Page 27

EPILOGUE

Back in his human form, Duncan drove when we left the cabin. With snow still falling, I was happy to let him have the wheel. Bolin rode in the back with Jasmine, who’d also returned to her human form. Soon after the battle, I’d changed back and spoken to my son. He hadn’t said much, mostly that he planned to return to Shoreline with his friends in the morning. I’d been tempted to grab his ear, throw him in the van, and say he would ride back with his mother. Now .

But his eyes had been haunted, and I had the feeling he wanted some time before dealing with what he’d seen—with deciding if his brain would accept what his eyes had witnessed. And maybe I needed a night’s sleep too before having to face questions I didn’t know if I was ready to answer. For now, he was safe. Tomorrow would be soon enough to deal with the rest.

Tonight, I would ask Duncan how the hell he’d found the male version of the Medallion of Memory and Power, the match to my mother’s artifact.

But before I could bring it up, and only scant minutes into our journey, Duncan turned left. The van headed into a snow- blanketed park, evergreens rising up on either side of the road and hiding the sky.

“This is where you were before, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes. I need to pick something up.” He winked, tapped the medallion, then removed it from around his neck and placed it in the cupholder. Not explaining further, he parked and hopped out.

Soon, he returned with a large black case over his shoulder, snow dusting the lid. It was the same one I’d watched the bipedfuris take out of his van at Mom’s cabin. After storing it in the back, Bolin and Jasmine raising eyebrows but not asking anything, Duncan returned to the driver’s seat.

“My SCUBA gear,” he explained.

“I did wonder what was in there—and how you, in your bipedfuris form, thought to grab that. Did Radomir compel you to do so?”

“No. You did.”

“Me?”

“Technically, it was your mother’s medallion, I think. Though the message seemed to be conveyed through the talisman. It was hard to tell.”

“The, uhm, message?” I remembered all the weird glowing magic and magnetism between the talisman, medallion, and artifact, but how could a message have been conveyed? By inanimate jewelry? Or had the mushroom artifact somehow been responsible? I remembered the brief notion I’d had of it being pleased.

“Kind of a vision.”

Okay, I’d had a couple of visions of my own, so that made more sense.

“It conveyed to me that I would find the matching medallion at the bottom of a lake. This lake.” Duncan waved toward the shoreline, though the water wasn’t visible through the woods from our position. “But it also seemed to suggest I’d need to hold my breath for a long time to reach it. It was deep in the water, in the mud under a rocky shelf that I barely squeezed past. All these years, the rock and mud have been muffling its magic so nobody sensed it. I didn’t detect it until I was almost on top of it.”

He smiled, looking pleased by the adventure he’d had. It had been, I supposed, a much more lucrative treasure hunt than many he went on.

“You were able to grasp that you needed SCUBA gear as the bipedfuris?”

“Yes, the bipedfuris is bright.” His smile turned a touch smug. Proud of his furry form, was he?

“Did you use that gear as the bipedfuris?” I gaped at the thought of a big werewolf swimming around with goggles, a mouthpiece, and a tank on its back.

“Alas, no. I had to change into my usual self. The water was freezing without fur to keep me warm.”

“It is winter.”

“Quite.”

“And you found the medallion out there? All this time, it’s been at the bottom of a recreational lake surrounded by vacation homes?”

“Well, if your archivist was right about the timeline, this was probably all wilderness back then.” He shrugged.

“It’s amazing that you were able to resist the control device and detour here.”

“It wasn’t much of a detour, and finding this is what Radomir wanted me to do.” Duncan ticked the medallion. “Also, he was staying in that cabin at one point, so I’ve been in the area before.”

“That cabin?” I pointed my thumb back toward the road. “The one Oakley won a stay in?”

“If I’d known the address, I could have told you that was a ruse from the beginning. Radomir rented it for the winter. I don’t know how he—or more likely Abrams—got the information, but he knew the medallion was somewhere up in this area. I’m sure he didn’t know it was that close.”

“You said before you didn’t know where he was staying.” I texted Austin right then and told him to make sure to pack up and leave extra early. I doubted Radomir would return that night and risk running into Duncan again, but if I’d known he had been staying there at one point…

“Oh, I didn’t when you asked. He’s been bouncing around from place to place. He’d cleared out of that cabin and was in a hotel the last time he’d summoned me.” Duncan shrugged. “Like I said, he was worried you and your pack would retaliate if you found him.”

“Oh, I would have.” I remembered chomping down on the control device in my wolf form. Even though it had been satisfying, I wish I’d also gotten to chomp down on Radomir. At least the device was gone. So far, Duncan didn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects, but, when I’d turned back into my human self, I’d worried I’d made a mistake. All along, I’d only wanted to steal it.

