Page 21

–Callum–

“I’LL NEVER FORGET looking up into my mother’s eyes for the last time on the boat, knowing I was going to lose her soon,”

Storm said softly as we sat around a campfire in Tréan’s Great Den. Having become my wife just a few short hours ago, she now sat wrapped up in my arms on my lap, where I meant to keep her until the end of forever.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you,”

she went on, meeting her cousins’ eyes where they sat on my brothers’ laps. “I didn’t want to scare you because it had been such a beautiful day, and I didn’t want to ruin it even though I knew what was coming.”

She swallowed hard. “Knew it had to.”

“And it did,”

Kaia said softly, shaking her head, reflecting on the day that had started it all, blinking back tears as she looked at Storm with the reassurance I knew my mate needed. Reassurance she'd needed for most of her life for the guilt she carried. “But it was a beautiful day before that.”

“It absolutely was,”

Naya agreed, her eyes damp as well when she looked at Storm with reassurance, too.

Storm’s eyes welled as we all saw it clearly in her memory. The warm sun shining down on Boston’s coastal waters. All the laughter they shared because their parents had splurged on a harbor day cruise.

There was no need to talk about Storm and her mother knowing what was coming because it no longer mattered. It was in the distant past, and however horrific the outcome, everyone had one last beautiful day together before fate took over.

“And it was fate, lass,”

Adlin said gently from where he sat across the fire. “Your fate.”

He looked at me. “And yours.”

He looked at everyone else sitting with us, from my brothers and their mates to Conner and Gráinne to Mave and her woman to Broderick, who sat beside me and Storm, then to Ceara, who was curled up sleeping close to the flames with the pups. “All of your fates. Destinies intertwined so more destinies can follow in this ever-expanding tapestry we call life.”

I felt Mave’s tenderness when her gaze fell to Ceara, who had wasted no time going to her best friend when we returned earlier. Ceara had rested her wolf’s head—muzzle still damp with their enemy’s blood—on Mave’s lap where she lay recovering, proving she was every bit the matriarch she was destined to be when she’d offered only forgiveness. Nothing but love because Mave had suffered just as much in her own way.

As Storm had promised, the pack mourned those who had lost their lives over the past few days, including Mave’s male lovers. As was our way, they were burned upon pyres and drifted on the cool winds of our homeland until they joined the gods. Then, as was tradition, we celebrated their lives and remembered them fondly.

Yet with loss came new beginnings as Kaia finally agreed to wed Tréan, and they married alongside us, then shared the news that Kaia was expecting.

More powerful pups were on the way.

Resting my hand on Storm’s womb, I could hardly wait to share the same news when the day came. Feeling the same, she rested her hand over mine and met my eyes with a new type of wisdom born of her magic, yet again grateful to see me staring back at her, and I understood why.

I would forever regret how Tadc had overtaken my wolf so completely and how evil I had become in such a short time. I would always be grateful for what Storm had done because I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself had I truly killed so many of my own, especially my brothers.

Any anger I felt was gone now, considering I had since learned Tréan had exiled me on purpose because he, too, sensed things had to go a certain way to reach this outcome, and he’d truly struggled with his decision. Brutal and heartbreaking were the words he had used to describe it, and I could not agree more. Suffice it to say, when I learned they were alive and well, I embraced each brother tightly, never so grateful to have them by my side.

As hoped, few of Tadc’s pack members were slain during the battle, and many, finally out from beneath their maker’s hold and having been present during Storm’s True Moon shift, joined our Exiles, while others chose to join either Tréan’s pack or Bain's. It turned out Blaithin had lost her life in battle, not all far from where Tadc ultimately fell, which was fitting because, in many ways, she had been as dark as he was.

As to the kingdom I had abandoned? All forgave me for leaving them, and all chose to join our Exiles, essentially just keeping them in the kingdom that was theirs to begin with because my castle and territory were returned to me. Or should I say us because all of it, every last square inch, belonged just as much to my beloved queen.

“I caused the fire the day we lost our parents, though, Adlin,”

Storm murmured, returning me to the here and now. “My dragon fire somehow ignited beneath those dark waters and brought the enemy close. And my storm brought the boat down in the first place.”

“A storm and fire you hardly understood at that age,”

Broderick said softly, resting his hand on her shoulder. His dragon eyes flared when they connected with hers. “But both helped me find my closest friend. May I always count you—”

he nodded at me before looking at her again— “and your fated mate as good friends always.”

“At the very least,”

I said, answering for her, having gained great respect for the Scotsman now that I was free from jealousy and saw clearly all he had been willing to do for me, my mate, and our pack. “If ever you need us, but call.”

I winked. “We know a thing or two about time travel and all it can throw at you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Broderick’s gaze fell to the grey pup. “Though something tells me a wee dragonly pup might need the sort of mentorship I can offer when and if the time comes, and in my century, no less.”

As if he heard from deep within his dreams, the pup’s ears perked, and a tiny puff of harmless magical fire curled over him, wrapped around his siblings and mother, and then dissipated.

“And that day might come sooner than you think, laddie,”

Adlin murmured, gesturing at Broderick’s side.

