Epilogue
Kardok
Honestly, I could see why my brothers liked Eastshore Isle so much. If I wasn’t such a big fan of ice, I might have even followed them.
“Damn,” I muttered, wiping the back of my wrist across my forehead. “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”
Laughing, my oldest brother Korrad handed me a beer from the cooler on his back porch. “Nah, it’s the heat.”
His twin, Brakkor, was sitting in a lawn chair, bare feet stretched out on the grass, head tipped back to enjoy the sun. Now, he snorted. “It’s the heat and the humidity. Doesn’t completely suck, though.”
I exchanged a smirk with Korrad. “So, that’s high praise coming from Brakkor.” I settled my ass against the porch rail and watched Kor expertly baste ribs on the barbecue. “I’m glad you’re happy here.”
My brother’s gaze went over Brakkor’s head to where his two sons wrestled in the lawn. “Yeah. We are.”
Korrad and Brakkor had moved here when the Vengeance Mine closed down and the owner moved himself and most of the guys to Eastshore. It had been bittersweet to say goodbye, but I could see it had been worth it. They both had a place here.
And more importantly…
A curvy brunette sashayed out of the house, holding two bowls of chips. Jocelyn, Brakkor’s Mate, handed one to me—I took it without thinking—and said, “Kesha is teaching Lila how to make that salad dressing everyone loves. This is to hold you over.”
I nodded my thanks—both for the chips and for including my Mate—and she headed toward Brakkor. My brother, proving he’d lost none of his hunting instinct, waited until the last minute to lash out his arm, grab her around her middle, and pull her into his lap.
He didn’t spill that many chips, all things considered.
Jocelyn squealed and kicked, but when he nuzzled her neck, she quickly melted against him, and I looked away with a smirk to give them some privacy. Korrad was watching me, one brow raised, and I saluted him with the beer.
“Very happy, looks like.”
He glanced back at his sons, then to the house, and I knew he was thinking of Kesha.
Since his marriage, Korrad had seemed to settle into his new life. We could all see how happy he was with Kesha and Milo in his life, and I’ll bet I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a shame he wouldn’t be able to Mate her, since he’d lost his Mate years ago.
But then again, in the few days I’d been here on Eastshore, there was something between Korrad and Kesha, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on…
Oh well. I was sure Korrad would tell me anything I needed to know. Eventually.
But seriously, Kesha and Milo were awesome, and I could see how Korrad and Jay were thriving. And not just because Kesha loved hockey and had spent the summer coaching Jay through his moves on roller blades right here on the island.
Lila and I had been lucky enough to go see one of my nephew’s practices on the mainland yesterday, and I could see an improvement even from this time last year, when I was coaching him through the summer!
Lila was already talking about how she could use Jay’s relation to me to get the Teal Terrors to sponsor the local peewee league, even from across the country.
Leave it to my Mate to think of ways to make the rest of us look amazing.
Now I reached over and rested my hand on Korrad’s shoulder. “Congratulations, Kor.”
He snorted, his attention on the ribs, but I could see his smile. “You should be congratulating Brak. I still can’t figure out how he talked Jocelyn into Mating him.”
From the lawn chair, Brakkor called out without looking up from where he continued to nuzzle his Mate’s neck. “I have excellent tongue technique.”
“I know,” I shot back. “I taught you.”
Jocelyn was blushing, and now she managed to extricate herself from Brakkor’s grip and push herself to her feet. “Your tongue is only forty percent of the reason I love you, dkaar.”
Hearing her use the orcish word made me like her even more, and the way my brother grinned—pride and excitement and joy? That made it even better. He cupped her rear end in what was probably intended to be a smack before he got distracted, and murmured, “Love you too, Kitten.”
I still wasn’t sure how an asshole like Brakkor had softened enough to convince Jocelyn to give him a chance, but as I understood it, it had something to do with the two of them hooking up more or less anonymously, then running into each other again at Korrad’s wedding—Jocelyn was Kesha’s best friend.
I guess she liked males who chose bluntness over politeness, but there’s no accounting for taste.
Or maybe the tongue thing was the secret to a male’s success.
I made a mental note to ask Lila.
Speaking of whom…my attention shifted, and I was already turned toward the back door when my Mate breezed out, looking like she belonged here on this beach island, in that pink sundress.
She was smiling when she met my gaze, and how could I not smile in return?