Duncan put the van in gear and took us back out to the main road. “I’m afraid I didn’t sense your sword when I was near Radomir’s armored SUV.”

“Did you expect to? It wasn’t his thugs who robbed me.”

“No, but I’d wondered if there might be a connection between Radomir and the vandals who’ve been terrorizing you and your apartment complex. It may be, however, that these covens of evil are harassing you independently of each other.”

“It would be a shame if only one such organization was making my life difficult.”

Duncan nodded, his expression pensive as he gazed through the windshield. He might have won a victory by finding the medallion, but he must still lament that the sword had been stolen.

Even though he hadn’t spoken a word of blame, I couldn’t help but feel chagrined that I had allowed that to happen. As valuable as the magical blade was, I should have hidden it when I wasn’t practicing with it. It wouldn’t have fit in the heat duct under the bed alongside the case, but I could have stashed it somewhere .

“All this means,” Duncan said, “is that we’ll have to deal with them independently.”

“You’ll stick around to help?”

“ Certainly, my lady. Especially now.” He ticked the medallion again. “I acknowledge that this rightfully belongs to your pack and isn’t mine to wear, but since it helped me fight off the magic of the control device, I hope your family will allow me to borrow it until we can deal with your problems. Radomir has many more magical artifacts at his disposal, and it would be useful to have.”

“My family doesn’t even know you have it. You can borrow it for…” I almost said as long as you want , but my mother hoped to see it returned to the pack before she died. “For a while, I’m sure. You found it, after all. My pack wouldn’t have any clue it was still around if not for you.”

“I did find it, and I quite enjoyed the challenge of doing so, but your family is known to keep tabs on you—and me, being rather enjoyably in your proximity so often. I shouldn’t wish for them to spot me with it around my neck and assume I intend to keep it. Even if the most belligerent werewolves are gone, the others might join forces to forcibly remove it from my person.”

“We could pelt them with salamis if they try.”

“I don’t know if they’ll be as food motivated as an eight-year-old boy,” he said.

“You saw him take it, huh?”

“Certainly.”

“Were you that food motivated as a pup?”

“I’m that food motivated now. Why do you think I keep coming to your aid?”

“Because of the chocolate I give you? ”

“Embedded with such delightful items as bacon bits, cacao nibs, and coffee beans, yes.”

“And here I thought my natural allure was what drew you.”

“Your allure is quite lovely.”

“But not as lovely as dark-chocolate-smothered bacon bits?”

“Well, on par with that, certainly.”

“I’m touched.”

Duncan bowed his head toward me. “I should like to take the medallion to your mother—your pack—and assure her that I have no intention of keeping it. Then I can politely ask if I might borrow it until we’ve eliminated the various threats to your livelihood. I would also like to put an end to whatever megalomaniacal plans Radomir and Abrams have for the artifacts. I trust you wouldn’t be opposed to driving them out of your state.”

“I’d like to drive them off a cliff.”

“That’s an option. Cliffs are abundantly present in your mountain forests.”

“You’re stirring up my fantasies.”

“By speaking of forests and cliffs? I’d prefer it if it was my masculine appeal that aroused fantasies in you.”

“We don’t always get what we want.” Though it had been a long day and night, and I worried about the future, I managed a smile for him and relaxed, even dozed for a while, until we turned into the parking lot for Sylvan Serenity.

For this late an hour, there were a lot of cars with headlights on. It was almost midnight and, with the snow, one wouldn’t have expected people to be out.

Not surprisingly, more than one police vehicle was parked next to my truck. Officer Dubois stood on the sidewalk near them, Rue a few steps away. I couldn’t tell if she was handcuffed, but my stomach sank as the officer looked toward us.

Abruptly, I was glad Austin had stayed behind. I didn’t want him to watch me be arrested. When he stepped onto his plane to return to Air Force training, I wanted him to remember me as a hero.

“The bobbies in this city enjoy spending a great deal of time here, don’t they?” Duncan asked.

“It’s my allure. They’re drawn to it.”

“Even the female officer?”

“Oh, she’s especially drawn to it.” I grimaced.

Seeing Rue reminded me of the potions she’d given me, including the one I didn’t want to take, the one that could allow me to locate the hideout of the motorcycle thugs. Maybe… to get the sword back, I would suck it up and consume it. Suck it down , rather.

