Epilogue

After The End

Lianna

One year later, my mate and I celebrated the summer solstice with a neighborhood bonfire and barbeque, hosted at our new bungalow in north Cedar Cove. Neighbors attended with their family, their friends, and were treated to food, drinks, and the odd story of how the ancients enjoyed the midsummer bounty.

Half of them even jumped over the bonfire, not realizing it was dragonfire.

By then, my dad was ten months sober. He was in outpatient treatment come the solstice, having spent six months in the rehabilitation facility that we had always dreamed of but could never afford before Vidar and his treasure. He finally started to process his grief, his need to drink, his broken heart. He finally came home to me clear-eyed, the father I loved all my life on the mend.

One year later, we had Louis back, too. Three months after that first solstice, Vidar left for the first and only time we were ever apart for more than a few hours. He flew south and returned four days later with an alpha who never spoke, never addressed me directly—but who met us at the long-term care ward, radiating such power a few machines short-circuited. With scars on his back and eternity in his eyes, he placed a hand on Louis's forehead and whispered under his breath for three straight hours. Enochian, Vidar had called it. Language of the angels.

He was one of the fallen angels, missing his wings, his heart in pieces, his purpose scattered—and he left without ever looking at me.

One day later, Louis finally woke up.

Vidar

Two years later, I greeted the solstice as a dragon. Soaring high above my forested territory, I met the dawn with thunder, with the beat of my wings and the song in my heart. I bathed in sunlight and rode hard—my mate upon my back. We had legally taken possession of our new countryside estate two days earlier. Her father was settling into his apartment in town. Her brother stayed in the nearby city, working closely with his physical rehab team, getting stronger by the day.

And my mate soaked in the summer sunshine like a goddess. She rode dragonback like she was born for it—and she was. For she was mine, and I was hers, and we had always been destined to meet the sun together.

That morning, I lit the torches scattered across our new home. I filled the firepits, plans for the ash already in the works. After all, that sulky hermit fucker down in the Galapagos wasn't the only one with miraculous healing abilities.

When the sun reached its peak, I rutted my mate hard in the field, both of us wild and naked and free.

"Bite me," she urged as she clenched around my knot. Sweaty, smelling of the sweetest violets and the headiest vanilla, the softest sandalwood—and me, her body scented head to toe by her alpha—Lianna rocked on my lap and tossed her head to the side. Her hair—streaked platinum today, its yellowish tinge amidst all that luxe black in deference to the solstice—fluttered in the breeze. "Vidar, I'm ready. Bond me. Please."

"You know what that means?—"

"Forever." She moaned, then threw her arms around my neck, our foreheads together, our hearts one. "It means f-forever, Vidar. I choose forever—I choose you."

Buried deep inside her, locked to my omega, I snarled. This was a dangerous time to ask, because she knew I'd fold. For two years, I had insisted she put the decision off. There was so much going on, so many changes: her father and brother's conditions, our home, our deepening bond. Ours was a love made of stardust, of the bones of the most ancient beasts in the deepest depths. It was eternal. It was blessed.

It was accepted by Pack Luna, by her father, her brother, her closest friends.

But forever was a very long time, and I?—

"Vidar." She brought my aching mouth to her throat. "I won't live without you. I can't. Bond us properly."

And I did.

Two years on, at high noon on the summer solstice, I sank my teeth into her flesh and branded her forever. Because I too would die without her. Renounce my title as a Deathless God. Wither to dust in some lonely place. I chose her, in every life, in every horror, in every storm. My heart. My goddess. My fate.

My omega.

She would wear my mark forever.

A bride of a Deathless God.

Lianna

Three years later, we hosted our first summer solstice on the property. Locals were invited to eat, drink, and be merry. Like the Synn festival, we too had food trucks from the community. We had face painting and henna. We hosted a farmer's market, competitions for best in crops, flowers, and pigs.

We even tried out a writing competition that had been underway since the start of June at the nearby elementary schools, where they were first taught the meaning of the summer solstice across time, then invited to write a short story—to be judged by local officials. The winner walked away with a crown etched with full suns and shining rays, unaware that it was real gold, forged in dragonfire, from Vidar's personal collection.

Come nightfall, stories were shared around the fires. Marshmallows were roasted. Songs sung. Coal walks suffered by civilians and overseen by professionals.

I wore my mate's bond bite with pride, never once hiding the silvery scar on my throat.

When the crowds left, Dad, me, Louis, and his new girlfriend from the city all jumped over the bonfire, keeping the tradition alive.

When we were truly alone, Vidar made love to me in the waning hour of the solstice night, beneath a starry sky.

Vidar

Four years later, my mate missed her first summer solstice.

"Vidar!"

She had left me early that morning and came back late that evening, clutching her sketchbook, her eyes heavy but so exquisitely alight in the hazy twilight. Weaving through the dwindling crowd of revelers who planned to stay for the bonfires after sunset, she jogged for me like we had been apart for years, not hours.

"Well?" When she skidded to a stop in front of me, I tipped my head and bit back a knowing smile, beer in hand, skin hot from a day under the summer sun. "What news?"

She glanced pointedly at her beloved book of sketches and art and masterpieces.

"I told you they'd love it, you ridiculous creature?—"

"They offered to take me on!" she squealed, bouncing in place and perfuming up a giddy storm. "I start my apprenticeship at the shop next week!"

