Epilogue

NOVA

My family was able to enter the pack grounds now that they no longer wanted to harm any members of the pack. We were going to sit and talk in Covyn’s room, but I kinda set it on fire before so it smelt like shit. Instead we went to the kitchen and I cooked for everyone.

My family couldn’t stop smiling at me as I used my curse find everything around me. They knew I hadn’t memorized the layout and chuckled each time I held my hand over a handle only to grab the one beside it.

“You’ll have to come home to the vale,” my father said casually, cutting through the surrounding conversations I had been enjoying.

Daley and Fate found they were in close proximity in their pregnancies based on the different species and their cycles. On the other side Osric was congratulating Covyn on not fucking up, in those exact words, while Sequoia badgered my other brothers for having absolutely no part in my home coming.

‘I won’t leave him dad,’ I thought to him quickly and his eyes met mine.

‘I know,’ he returned just as fast. ‘I accept the deal you have to make, even though it terrifies me.’

I nodded before returning to my soup. ‘Will you stay here?’ I asked Sequoia, and I could feel her eyes on my back.

‘Yes. I’ll take yours and Ambrose’s room,’ she grinned mentally and I could feel it. ‘I want to see where this goes. And it might be no where, but I’ve got time to try.’

I smiled as well and served the bowls.

I ate three times as much as anyone else but it didn’t help. As much as I looked the same, except for my increased healing ability that erased all injuries from Sal and his men along with every shaving scar I’d gotten that week, my body was different. I could feel my power humming louder than anything around me, and it demanded to be fed. I needed to make bargains before I could even get home.

“Make one with me,” Covyn offered later one when my father chastised me for not eating enough. “We can renew the one for the pack lands and we’ll do better to help our brethren.”

I smirked. “That’s kind of you, but haven’t you learned your lesson yet? Even if I don’t weave in any loopholes or accessories, the universe has its own balance.” I gestured to everything outside of my control and then at Daley. “I could make a deal with Daley for a healthy family in exchange for taking in any children presented to them without parents, and then a week later a pack you’ve allied yourself with goes to war and there are now dozens of kids with no families.”

“That’s sad, - but it wouldn’t be so bad,” Daley whispered. “As long as we didn’t cause it,” she added quickly, but they got the point.

It wasn’t worth the risk just for the sake of it. Our deals were for people who were scared, or worried. People who had no options left and it was get a Hail Mary from the universe or lose hope in everything. If our deals didn’t go to these people, they were only for depraved and deprived.

I would make one deal in the pack house, my first and the most important deal of this life, and then I would go down town in my home city. I needed to see Sal’s son and brother, and maybe a few other of the gangs in town. They would get one thing from me and it wouldn’t be sympathy.

I walked around to Ambrose, taking his face in my hand and pressing my lips to his. My brothers groaned in disgust and Daley cooed with joy. His hand slid up and gently held the back of my neck as he returned the kiss but pulled me back, showing me his embarrassment at doing this in front of my father.

‘Do you love me?’ I asked him and he answered correctly quickly. ‘Are you ready to spend the rest of your life with me?’

‘Of course,’ he returned, gripping my neck a little tighter in worry.

’What about the rest ofmylife?’ I asked hesitantly.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘We can make a deal to surpass your mortal lifespan and connect us as one, but that means if either of us dies we both die,’ I return and he kissed me again.

‘Angel, that was my plan if you go before me anyway.’

I smiled and reached over to grab his wrist. This would be the easiest deal I ever created, and I wove it happily between us. I could feel everyone’s eyes on us fade away as I focused on Ambrose. I had him back, I had my phoenix, my family back, I was goinghome.Everything I never though I would get was within reach.

The deal with Ambrose was finalized and I lost a little of my strength for a moment as our strings lined up. He could now come back with me to the vale while I recovered. I didn’t bother to ask him, he understood when my father said it. Ineededto go, and he didn’t want to be apart from me anymore than I wanted to be away from him. Sequoia would remain with Covyn while they figured things out, and in a few months I would be poised on the line between both spaces while I waited to see who would go into labour first.

After so long secluding myself with Sequoia, not having any real family or friends to speak of, I had just accepted that was how my life would be. Now, we were both able to openly share our lives with other people. Just them knowing what we were was a stretch from how things had been. I now knew she had known about Osric’s deal, but of course she had. She put out far too little fuss when I told her I had been seeing a guy at the diner after work and she was all too encouraging for it to continue.

We were finally able to do more than just survive and get by. We could genuinely enjoy each day, me without feeling like I was missing something, and her without having to worry about me. Now that we were apart, that we were no longer linked through our separate magics, I could feel the power she held all on her own. When her and Covyn finally claim each other she wouldn’t just stand beside him as a Luna, she would be a queen.