Chapter Ten

Once upon a time, centuries ago, a boy and a girl fell in love and that love changed the course of a town.

The man harbored a wolf inside of him and became a great leader, and the woman always stood behind him, encouraging him to reach his full potential. Together they built a pack that was more powerful than any other in the world. Only the strongest were asked to pledge, and they were run with a perfect balance of ruthlessness and fairness.

The girl was beautiful and light, named for a flower, human and open-hearted, and fragile in ways that balanced out the wolf in the man she loved. The wolf became thirsty for more and more power, and though the boy tried to control him, the animal became insatiable.

A witch was drawn to the growing power in that small but expanding town of Hollow Rock, and when she first set eyes on the Alpha of that pack, she knew no other could match her. He was capable of a great power she'd been hungry for all of her life, and she could offer him something he'd always wanted—the ability to be an eternal Alpha, unable to be dominated in any fight for his pack. He would live longer, and remain stronger. He could build an empire around the woman he loved.

But the witch didn't care so much about love in their story. Love was only potential for power. It was a sentimental feeling that would give a dark heart like hers everything she desired. A name. A curse. A legacy. Immortality with the wolf that could continue to feed her power until the end of days.

But every curse had to have loopholes. It was the way of curses. For all the bad, there had to be one little ray of hope. Hope was the real power that made a curse work. She'd had to feed him hope that he would find his love again and break the curse, and all she had to do was keep it from happening.

On Halloween, on the year the wolf met a reincarnation of his true love, he had to turn her into a werewolf, and only then would the curse be broken. Only then would the veil of immortality lift from him and his pack. Only then could he live the lifetime he'd been fated for. Only then could he rest. Only then could he find happiness for himself, and for his pack.

The boy learned a big lesson about the cost of power. It had cost him his love. Cost him his future with the girl who protected his heart. Cost him the adoration of his pack. Cost him the joy of living like there was no tomorrow.

This was his second chance.

This was a second chance for the entire pack.

Stacia didn't realize how important or how cherished she was yet, but he would spend the rest of his life showing her.

Fate hadn't left him to the wolves. He'd just had to take the long way home.

That's what Stacia was. Home.

He canted his head and watched the pretty girl in her white nightgown with her arms out, spinning in slow circles. She wasn't Iris, but his heart and his wolf loved her just the same.

All his life, he'd wondered why. Why had it all happened? What could he have done to change it?

The answer was that there was no answer.

He'd just had to live longer to get to Stacia. She turned and grinned at him. Pretty girl. She'd adjusted so well to the wolf inside of her over the past couple of months. She didn't know it yet, but he had a ring in his back pocket, because she'd said she'd always been ready, and so had he. She deserved to know exactly how important she was to him. She deserved to know she was his queen. He was going to ask her after the pack meeting tonight, after they all Changed into their wolves and ran together. Everyone knew but her. He wanted his people there. They were her people now too, and she didn't realize it yet, but she had the loyalty of the oldest and most powerful pack in the world.

She'd fit in so well here, taking her place right beside him, and brought a lightness his people had been missing all these years. They smiled now. Laughed more. Lived life like they all had expiration dates, and there was beauty in that. Their time was limited now, so they had to appreciate each moment, each up and down, each triumph.

He looked down at his arm for the hundredth time today. He had a scratch. A small, straight line from a loose nail that had been on one of his barns. When the blood had welled up, he had fallen to his knees. He hadn't bled since the curse had been placed on him. It had turned his skin to stone. This scratch meant everything.

Stacia had hugged him from behind as he'd broken down from the relief. He had one lifetime with the woman he loved, and they were going to make the best of this. This is the life he'd dreamed of.

He was mortal.

Stacia had really done it.

She'd been strong enough to give him back the life he'd lost.

He held an arm out, and she padded across the grass with her bare feet. She fit perfectly against his ribs as he looked up at the full moon above.

"Thank you," she murmured, but he was confused.

He should be thanking her.

For freeing him.

For loving him.

For staying with him.

For being a light in a dark life that had felt hopeless some days.

"For what?" he asked.

Stacia shrugged, and her gorgeous smile turned soft. "For letting me in."

Her eyes were beautiful—hazel and ice blue. Sometimes he had a hard time looking anywhere but her.

Callum leaned down just to taste her lips. He kissed her until she melted against him, and then he pulled the ring from his pocket because the plan wouldn't work anymore. This right here was the moment.

He slipped the ring onto her finger, and then eased out of the kiss. Stunned, she looked down at her graceful fingers, now adorned with a diamond. "Callum," she whispered, and then hugged him tightly. She was crying, he could tell, but that was okay. Even with that gorgeous dark gray wolf inside of her, she had kept her softness. Kept her humor. Kept her humanity.

Stacia had broken the Ashbrock Curse, and in the process, she'd kept all the parts of herself he loved.

Softly, he whispered, "Thank you for being mine."