Epilogue

Olistaire

Nine Months Later

"Drugs," Grace grits, breath labored, jaw clenched tightly and neck straining as she throws her head back into the pillow beneath her. "Drugs. Now. Get them in me right now."

I come up beside her on the hospital bed, trying to offer her my hand for support, but she bats me away angrily and repeats her call for drugs.

"I'm sorry," the doctor at her feet says, as nurses flurry around the room. "You dilated too quickly, I'm afraid it's much too late for—"

Grace lets out a long, angry war cry as she bears forward and pushes without being told to, and the four-armed doctor raises his dark blue eyebrows in shock. "You're, ah, crowning, in fact. Nurse!"

The room is bustling with activity, the doctors and nurses' movements a blur to me as they prepare for the arrival of our baby. Grace's face is flushed with effort and beaded with sweat. I wish there was something I could do to help her. My gut is clenching up at the sounds she's making, at the pain she's in.

"Grace, my love, you're doing so well," I murmur, wiping at her brow with a cool, damp cloth. Her hair is up in a messy bun, strands slick against her sweaty forehead, and I do my best to wipe them out of her eyes and sooth her.

She grabs angrily at the cloth and hurls it across the room.

"You," she seethes at me, snatching at the collar of my shirt and pulling me close. "You had to go and put your giant fucking baby in me, didn't you?"

I chuckle helplessly, my body a swirl of worry and awe and pride for my mate. "Sorry?"

"Don't laugh!" She grabs the pillow behind her head, I presume to whack me in the face with, but then her eyes roll back and her jaw clenches in pain.

"I can't, I can't, I can't," she moans, reaching for my hand, which I immediately give her. "Oli, shit, I can't…"

She squeezes down against my fingers painfully.

"You can," I say, letting her tear my hand to shreds. "You're the strongest person I know, love. You can do this, I'll be right here with you the entire way."

Another contraction hits, and when the doctors tell her to push, she does so, baring forward until she suddenly kicks out at everyone's reaching hands and comes up onto her hands and knees.

We all reshuffle to accommodate her new position, as she moans in pain and drops her head between her elbows.

"I'm so proud of you, darling," I chant, as I reach out to thread my fingers over her hand clenched in the sheets. "So proud, you're doing wonderfully."

Time seems to stretch and compress all at once. My world becomes Grace's moans of pain and cries of anger, until finally, what might be hours or days or mere minutes later, the room fills with the sound of a baby wailing.

I suck in a shaky breath as I move back and let the doctor place the most fragile little creature I've ever seen against Grace's chest, and she sobs with relief and happiness.

"It's a girl," the doctor quietly announces, and Grace sniffles and runs her finger lightly over the tiny little thing's forehead.

My daughter. I have a flesh and blood daughter, with a scrunched human face and brown, tufted little minotaur ears.

"You know, now that I'm holding her," Grace says, her voice wavering with exhaustion and emotion, "she doesn't look so big, does she?"

Her skin is wet and shiny and slightly blue, with little smears of blood all over her, but I reach my hand out to touch my baby's back anyway.

So soft. So tiny and… and easy to break. I feel a lump in my throat as I run one finger up and down her spine.

"She's beautiful," I whisper, my voice choked with emotion.

Ella chuckles. "She's a squished little raisin and I love her. She's perfect."

When the doctor takes her away to clean her up, I do my best to help Grace do the same.

"We should really decide on a name," she murmurs, pushing herself up against the pillows once more stacked behind her back. "My list is still only getting longer, instead of shorter, but—here, pass me my phone. I can…"

"Hope," I say suddenly, staring across the room as the doctor brings my little one back. "We could call her Hope."

Grace stills beside me, and when the nurse moves to put the baby down in the clear crib at our side, Grace makes a motion to indicate me, and suddenly I'm holding her in my arms, and I freeze up.

"Grace," I whisper. "Take her. What if I drop her?"

But Grace only shakes her head and smiles. "Trust yourself, baby. You won't hurt her."

I stare down at the tiny, now fully pink and flushed little calf in my arms. Her eyes are scrunched shut, her cheeks somehow chubby and crinkled at the same time. She has the cutest, tiniest little ears I've ever seen, currently soft from birth and flopping down around her face.

"I love you, little one," I whisper, staring and staring and staring at her until my heart is so full I'm afraid it'll burst. I don't know how long I sit and simply gaze down at my child, but eventually, Grace reaches out and lays her fingers against my wrist.

"Is that what she is to you?" she asks quietly. "Hope?"

A shiver runs down my spine, and I look up into my wife's weary, happy blue eyes. "Hope for the future," I find myself saying. "Hope for a better me. Hope for our happiness. Yes…" I look back down and feel my whole chest bursting with the feeling. "She's my little ray of hope."

"Alright. I'm happy with that. Welcome to the family, Hope."