"My love!" I hooked her around the waist and yanked her close, congratulating her properly with a searing kiss. Over the years, my mate had eased away from her graphic design business to focus more on family, on us. In that time, she put pen—and all manner of medium—to paper, then compiled a book of her best pieces to take to the cozy, soft tattoo shop, proudly omega-owned and operated, located in the same city Louis now called home. She had always dreamed of getting into the field, and now it was finally coming together.

First an apprentice.

Next? The world.

Lianna

Five years later, my mate and I pushed the annual summer solstice festivities to the upcoming weekend. While that meant our usual hubbub would happen on a day that wasn't technically the solstice itself, we had a better way to celebrate this year.

On the twentieth of June, a Wednesday, beneath unfettered sunshine and surrounded by fields of wildflowers in full bloom, serenaded by a string quartet and the whispering canopy, Louis married his forever girl—Erica, marketing executive and light of his life—on our property. We paid for the whole thing, making it a day no guest would ever forget, because my little brother and his soulmate deserved only the best.

My mate even treated them to a luxury honeymoon that would take the newlyweds across Scandinavia, touching on many of the places we visited last year, to walk the roads Vidar once graced long, long ago. They were set for the rest of the summer and would come home in autumn to the ten acres of our land that we fenced off for them—on which they would build their family home.

Dad's came next year. He had no idea, but his dream of a woodland cabin where he could grow his vegetables and raise his chickens and read his books in a sun-drenched hammock was about to come true.

Vidar

Eight years later, my mate hosted a summer solstice tattoo-a-thon for the entire month of June. Artists from her shop created gorgeous pieces, artistic visions of midsummer in all its glory. Lianna left information books out in the reception area detailing the various histories behind midsummer, full of old rituals and offerings for any curious minds to indulge in while they waited. She stocked the treat tins with lemon sweets and filled vases with flowers that, with a bit of magic, wouldn't drop a single petal until the solstice passed.

It kept her rather busy all month long. I even stepped in to assist the front desk from time to time, which ensured any alphas who thought they could bare their teeth in the omega-only shop were in for a very, very rude awakening.

Her fellow artists thanked me with cake. Much too much cake.

On the solstice itself, she left me to tattoo from morning until night, all the money made set aside for local charities. I hosted our annual event alone—well, hardly alone with her father and her brother deeply involved now, Louis's brood of children crawling all over me any chance they got.

When she returned, Lianna slept until noon the following day.

But then, with a bit of magical assistance, she marked my skin in ink, covering my entire left calf in sunflowers and knotted patterns she had taken from my old journals.

For the first time, I carried her with me wherever I went, just as she did me. Not only her perfume, her scent, memories of her laugh, but in a mark forged of blood and ink.

A solstice gift I would forever cherish.

Lianna

Ten years later, my mate and I were forced to move on. Deathless, we stood frozen while the world aged around us. Homes, communities, friends, family—there was a time limit now.

It made my heart ache to detach, to let go, to make them all forget us, but it was a small price to pay for a love written in the stars.

Those who really mattered, my dad, my brother, my sister-in-law, and their children—they knew the truth.

And they always knew just where to find us, especially on the solstice.

Vidar

Twenty years later, my mate gave birth to our first child: a daughter.

Fertility amongst immortals was always tricky, pregnancies nuanced and rare no matter how often and ardently a couple might mate. Immortals would drown the world in progeny if we had the same birthrate as everyone else. Lianna and I had come to accept that we might go into forever as a twosome.

She was a surprise, our perfect girl with brilliant black hair and green eyes, a smile like sunlight and a heart of dragonfire.

Little Solveig reminded me of her mother with her laugh, her curious nature, and her unflinching kindness.

Lianna insisted she was me in her passion, her ferocity, and her refusal to bow down to bullies.

She was divine. She made my mate a mother, me a father, and changed our lives forever.

All for the better.

No treasure would ever shine as bright as my girls.

Lianna

Fifty years later, my dad had passed. My brother had grandchildren. Solveig bonded to a pack of wolf shifter alphas, she herself more shifter than dragon as the daughter of a human, deathless or not. After all, she came from me, my body, my pain, my love—not from a literal egg like Vidar.

Still, my baby girl flew just as high as her dad. She was a creative in her soul, like me, and moved into the graphic design world that I had once abandoned for tattoos and solstices. One day, however, Solveig planned to submit herself for cult consideration. She already had a foot in the door with the beautiful goddess Freya, who had visited to celebrate and bless her birth all those years ago. For now, she was determined to prove herself worthy, to show passion and zeal like Vidar, to remind the world that we couldn't let go of all nature had to offer.

Ever since she was little, her favorite holiday had been the yuletide season. She hoped to claim it for herself, to become a Deathless God with her four wolfen mates and keep Yule, not just Christmas, in the hearts and minds of those around her.

One day. I always reminded her to live, too. That there was more to life than duty, that she wasn't immortal yet and had time to cherish every moment as it came. Hell, even if and when she did become one of the deathless, there was plenty of time in the year to revel in love. It wasn't all work.

We had three hundred and sixty-four days all our own—and even immortals had to learn to make the most of it.

Vidar and I tried to teach by example. Every day was a blessing, an adventure, an experience, a lesson—especially with your fated mate.

Lianna

One hundred years later, my mate and I traveled and lived and learned. We raised our Solveig. We accepted her mates. We watched them blossom. We sat grandchildren on our knees and against our chests.

We fulfilled our role as a Deathless God and his forever bride.

And we loved.

Oh, how we loved each other.

Deeply. Desperately. Devotedly.

Now and forever.