“Speaking of happiness,” Korrad announced, pretending to keep his attention on the ribs. “You made two goals in that last game, and one in each of the games before it.”
“Yeah.” I slid my free hand around Lila, tucking her up against my side. “Apparently, someone convinced me that the team needs my particular brand of berserking.”
“I think I called it energetic drive,” Lila announced primly, her cheeks already turning pink. “Not berserking. That’s not even a word.”
“I think you called it something else,” I murmured against her hair, and she inhaled sharply and smacked my chest with the back of her hand.
“Don’t talk about that in front of your family!”
“What?” I kissed her temple, then pulled back, knowing she was becoming embarrassed. “I just meant talent. You said I had talent. On the ice.”
“Right,” Brakkor called out as he struggled out of the chair. “We’ve all seen clips of that ice dancing shit you pulled off. How come you never did that when we lived in Colorado?”
“Because I wanted to make it through a practice?”
Lila hushed me and raised a challenging brow at Brakkor. “One of those goals he scored this week was because of that ice dancing shit. He managed a cross-roll, which completely baffled the Silver Slayers’ goalie, and—”
Brakkor interrupted her with his laughter, holding his palm out for peace. “I know, Lila, I just have to give my little brother crap. He knows we’re proud of him. Teaching an old dog new tricks and whatever.”
Before I could respond—and since Brakkor rarely talked about his feelings, I wasn’t sure how to respond—his Mate poked him. “An old dog? Kardok is younger than you.”
As he captured her hand and pulled her in for a kiss, I realized I was grinning. Like…really grinning, hard enough my cheeks hurt. I squeezed Lila and felt her sigh happily.
“Thanks for bringing me here, Kardok,” she murmured.
“Thanks for coming with me.”
Korrad was focused on moving the ribs to a large platter. “It’s about time you came out to visit. We expected you over the summer, but you were too busy pouting about your loss in the playoffs—”
“I was busy learning how to do a cross-roll,” I corrected him, smirking down at Lila. “But yeah, I should’ve made time.”
“You’re right where you need to be, T’mak,” he said firmly, turning to me with the platter in his hands. “But you don’t need to wait until the next time you have a game on the East Coast to visit, you know. Eastshore’s orc community is growing, and our harvest Kap’paral is epic.”
He was right; the only reason I’d finally gotten around to visiting the island was because we’d played the Atlanta team over the weekend, and I’d talked Coach Ellis into giving me a few extra days before I had to be back for practice.
Now that Lila was splitting her time between the ice complex and her old job, she seemed happier…
like she cared less what other people thought of her.
Or maybe that was my influence? All I knew was that seeing her working with the youth pairs skaters—her coaching style was more hands-on than Joshua’s—really made me happy.
My Mate was at home at the Bramblebluff Ice Complex, and so was I.
Since we’d been married by a male in a robe at the Town Hall, with Dakvaar and her father as witnesses, neither us nor the Terrors had received any more threats from the OHL. Apparently, us being married—and co-owning the complex—was all that was required to satisfy the League’s rules.
But our entire life wasn’t out there…some of it was right here.
So I nodded to Korrad, knowing I’d missed my brothers last autumn during the celebration. “Then Lila and I will be back then to visit. Will Aswan be doing the cooking for it?”
“Always.” Korrad handed me the platter. “Next time you come back, you need to take some time to visit with the other guys from Bramblebluff—I know they’d like to see you.”
“And,” Lila interrupted shyly, “I’m hoping we’ll see you this winter for the wedding? I know plane tickets are expensive, but I meant it when I said we’d be happy to help.”
Oh yeah. We might have been legally married by a Justice of the Peace, but my princess wanted the fancy wedding she’d always dreamed of, and her father and I were happy to give her that.
In early February, right when the ice was thickest on all the ponds in the area, Lila and Maddie were planning an epic outdoor wedding to celebrate our love of winter.
I knew my Mate was hoping it might be a double wedding, but Rex had confided that he was still working on convincing Maddie.
But Korrad and Brakkor and their families would be there, no matter what.
Now, my brother chuckled and jerked his head toward the picnic tables. “And trust me, we’ll take you up on that, Mr. Hockey Star. Now take those over while I go take off this apron and find my wife. Boys! Dinner’s ready! Wash your hands.”
Lila settled beside me at the tables, and amid the jostling and teasing and calling out, she was my little center of calm.