want Jason to grow up here. Where else would he have an entire castle to run through, a forest to explore, and a lake to spend summer days swimming in?”
“It’s not like we don’t have privacy,”
Dallin said with a smile.
“The castle is big enough for all of us. Hell, we could probably add a few dozen people, and we’d still have enough personal space.”
He leaned forward.
“You weren’t thinking of leaving, were you? Because no one here wants you to.”
Tyne looked dazed.
Meyer reached over and linked her fingers together, squeezing to reassure his mage.
It was the best kind of surprise, but it was a surprise nonetheless, and Tyne might need a few minutes to wrap his mind around it.
Going from believing that he and Meyer would be alone to knowing for sure that they wouldn’t be had to be a complicated feeling.
“This is my home,”
Tyne finally said.
“It would be even if I had somewhere else to go, but I’m not planning on going back to my birth clan, and starting again on my own feels like the worst thing I could do.”
“Then don’t do it.”
“None of you are leaving? You’re sure about that?”
“There’s a beach calling my name somewhere, but this is my home as much as it is yours,”
Penley said.
“It wouldn’t feel right to live anywhere else, and Bennett agrees. We’re not going anywhere.”
Everyone around the room nodded in agreement. Meyer was pretty sure that this went for all the other people who lived at the castle, which was a relief because they were a part of their family, too.
Also, they’d probably starve without Jillian cooking their meals.
“If that’s what you were worrying about, you can stop,”
Jarvis said gently.
“I’ve already talked to everyone, and we all agree. The castle is our home, and the people here are family. That’s never going to change, even with Carlyle gone.”
Tyne nodded.
He was visibly overwhelmed, so Meyer was glad when Penley raised the remote control again and turned the movie back on.
Everyone settled down to watch, but Meyer’s attention was still on Tyne.
He suspected it always would be.
Now that they’d talked things out and that they were together, Meyer didn’t have to be shy about it anymore. He could tell everyone in the room that Tyne was his future.
He didn’t.
“Okay?”
he asked instead.
Tyne turned toward him. His frown was gone, and even though he wasn’t smiling, Meyer could see the conversation had helped.
“I didn’t expect this,”
Tyne murmured, even though Meyer was pretty sure that no one would say anything about them talking during the movie.
“Clearly. You need to learn to talk with people before assuming the worst. “
“Does that go for you, too?”
“I already talk to people.”
“I meant that I need to learn to talk to you. I don’t want anything to come between us, but I especially don’t want my stubbornness and inability to talk about my feelings to do so. I want to be better. “
“Better than what? I’m not saying you’re perfect, but we’ll work things out.”
Meyer wouldn’t have it any other way.
He’d thought he’d lost Tyne before he even got him and that he’d have to leave once Carlyle was gone. Instead, he had a home and family, and, more importantly, he had Tyne.