Podcast green eyes were heavy with grief, but he nodded.‘She’ll be back,’he said before he settled next to me to wait, resting his head on my shoulder as we stared up at the mirror together.
Hours passed, and with each one I felt my bond with Juneau continue to fade. I finally let myself doze off, my nose buried in Podcast’s neck for comfort.
Then I was awoken by a strange tugging feeling. At first, in my sleepy haze, I couldn’t quite figure out where it was coming from.
But it continued insistently and I realized that it wasn’t a what that was pulling on me, but a who. Juneau was yanking on our bond.
“Guys!” I bellowed, hoping the rest of the pack was nearby.
Podcast jolted awake, his body stiffening as he glared at me, rubbing his eyes.‘What gives?’
“Juneau’s pulling on the bond,” I told him as I stood and hurried over to the mirror, pressing my hand to it. It was ice cold.
I frowned and began to yank on my end of the bond, feeling the stretched length of it start to pull tight.
I could hear the sound of thudding footsteps as the rest of the pack slid into the room. “What’s going on?” Bat asked, out of breath.
“Juneau’s pulling on the bond,” I informed them as I slid my hands along the mirror looking for a warm spot. It had been hot the first time she came through.
“That’s impossible,” Doc muttered as he stepped next to me to examine the mirror. “The mirror is broken, how is she supposed to come back?”
“That’s what I’m currently trying to figure out,” I said absent-mindedly as my mind combed through everything that I had learned about the magic that was used to bring Juneau to the future. I knew that it took some sort of connection, two people touching the same object at the same time.
Someone tugged on me and I turned to find Podcast’s fingers wrapped in the back of my shirt. “What?” I asked him.
Podcast pointed a shaky finger at the clock that I had all but forgotten about. It usually looked dusty and worn out, but now as I looked at it, I realized the thing was fucking glowing.
I leapt for the clock, afraid that the glow would disappear if I blinked, and pressed my palm flat against the wood. The skin on my hand burned as a flash of light filled the room and an omega tumbled right into my arms.
“I’ll never get used to that,” she grumbled as she righted herself, blue eyes taking in the scene before her as she waved at us. “Well, I’m back.”
The silent room erupted into a cacophony of voices as the rest of the pack crowded around us, enveloping Juneau and me in a tight group hug.
“I was worried there for a minute, June-bug,” Doc told Juneau as he captured her mouth in a desperate kiss before she was promptly pulled away and into Storm’s arms.
She was passed around from embrace to embrace until she reached me again. Podcast was hanging onto her for dear life, their fingers threaded together as he pressed his face into her neck.
“Welcome back, princess, don’t ever scare us like that again,” I said as I gently pulled her face to mine.
Juneau smiled up at me, her eyes wet with tears. “Seeing as I have our entire lives to drive you absolutely insane it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to make a promise like that.”
I chuckled, my chest finally feeling light. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Epilogue
“Areyousureyouwant to go in alone, sugar?” Bat asked as we stood shivering together with the rest of the pack. The Wilde mausoleum stood in front of us, an imposing marble structure that sat toward the back of a picturesque cemetery in the heart of Boston.
The last time I’d seen the mausoleum was for my father’s funeral, it was strange to be here again now that the rest of my family was buried within its walls. Well, that wasn’t completely true. Not all of the Wilde’s were buried here.
Two months after my return from 1915 a man had shown up at the bar. He looked like the spitting image of Nicky and I’d promptly burst into tears upon seeing him.
He introduced himself as Nick, my brother’s great-grandson.
“My father never believed all of the stories my grandmother Nicolette would tell us, but he did give me her instructions for you if the story turned out to be true,” Nick had explained as we sat together in a booth.
“I always hoped it was true, that you were living your life in the future,” Nick continued, his blue eyes that matched mine sparkling. “I grew up and got married and I tell my own kids the story about you, so it’s surreal to be able to sit here in front of you.”
“I wish I could get to know them,” I’d said a bit wistfully.