I bared my teeth, my esophagus rippling with distaste at the thought, but I owed it to Duncan to find the weapon. Not only because it had been a generous gift but because he wanted me to have it. Even with the medallion around his neck, our enemies remained out there, and it was possible I would need the sword again. Just in case.

Duncan pulled into a parking spot, and Dubois headed our way. If she arrested me, I wouldn’t have a chance to suck anything down. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need a sword in jail.

“Do you think salamis would work to bribe her into pretending she didn’t see us change?” Duncan asked.

“Sadly not. She’s not a werewolf.”

“Alas for her to go through life so handicapped.”

I snorted and climbed out to face her. Rue waved. Did she look… cheerful under the glow of the nearest parking lot lamp? If nothing else, she wasn’t handcuffed.

“Good evening, Ms. Valens,” Dubois said.

“Hi.”

“Your apartment complex has been deemed a locale of special interest.”

“Fantastic. Why don’t you let the owners know? I’m sure they’ll want to add that to their marketing materials.”

“It’s for sale? I suppose that doesn’t surprise me.”

“Yeah, strangely the owners aren’t delighted by the increased crime in the area.” In this area specifically.

Dubois frowned. “We are attempting to address that, but we only have so many officers, and, as you’ve observed, our presence here isn’t always enough to deter criminals.”

“Yeah.” I braced myself, waiting for her to bring up my werewolfness. There was no way she hadn’t figured that out.

“I lost my partner last night,” she said grimly. “We weren’t expecting such an organized attack. That was a mistake.”

“They were more than I expected too.” I didn’t mention the glowing purple weapon that had been like daggers to the brain.

Dubois met my gaze. Here it came…

“I believe you saved my life,” she said.

I didn’t answer, expecting her to say that it didn’t matter. She knew I’d been responsible for the deaths weeks before. She knew what I was and would arrest me.

After a few silent moments, Dubois raised her eyebrows. “That was you, wasn’t it? There were two, ah, wolves, but the black one… had your eyes.”

“Huh.” I didn’t see a recording device, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have one active in her pocket. My gut told me not to admit anything.

“From what I saw, I no longer believe your tenant is training attack wolves.” Dubois waved toward Rue.

“I told you that from the beginning,” Rue muttered. “As if my famil— my cat would have allowed that. She gets huffy even when one of those two has been in the apartment.” She pointed at me and at Duncan.

So much for my attempt not to admit anything.

“I can imagine,” Dubois murmured. “Anyway, I came to let you know that we’ll increase the number of officers on patrol around this area, and that I’m not… arresting your tenant.”

“Or anyone else here?” I asked warily.

She looked toward Duncan and then me. “Not at this time.”

“Oh.”

Dubois smirked and said, “You’re welcome,” before heading to her patrol car.

“Thanks,” I called after her.

Duncan had waited for our conversation to finish, but now he joined me. “Perhaps you were correct about her being drawn to your allure.”

I shook my head, having a feeling Dubois merely believed that she owed me one. “ You’re the one she saw naked.”

“And yet she comes back to visit you . Strange.”

“Indeed.” I looked at my phone to see if Austin had called or texted, but he hadn’t. There was, however, a message from Lorenzo.

A word of warning. The pack wise wolf, who is quite attuned to magic and the artifacts of our kind, believes the medallion you seek may be about in the world again.

Amused, I looked toward the cupholder in Duncan’s van. He’d been right. There was no way the family wouldn’t have learned that he had it.

Yes, I replied. We’ll come see you about it tomorrow.

“Should I be nervous?” Duncan asked as he drove us through Monroe and out toward my mother’s cabin.

We’d waited until midmorning to head out, since I’d wanted to be there when Austin returned, but he’d gone straight to his room without saying much. I worried he would need months rather than a few hours to process that his mother was a werewolf .

“The whole pack has seen you as the bipedfuris now.” I opened my purse, fished out my GAS envelope, and tucked a twenty-dollar bill under the bobblehead doll on the dash. Since we’d driven Duncan’s van all the way to Maple Falls and back the night before, I owed him extra for gas money. “I don’t think anyone is going to mess with you over borrowing the medallion.”

“If you really thought that, you wouldn’t have stopped to buy all those salamis, including the gourmet summer sausage made from wagyu beef.”

“They got some new offerings in at the farm store. I wanted to support them. Though I’m not sure about the beef-and-cranberry one the clerk assured me is fabulous. Wolves aren’t that known for hoovering fruit out of cranberry bogs. Maybe Emilio will eat it.”

Duncan’s knowing gaze promised he believed I had changed the subject on purpose.

“Okay, I don’t know if they’ll be delighted by the idea of you wearing it. I figured some meat bribes couldn’t hurt.”

