We sat there in silence, watching the flowers bloom and the grass sway in the breeze.
“I’ve been thinking about expanding our family,” she said.
I lost the ability to breathe. “Tell me more about this thinking.”
“Well.” Her smile gave her away. “Genetically speaking, the combination of wolf shifter and witch could produce fascinating results.”
“You want pups.”
“Babies. They’re called babies.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing.” She twisted to face me properly. “Babies are human infants. Pups are canine offspring. The terminology matters.”
“They’re baby wolves. That makes them pups.”
“They’ll be human children who can shift. That makes them babies.”
I grinned at her. “We’re going to have this argument for their entire childhood, aren’t we?”
“Probably.” Her expression softened. “What do you think our children will be like?”
“Smart. You are, so they will be too. And they’ll be completely unmanageable because they’ll inherit your stubbornness and a touch of my wolf.”
“They’ll ask a thousand questions and want to research everything.”
“They’ll climb trees and howl at the moon and drive us both wild.”
Small bodies running through our compound. Laughter echoing up the hundred and four steps. The suite filled with the chaos of children who belonged to both our worlds.
“Maybe we should start making them,” I said. “Whatever we decide to call them.”
Her smile rose. “Maybe we should.”
I kissed her and everything else fell away.
After, I watched her laugh and thought about the hundred and four steps and the flowers I’d nearly killed and the mop we’dridden and the moment she’d gone first with her vows because she had the evidence ready.
I’d run my territory alone for thirteen years. I didn’t know what I’d been missing.
This woman was my forever. She’d walked into my life with a notebook and a squirrel and dismantled every defense I’d built.
She’d solved problems I couldn’t fix alone.
She looked at me like I was worth choosing again and again.
We didn’t need documentation for this. No notebooks or careful observation. Just the two of us choosing each other over everything else.
“Ah, Acorn.” Victoria sighed. “Let me tell you what he just said.”
The witch who measured all she found, discovered love can’t be bound by logic, reason, or a chart. It lives eternal in the heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
EPILOGUE 2: ELIZABETH
The kitchen had always been Elizabeth’s favorite room in the manor, though she’d never admit it to anyone but Grimble. Perhaps it was the warmth of the hearth or the way steam rose from the soup pot in lazy spirals, carrying the scent of thyme and rosemary. The vegetables she’d harvested from her garden this morning waited on the cutting board.