I look down at the bundle of material and chubby flesh in my arms with a smile. Hope stirs, and farts loudly. Grace and I both chuckle, and I transfer her to her mother so she can breastfeed.

"Although for the record," Grace says, as she positions our baby against her chest with the practiced ease of experience. "You're already a better you. You're everything I need, Oli. You always have been, and I refuse to hear any further negativity on the matter."

"Would you like me to bring your visitors in?" A nurse pops her head into our room and makes a gesture behind her. "I have your son, with your sister and her mate and their three children. And two elderly humans—they tell me they're your parents on a trip out from the nursing home—along with Mr. Strongarm's parents who were surprisingly the first to arrive. Ismelda came over about thirty minutes ago with her niece, Nib, who was having dinner with some friends, so they've all joined as well, and for some reason Mr. Dupont has been dragged along too but he looks very awkward standing silent and stoic in the corner, and—"

I laugh and wave at her to stop, turning to Grace with my brows raised high. "Can you handle all that?"

Grace grins, wide and weary, and nods. "But tell them they can only stay for fifteen minutes, I don't think I can do more than that."

The nurse heads back out, and I lean over and kiss Grace on the forehead, and then my little girl gently on the side of the head.

"She's so small," I say, as I hear a wave of sound and chatter slowly approach our hospital door. "So fragile."

"She is," Grace murmurs, "but she's got the strongest, most bestest daddy in the world to keep her safe."

I smile at her use of Lucas's phrasing. "Hope, and Lucas, and Grace." My heart beats with joy and renewed purpose. "I'll keep you all safe, for as long as I live."

"And I'll do the same," she replies, reaching out to touch my face. "Now, and forever."

Then the door bursts open, and Rhokar's mother, of all people, is at the forefront.

"Where's my newest grandbaby!" she cries, although somewhat quietly so as not to startle Hope.

"I don't think that's quite how it works, Mrs. Strongarm," I chuckle, but she just shushes me and strides forward as everyone else trickles in behind her.

"Hush, Oli, how many times have I told you to call me Mom?"

"Oh, Aunt Isme, look at her darling little ears!"

"Mamma, they said I have a sister! Does that mean I get to be a big brother now?"

In the end, all Grace and I can do is sit back and accept the outpouring of love around us. Because in the end, we're just one big, mismatched family, and that's what family is for.

Meanwhile, in Whispering Pines…

Ismelda

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble…

I really do outdo myself sometimes. With a satisfied sigh, I lean back in my chair and stare at my finally perfected potion, scratching Gigi's little black and white ears as she purrs in my lap. Goodness, it's been almost two years I've been working on this, tweaking and tinkering and prodding and poking, until I'm finally, blissfully sure of the outcome, and ready to get rolling.

This is it. This is the potion that will call more human Fated Mates to our town, and I can finally say I've truly done all I can to help restore balance in my little corner of the world.

Fated Mates between human and fae are what many of us witches and warlocks around the globe are starting to realize is what we need to get our fading communities boosted with life and magic once more. We've been fighting against the mundane, magic-less chokehold over the earth for too many generations, losing magic and culture and history in the process. Losing ourselves.

And all along, love was the answer. Isn't that a kicker?

We've had two mixed Fated Matches in our town in two years, and the power that's been restored to our land is already showing. The fairies have returned to our forests. Our babies are being born stronger and healthier, with more of the old power dormant within them. Even my own magic is strengthening, and I'm an old witch, to be sure.

If I can get the ball rolling, call more Matches into town, soon we'll no longer have to worry about our magic coffers drying up, of our ancient, powerful grove of trees finally withering and dying.

They've been growing again, those trees. It's been generations since that happened, but since Oli and Grace came together, I've seen saplings.

They've been growing. And so has my hope for our future.

And with that hope, I have a bounce in my step and am ready for action!

I maneuvered to get Ella into Whispering Pines with elbow grease and good old fashioned meddling, and put her in Rhokar's path.

I saw the signs between Olistaire and Grace early on, and dropped as many hints and set up as much as I could to get those two to come together.

And now, my instincts are pointing me to one Malachite Dupont. And really, why not finish of the trinity of those lodge owners and get them all happily paired off with their human matches?

But I want more than just my town to flourish. I want the world to unite, I want this divide that still exists between some humans and our fae world to disappear. No more under-handed prejudices, no more hidden dislike and avoidance. If we can come together, we can save magic. And wouldn't the whole world

benefit from that, not just us fae?

That's why I pushed so hard for this human-fae inclusive lodge in our town. I worked hard with the council to get the idea off the ground, and now that we're so near completion and ready to fling as many human and fae together as we can, to draw more non-magical folk into our town and get everybody mingling, the light of hope in my heart has never been brighter.

Love conquers all. Love will find a way.

Love, after all, is all we need.

The End