“Amazing how it does that.”

Naya grinned at the Viking blade, now sheathed at Broderick’s side when moments before, it had been leaning beside me and Storm.

“’Tis indeed.”

Tréan lowered his head to Broderick before his golden eyes flared, connecting with the Scotsman’s dragon eyes, and he bequeathed the sword his Viking friends had given him to those who needed it next. “May it protect you and yours as well as it has me and mine.”

“May it indeed.”

Broderick’s eyes met Storm’s one last time with affection before he wisped away in a burst of dragon smoke, but not before saying, “May we meet again soon, my friend.”

“I hope so,”

she said softly, blinking back tears that didn’t make me envious anymore but thankful he'd always been by her side when she needed him.

“Indeed,”

Adlin began, about to say more before he perked up, and his blue eyes twinkled. “It seems a wee lass far in our future is mumbling something about a Scot of Yesteryear, whatever that means.”

He rubbed his hands together in anticipation and grinned at us all. “But I intend to find out, my friends, so I wish you all fine times, great peace, and lots of pups until next we meet.”

Before anyone could reply, he vanished in a whirl of light, undoubtedly off to the future and the next round of time travelers destined to find their fated mates across the centuries.

While logistics needed to be worked out regarding what came next now that Tadc’s wolves had sworn their loyalty to Tréan as their arch-alpha and spread out through our various packs, now wasn’t the time for any of us.

Not when we were all so eager to bring our mates back to our dens and properly reunite, of which I wasted no time, bidding all goodnight as I carried Storm through tunnel after tunnel until I finally brought her to my den for the first time.

“It’s beautiful,”

she murmured, awed as I lay her down on my fur-covered bed. Her gaze roamed the concave of roots and leaves and bountiful nature I had ensured would be here for her always. She inhaled deeply, pulling in the scent of my most sacred place as I chanted away our clothes and came over her.

“You’ve had no other female here,”

she exclaimed softly. Her wolven eyes flared, and she gazed so lovingly at me that my heart swelled more than it already did every second of every minute I was around her. “Ceara wasn’t here.”

“No.”

I traced her cheek as I settled between her welcoming thighs, beyond grateful I was back, and she was all mine in every sense of the word. “Never.”

I shook my head. “No wolf once I knew you were out there. This was—”

the roots and leaves flickered with soft light— “our space, even if I could never have you.”

“Yet you do now, and you’ll never lose me,”

she whispered, pulling my lips to hers. She wrapped her legs around me, gasping against my lips when I took her with one long, deep thrust like I had wanted to since the moment we were married.

“You mean since the moment I tempted you against a tree in an illusion,”

she moaned throatily, putting me right back there, meeting her groans as I thrust again and again, driving her up that fantastical tree until she screamed in pleasure and arched against me. Right there with her, I let go and lost myself in everything she made me feel, not just then and there but always until the end of my days.

The Wolves of Ossary had begun anew that day, finding footing not just here in medieval Ireland, as our futuristic mates called it, but in the twenty-first century, too.

As expected, Naya and Bain wouldn’t achieve an entire takeover of the Boston faction of the Irish Wolf Mafia. They were, however, able to turn several more their way and began an extension of the Wolves of Ossary that would thrive well into the future. Sure, there would be trouble, but they were ready for it. Especially when their wee Renegade pups were old enough to help rule, fondly known as the Renegades branch of the Wolves of Ossary.

Meanwhile, Ceara found love of her own and rose as a strong, wise matriarch who counseled all sects of the Wolves of Ossary well, and Tréan and Kaia grew old together, raising many pups and leading our pack into a bright new future free of evil.

After much heartache and grieving, Mave and her woman eventually fell in love again with another female and male, welcoming them into their family, making the male very lucky in Naya's opinion. Even Gráinne and Conner mated and had a round of late-life pups, their wee ones every bit as tough and fiercely independent as them.

As to me and my beautiful Storm? Our fury and fire blazed a future we never could have anticipated. We went on to rule the Exiles and had several pups of our own. Fierce little dragonly wolves with distinct personalities destined to grow up with a whole new generation of wolves.

And what of the pups at the center of it all?

That story is better left for another day, but don’t doubt it isn’t about them protecting and loving their pack and following the examples of their elders.

Better yet, finding everlasting love and harnessing the power of fated mates.

Curious about what happens to Laird Broderick MacLeod now that he possesses the Viking sword? Will he find love of his own? Find out in Her Scot of Yesteryear, Book One in my MacLeod Dragons series.

Just Curious

First off, I’d like to thank all of you who have kept reading my books and followed my characters over the years. As I always say, without you, they’d be voiceless, their stories forever untold. I’d also like to thank those of you who just found me. I hope you’ve enjoyed spending time with all my various characters. Enough so that you might share your experience.

To that point, if you enjoyed Of Fury and Fire, would you consider leaving a rating or review? Just a line or two. It would mean the world and make such a difference in reaching more readers and continuing the craft I love. If you’re up for it, thank you in advance. I appreciate it more than you know, as do my characters.

Hugs!