“No,” I say, shaking my head dramatically. “No, I don’t. I’ve had enough adventures to last me a lifetime. All I want to do now is sit somewhere quiet with the four of you.”
“Life’s not going to be quiet, Briony,” Beaufort points out. “You occupy the throne.”
“Youdo,” I counter, although most people I talk to act as if the five of us share the throne together. “And that’s just temporary.”
“Still not going to be a quiet life,” Fox says.
“Definitely not,” Dray says. “Especially when the pups arrive.”
“Pups?” I cry.
“Yeah,” he says, stepping toward me with a grin and laying his hand on my belly. “Can’t wait to start building our own pack, Little Kitten.”
I jab a finger into his chest. “Not yet,” I say. “There’s plenty of time for things like that.”
“There is,” he concedes, drawing me up into his arms.
“And lots of time for practicing.”
“Practice, practice, practice,” he adds. “They say it makes perfect.”
I swoon a little in his arms as my other three mates draw closer.
“I have to admit,” I say, “I do like the sound of that.”
“Of course you do,” Dray says, “because you’re a greedy, needy, little—” I frown at him, “mate,” he finishes.
I laugh, unable to deny that’s true.
And I wonder how it’s possible to feel so happy – so incredibly, delightfully, crazily happy – even out here in the most desolate of places, in a realm once occupied by demons themselves.
I think back to that very first day when I arrived at the academy, when everything had seemed so hopeless, so bleak, and so pointless.
I never imagined I’d make friends, let alone find love.
But I have.
I’ve found all of it.
Found somewhere I belong. Where I’m treasured and protected in the arms of these four men.
And I will treasure and protect them in return.
Yeah, happy doesn’t even begin to describe the way I feel.
“What will we tell those pups,” I say, once we’ve displaced back to Onyx Capital and are strolling through the palace hand in hand. The sun is setting, the sky streaked with scarlet and gold overhead and the approaching night’s air is cool and fresh and fragrant on our faces.
“Kids, not pups,” Fox mutters and I giggle at his bewildered tone.
We’re still getting used to one another, learning about each other with every day that passes. To outsiders we must look like a strange mismatch of people: the Professor, the Wolf, the Emperor, the Killer and the Girl from Slate. But fate must havea better eye for this than any mortal, because the five of us work, even if at times we struggle to understand one another.
“Tell them about what, Kitten?” Dray asks me, swinging our entwined hands.
“About all this,” I say. “Everything that’s happened to us. Everything we’ve done.”
It’s Thorne who answers. He has a hold on my left hand and he squeezes it.
“We’ll tell them the truth,” he says. “We’ll tell them the story of how we met, how we fell in love, and how we lived happily ever after.”
