I feel a wild heat on my throat, like his hard human hand wrapped tight, though I know he’s still a wolf and still rooted deep within me.
I howl myself when it hurts, and when it’s done, Ty licks my tears away and hums as if they’re precious.
I know that when I look at myself again, I’ll see a patch of darker fur in my wolf form. In my human form, I’ll have a new tattoo.
My crown at last.
I feel shivery and shaky. I feelgreat.
And we’ve lain like this before, too many times to count. But tonight, everything is changed. Everything is new.
“My queen,” Ty says in the old language, his snout at my ear.
I already feel different, but those words are like runes. It’s like he’s carving them into my flesh, my bones. I feel myself shimmer intosomeone new. I wonder if the fire will hear me moan when I go. If it will be Ty’s name.
“Your queen,” I say in the same old way, formal and forever.
Then, together, we howl out the true name of the moon that only werewolves know, and it’s done.
It’s like a different source of light is in me now. As if there is the sun now, the moon always. And now this. Us.
Burning bright forever. Connected in ways that I canfeel. I can’t feel that link that I knew was fate, drawing us together.
Instead it’s like I’m inside of him too. As if we will never be apart, no matter what our bodies do. It’s beautiful. It’s hot. It’s our song, and we get to sing it for the rest of our lives.
“Did you know?” I ask him, in wonder.
He nips at me, gently. “I hoped.”
Eventually, we separate, but when we sit up we press against each other. Feeling ourselves separate takes some adjusting. I feel almost like a new cub again, unsure how to operate my own body.
We sit there for a long while, all alone. Away from the noise in the pack, the burning bodies of our enemies, and the future unfolding before us.
As soon as we see the first hint of the coming morning, we break into an easy kind of trot and head back down, out of the mountains, and into the brand-new year.
I am claimed now. We are mated. All of our struggles with fate are over.
Vinca is gone, and the world is new.
And if I have anything to say about it, ours.
28.
Wolf Moon, Last Quarter Half-Moon
It’s almost a week later when we gather at Winter’s house for a battle postmortem, which seems to be the go-to place after potentially apocalyptic run-ins with death bitches. Crater Lake is full. The lava tubes are blocked once more.
Almost like it never happened. Unless you were there.
“Winter and I scoured Briar’s cottage,” Savi says. “There’s a whole dark fae rune situation under that throw rug.”
“I knew that rug was weird,” I mutter, slumping in my favorite chair. Over by the boarded-up window, Ty smiles. He smiles a lot more these days, but then, so do I.
“I found the necklace my brother gave me,” Winter says. “Tossed in the corner of the cottage.”
I realize I remember that—and that I forgot to tell them about it, what with one thing and another, a battle and a claiming and all the rest. I recount everything that happened to me in that crater when they weren’t with me.
“She was wearing that necklace for a while,” I tell them when I’m done. “That’s why we couldn’t scent any power in her. She was deliberately hiding it.” I think about how her scent was always confusing. Maybe that should have been a clue when the scents of the sacrifices were equally confusing,but I can’t turn back time. I frown at Winter. “When did you lose that necklace?”
