Epilogue

“It’s been 10 years.” Em’s voice floats through the spring air, soft. When I look at her, I find her eyes on my side, like she can only see the dagger mark that was there. The wound she healed and saved my life back then can’t be seen but she always looks. I smile at her, flicking the end of her braid. She’s turned out to be a beautiful teenager. An upcoming healer who has passed every exam with flying colours. I couldn’t be prouder of her. After the war, after all the people we lost in the tunnels and on the front line, we needed some happiness. Elemence was that for us, and we were exactly what she needed too. I’m sure the gods sent me into that orphanage that day, telling me to meet her.

We all but adopted her, moved her into our building and looked after her like our own for six months before we asked her to be our official daughter. It was always her choice, but from that day, she calls me her mama and my mates her dada’s. She’s become the pack alpha’s ward to the rest of the pack, who all know the story of how she saved the alpha female. Even with all the attention, all the adoration, she stayed so lovely.

Even if my mates have a habit of spoiling her whenever she even looks at something she likes.

We’re both standing in the street where the fae king died, where her peace was finally decided all those years ago. So much has changed in ten years and yet sometimes, when I come here, I feel like only a second ago that we fought and won. This street has been dedicated to peace, to us. Beautiful stone statues line the middle, statues of us. Two massive wolf statues stand tall, with my crystal wolf sitting in between them. Rune, with his father’s crown on his head and his brilliant wings, spread out and stood behind the wolves. The artist who designed and sculpted this was so talented and he really did get everything so realistic. I hope this statue, this street, will live on long past us. The statue lies in a beautiful fountain and garden, full of tiny tables and chairs with people playing games on them. After the war, after everything we lost, we were so lucky to survive. I was lucky. In the last ten years, our lands were united under the new peace agreement and all walls/wards were slowly removed. It took about five years for my mates to weed out any traitors–fae still loyal to the dead king–but we knew they couldn’t live in the world we wanted to remake.

Elias moved his pack here, Lazuri extending the lands far and wide as they joined in ruling the biggest pack in the world. The old pack lands are more of a holiday home for all of us now. We go there when we wish to travel, to run in the thick forests there. Where I grew up, that pack is gone. I never saw them again, and Mera made sure they wouldn’t come back. She enjoyed hunting them and it gave us all the closure we needed.

We will live with those horrors forever, but know those horrors meant this peace was possible.

No wolf, fae or half wolf will ever starve or be sacrificed to the gods. A future I never thought was possible is, and we suffered enough for it. Our pack is loved, happy, and there has been a burst of new mate bonds over the last ten years. What was rare, is not anymore. I glance at the stone star and moon sitting on either of my wolf’s stone”s shoulders and hope the gods see it one day when they look down. I know they were with me in the end, when I almost gave up and I will worship them until my time to join them with my mate comes.

Hopefully that isn’t for many, many more years.

A pregnant, sparkling wolf with bright crystals glowing in the light walks past me and yaps once, making me smile. “It is today, right?”

I blink, focusing on Em. She is watching me, understanding without saying a word. “Yes, it’s a shame you have that exam, but I’m sure she will tell you everything later.”

“I’m excited to see her after the exam,” she hugs me tightly before leaning back, seeing something over her shoulder that makes her sharply stand. “See you later, mama.”

She grins at me before running off. No doubt to the fae boy that she’s been hanging out with. I’m not surprised when I turn, seeing the dark-haired boy waiting by the door to the student building for her. Honestly, I think he’s particularly brave. Lazuri, Elias and Rune are very protective of her, just as much as I am, and they have successfully scared every boy off so far with one conversation alone with them. I think that he’s her mate, this boy. There is a bond between them that almost sparkles.

But only time will tell.

I walk straight through the buildings, past our home and through to the melting snow-covered hills behind in the distance. There aren’t many people around this early, but I make sure to say hello to everybody as I pass, speaking briefly with some of my friends. My mates are waiting, all three of them at the top of the hill, watching the training of the new shifters. “I knew you’d be watching her all morning.”

I step up in between Laz and Elias, both of them reaching out to touch my back or hand. Elias winks. “She never told us that we weren’t allowed to be here to watch. Only that we would embarrass her if we tried to help her.”

“I admire how she wants to be the same as the rest of the class,” Rune agrees, proudly watching with so much light in his eyes.

Lazuri laughs. “I’m telling her it was your idea to wait here all day, then. She has glared at us five times.”

“The glare is cute,” Elias kisses my cheek. “She looks just like you when she glares.”

My heart is bursting with happiness as I stare down at the line of children, especially at my nine-year-old daughter. Our nine-year-old, the heir to the pack and the daughter of hope, as the pack call her. I watch as she stands near the front with her friends, her long black hair falling down in two braids I did for her this morning. Her dark olive skin is covered in sweat from training all morning and she has three bracelets on her wrist that glitter in the light. Presents from her fathers, each one spelled with fae magic to stay on her as she shifts.

She is every bit of us. She smells like us, too. Like somehow our souls all bound together to make this beautiful child. I don’t know what hand the gods had in her creation, but I know she is special.

I thought maybe we lost her after the war. That I was too injured. But the gods protected her. Eight months later, she was born healthy and screaming at the night sky. This beautiful, amazing girl that we have is our reward. Kris. There was no other name, no one else that we wanted to honour when she was born. My mates knew her name too before I’d even suggested it. She’s every bit what her aunt would have been if she survived. There is not a day that goes past that I don’t miss her, but I feel like her soul was reborn in my daughter somehow. She has the same sass, the same love of dresses and loves to wind her father’s up.

It’s really, truly beautiful to see. We all watch our daughter, wondering what her first shift will be like. “I can’t believe she’s shifting into a wolf for the first time. It feels like she was just born and placed into my arms only yesterday.”

My mates hum in agreement, looking at me lovingly. I haven’t gone into heat again, despite the hope that I would so we could have another child. Maybe one day.

Her fae power will come in today, and we already know it does not matter if she’s not powerful. We’d love her, regardless.

We all watch with a bated breath as the teacher, Beta Mera, demand echoes in the wind. “Shift!”

Our beautiful daughter swirls in a mist before a sparkling black wolf appears. She’s made of black crystal fur, a wolf like I’ve never seen before. Her power radiates around her, all the way to us, and I know it hits the city next.

The world feels her power.

I feel it tread all the way through my bones as it explodes out of her. Every wolf nearby shifts with her, only to bow their head until she’s standing in a line around a circle of them. I know the whole pack has bowed at this moment. She looks up at us, at her parents, and I grin at her before bowing too.

I know my mates do too, without looking. She’s an alpha female and a very powerful fae- who will be both queen and alpha female one day.

Our daughter lifts her head to the sky and howls loud, calling us to run and shift with her. I shift along my wolves, who run down the hill, with Rune flying above them, laughing in joy. Only then do I feel a familiar pang in my gut, a need to nest and be ready.

Joy floods me as I lift my head and howl.

Being an omega was worth fighting this vicious world for.