16. Epilogue

Epilogue

Bennet

“Come on, Gen! You’ve stretched enough, it's time to get ready to start!”

“You accidentally get your coach stuck in a time loop one time and he never stops being a hard ass,” she grumbles under her breath, making sure her uniform is in place and her pack is secure on her back.

I roll my eyes at her. “You’re lucky you didn’t get suspended.”

“That would only happen if you’d actually told someone the full truth of what happened and I have a feeling neither you or Quinn are actually upset by the results.”

Quinn and I talked about what we’d do about Gen after everything was said and done. If we told the university what happened, they’d probably expel Gen. She’s such a good kid with such a bright future that neither of us had the heart to do that. We talked to her on our own, explained the consequences of what she’d done and made her promise never to fuck with magic she didn’t understand again.

I stripped her of her title of team captain, giving the position to Charlie instead. Then I benched her for the first two meets of the year. She was pissed about it, but ultimately understood why I did it. This is her first meet since then.

“Speaking of Quinn,” I say loudly. “Are you ready?”

“Ready when you are,” Quinn calls out, kneeling in front of a ritual circle.

I lean against my cane, watching with rapt attention as Quinn casts his spell. My hip is bothering me today and Quinn, the wonderful partner that he is, offered to heat it up for me to help with the pain. I was worried about him running out of mana before he summoned our HellHound. Once he’s done, I know he’ll be over here, soothing the pain as best as he can for me.

I’m lucky to have him as my partner. I love him so much and for whatever reason, he’s decided that he loves me back. If only it hadn’t taken a hexed pocket watch for us to realize that.

Quinn whispers a few words under his breath and his palms begin to glow with gorgeous blue magic. His eyes change shades, shining with blue, reflecting his magic. He does a gesture with his fingers, flicking them out before touching one point of the ritual circle.

The circle lights up, shining like glossy water. It ripples a few times before Charriotte is conjured into our realm. He stands up, tall and strong. His fur is pitch black just like his mother’s, his teeth sharp and deadly, his eyes bright yellow like a moon set against black skies.

He’s beautiful and we’re lucky he’s agreed to play our silly little game with us.

“Thank you for being here,” Quinn says, nodding in Charriotte’s direction.

“Mother told me it would be a good experience and so far she has not been wrong,” he says in response, his voice gravely with a bit of a bark to it. Which I realize is silly because he’s a type of hound, but maybe all HellHounds sound similar because of their canineness.

Quinn stands up, dusting off his hands as the HellHound steps out of the circle. He trots over to the starting line, giving a big stretch not unlike a giant cat. He looks to the ref, a HellHound of little words, nodding to show that he’s ready.

“The first round of this hunt will begin on my mark!” The ref lifts his hand, beginning the count down. “Three, two, one, go !”

The HellHound is off, sprinting into the wooded area we conduct our meets. He gets a head start before the ref signals that Gen can be on her way. She takes off running, her eyes staring ahead of her where the HellHound disappeared.

I’m overcome with pride as I watch her go. I know without a doubt that she’s going to succeed. Being able to see how much she’s grown since the first time she took a scouting class makes me emotional in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

Quinn steps over to me, placing his hand under my jacket, sliding it onto my hip. A moment later, his hand is heating up, warming my entire hip and relieving some of the ache.

“Thank you,” I whisper, turning towards him and kissing his cheek. I really shouldn’t be smooching him during a meet, but I don’t care what other people might think.

“I told you I’d have plenty of mana,” he says in reply with a grin.

“Yeah, yeah. But if you hadn’t, it would have been really embarrassing to see you try to summon Charriotte and then have nothing happen because you were tapped out.”

“I’m never too tapped out for you,” he says, leaning against me even harder.

This man has me absolutely wrapped around his little finger and I’m not sure if he realizes it or not. By the grin he flashes my way, I think maybe he does.

“I love you,” I say under my breath. “Thank you for being here.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. You know I’ll never miss an opportunity to see you in your leathers.”

“And I never miss the chance to see you show off your magic,” I say, running my fingers over Quinn’s back.

“Plus, I have to keep an eye on you and your whistle. There’s no telling what the two of you will get up to if I’m not around.”

As we wait to hear on how Gen is doing during her hunt from the scrying eyes flitting through the forest, I marvel at how much has changed in the last couple months. After joking about keeping the pocket watch and using it on people who’re stuck pining like we were, we decided that wouldn’t be the most wise option. Instead, we took it into the fae realm, placing it in King Geoff’s safe of magical items. We informed Stephan that the pocket watch had the potential to be a danger to people and he agreed with our plan. Quinn and I know it’ll be safe there and won't fall into the wrong hands.

We still wake up on Fridays feeling a bit anxious but for the most part, things have been incredibly smooth sailing. Our relationship is everything I hoped it would be and yet so much more at the same time.

Quinn is it for me.

“How long has it been?”

I look at the time and murmur, “about half past hex.”

Quinn shoves his elbow into my side, making me gasp in surprise before we’re both giggling. I don’t know how he puts up with me, but I’m forever glad that he does.

~~The End~~

Want some more magic from Toby? Check out Chasing Magic ! This story features familiars, magic users, true mates, found families, mpreg, and lots of happily ever afters!

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