Epilogue

EPILOGUE

"Papa, papa! Look!"

Fang braced himself for the latest trouble the pups had gotten themselves into. There always seemed to be mischief afoot, these days. "What is it, Suzy?"

"We built, we built a thing!" Five-year-old Suzy raced up to him in her human form, except her tail was out, wagging madly. She grabbed his hand and pulled, throwing her entire weight into it when he didn't budge.

Fang laughed as he gathered three-month-old Cadius out of his crib and followed Suzy out of the kitchen.

"It's a tree-castle!" Suzy announced, waving at the pile of... something in the backyard.

On closer inspection, it looked like several small tree branches shaped crookedly into a large circle, generously filled with a bed of dried leaves (and some fresh leaves, suspiciously like the bushes from their neighbor's garden).

In the middle of the leaf bed was what seemed to be every last pillow and cushion from the house.

Eight-year-old Steffie stood with one hand propped on her hip, ordering Thompson around. Thompson scurried to obey, except he tripped on the leaves and landed face-first in the pile of pillows.

Three-year-old Em had been watching them intently. When Thompson groaned and rolled over, Em began stuffing leaves into his nose.

Wren was holding his stomach and giggling. Fang's (and now also Wren's) mom and dad sat in deck chairs to the side, enjoying sips of iced tea. Hector was in the background, gleefully recording a video of the scene.

"That's a tree-castle?" Fang asked, following Suzy around the ‘castle' until he was next to Wren. "I'm glad they left you standing, Birdie."

Wren grinned, his eyes sparkling. "I went down in the leaves a few times."

Actually, yeah, there were leaves and twigs in his hair, and on his clothes too. Fang's heart swelled; he leaned in and kissed Wren on the lips. "You always look amazing."

"Even with leaves in my hair?"

"Especially with leaves in your hair."

Wren beamed, a light flush on his cheeks. Fang had to hand Cadius over so he could scent-mark Wren, all over again.

The pups had mostly taken after Fang, although Steffie and Suzy bore a remarkable resemblance to Wren. None of them really cared about that, though. What they did care about was that Steffie could make fire, although she'd been taught to be very, very careful with her abilities.

Wren was so much more confident these days. Fatherhood had helped, and so did his necklace, and mastering his magic. He was taking online classes to be a librarian—for when the pups were older, and Wren had more time on his hands.

Fang was still working at the Center; he texted Wren often while he was working, and their parents came down to help Wren with the pups almost every day.

"What do you think of the tree-castle?" Wren asked, his face all lit up with joy.

"I'm not sure how it's a castle, but someone can explain it to me," Fang said. When Suzy released his hand to go tumble with her siblings, Fang swept Wren off his feet, baby and all, and stepped over the tree branches so he could deposit them on the pillows with Em and Thompson. "There. Now you're all in the tree-castle, safe and sound."

There came the sound of ripping fabric. The next thing Fang knew, there was a T-rex off to the side with a rubber ducky cummerbund on his head. "Roar," the T-rex said, waving his stubby arms. "I'm going to eat you!"

All the older kids squealed and charged at the dinosaur. The T-rex sighed, looking down when they tried to climb him. "I'm supposed to be scary."

"You stopped being scary a long time ago, Uncle Hector," Thompson said.

And then Hector was swarmed, with pups on his back and one balanced on top of his head.

Fang laughed. "Serves him right for all those pickup lines he gave us."

"I'm going to get you back with more, " Hector retorted.

Wren beamed, settling into Fang's lap as he leaned into Fang's embrace. "You know, those pickup lines might not be so bad, after all."

Hector roared in triumph. Fang rolled his eyes, but he couldn't stop smiling as he soaked in his family's happiness.

With days like this, it was only too easy to be thankful for his good fortune.