“No fish,” Puppy snarls in deep warning. “I said no fish.”
“Don’t do it, Leaf!” I say before he can hit Puppy with something that will start a war and get everyone in an alpha brawl.
“It’s time!” Brio announces.
Ronit pulls out a set of panpipes and starts to play a haunting melody. He stands alone, the ocean laps around his ankles. His music from his voice is gone, but we discovered they still had the ability to be Sirens. Reed pulls out a flute and joins him, while Lirin and Brio lift their voices in song. Leaf joins in, adding his deep throat singing to the mix.
Canto stands beside me; he doesn’t join in the singing, preferring instead to stand guard. But then, sometimes, I think the sound his sword makes when he’s wielding is his music. I reach out and take his hand in mine.
To my surprise, the alphas around us lift their heads and sing. Then the omegas.
Diablos and Hartley join in and the cats with loud purrs.
The whole beach is awash in sound. Canto hums. It’s a low sound, but it’s saturated in power.
I step into the water, letting go of his fingers.
The sounds are being echoed by the Earth itself. By the forests, the trees, and all the other worlds.
Today is a celebration. The experiment succeeded. It works. We can all live together if we embrace our differences. We don’t need to fight.
I open my mouth and sing.
We’re all a family now. A big one, and we come from different places, but we’re all alphas and omegas, and we all love. Everything else is just…decoration.
Something deep and old wakes in the Earth, rumbling its discontent.
I turn my head, listening behind us as it stirs to life. What have we done now? I’m not worried; we’ve seen so much, fought so much, found people who fit us, brought them into our circle, from Hell to the Darksphere, Heaven to Faerie. Alphas, monsters, misfits needing homes, alphas looking for love.
The world was ready to change, and we brought it…but now… something’s happening again. Everything’s going to change now…but we’re here to protect the Earth, the people who live here and the omegas that the worlds so desperately need.
The song falls into silence, ending as the world turns to dark and the moon rises.
Friend or foe? Are we fighting or are we welcoming this creature? A shiver of excitement runs down my spine.
“Ready?” I ask my shiver.
“Ready,” Canto says and takes my hand. Leaf, Lirin, Ronit, Reed, and Brio move closer so they stand at my back, where they have stood for the last ten years. My lovers, my alphas, my life.
We are strongest when we are together.
Becky throws her head back and laughs as her pack moves closer to her. She started it all, and this is her world. Stix, Puppy, Wilder, and Frost focus on the distant threat, looking like the dangerous threat they are.
“Are you ready, besties?” Becky asks.
“Born ready,” Isla says with a growl.
I tilt my head back, inhaling the air, reading the world, feeling the life around me, this wonderful, strange human place and all the others beyond that call to us.
“We’re always ready. Always hungry. Nothing can stop my monsters and me,” I say confidently. “Let’s play.”