“I thought so. That’s why I got these early this morning.” Duncan reached behind his seat and pulled out a Trader Joe’s bag stuffed with sausage and salami logs as well as bars of dark chocolate.

I drew out some of the bars. They had cacao nibs and espresso beans in them and promised 70mg of caffeine in each serving.

“You want my family to be perky while they try to rip the medallion off your neck?”

Duncan eyed the label as I pointed to the caffeine amount. “It’s possible I didn’t think out that choice well.”

“You should have visited the cannabis store instead. Weed is known to mellow out werewolves, and it goes well with chocolate. I even have a recipe for pot brownies.”

“An interesting thing for a mother of two and a generally upright citizen to admit.”

“Marijuana is legal in Washington.” Now , it was. I’d possibly acquired that recipe before that change had been made. “And mothers of two often unruly boys need mellow time now and then. Trust me.”

“I do.” Duncan gazed thoughtfully out the windshield.

I wondered if he was thinking of his young clone brother. Had he gotten to speak with the boy yet? Did he want to? Having a clone wasn’t the same as having a child. And a sibling more than forty years younger than oneself had to be a weird thing.

When we arrived, we found numerous family members around the property, most in wolf form. They sure liked to hang out here, didn’t they?

Jasmine stepped out the front door. Maybe she was the reason the pack had shown up. Either she or Lorenzo could have told them I would come visit this morning.

“There are no secrets in a family, I suppose,” I murmured.

“Did your pack grow ? There are wolves here I haven’t seen before.”

“Extended family.”

“Maybe I should have brought more salami.”

“I think so.”

Numerous sets of lupine eyes turned toward us—toward Duncan —and I suspected Jasmine had mentioned the medallion. This close, the werewolves might also sense it.

As we parked next to a couple of trucks, Lorenzo stepped into the doorway, fully clothed today, and said something to Jasmine. Duncan, perhaps feeling presumptuous about wearing the medallion, removed it from his neck and handed it to me.

I wanted to assure him, once again, that he’d found it, after it had been lost for generations, so nobody would object to him modeling it or even borrowing it for a while, but I couldn’t speak for the rest of the pack. In a logical world, they would feel the same way I did, but when did family ever act logically?

“Not a lot of Mr. Spock werewolves,” I said .

Duncan looked over at me, making me wonder if I should explain my thoughts, but he waved at the wolves and said, “Most of them do have pointed ears.”

He hopped out of the van before I could reply.

With Lorenzo waving for us to come into the cabin, I didn’t delay further, merely grabbing some snacks—bribes—and heading for the porch steps. I spotted Emilio in wolf form. He glanced at the medallion but focused on what really mattered to him and wagged his tail. I put a salami in his mouth, trusting his sharp teeth would be capable of removing the plastic wrap if he wanted to eat it in that form. A couple other wolves came up, blocking the steps until I also gave them meat gifts. When I ran out, they turned to Duncan, and he delved into his grocery bag.

“I’ll reserve the chocolate bars for those in human form,” he said, finding a way between the furry obstacles to set stacks of them on the porch railing. “I’ve not tried eating desserts in my lupine state, but I understand dogs can’t consume chocolate, and our GI tracts aren’t that different from theirs.”

“Theirs are far inferior,” came Mom’s voice from the cabin. She stepped up beside Lorenzo and leaned on him. Right away, her gaze latched onto the medallion in my hand. “They’re like vultures and crows, scavengers that will eat anything.”

“I think you can deliver the chocolate bars to her and her discerning palate,” I told Duncan.

“Yes. Come in.” Mom pointed at the medallion rather than the bars. That was what she wanted delivered.

Duncan and I joined her and Lorenzo inside. Jasmine slipped out to give us privacy.

“You found it,” Mom said quietly as I set the medallion on the table.

“Duncan found it. I just drove up to pick him up afterward.”

I thought about mentioning the dramatic night rescuing Austin and his friends, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t care about my sons. They weren’t werewolves, and thus, in her eyes, they were as inferior as dogs. We’d argued over that before, and I didn’t want to again. Besides, she looked rough this morning and leaned on Lorenzo again when he came over. There’d been a time—most of her life—when she wouldn’t have leaned on anyone for anything.

“It was a most delightful and perfect pick-up,” Duncan said. “Luna brought my own van to me. Quite thoughtful.”

I expected Mom to ignore him and examine the medallion more closely, but she only ignored his silliness and nodded politely at him.

“Where was it?” she asked. “It’s been gone my whole life.”

“In the chilly depths of Silver Lake near Maple Falls,” Duncan said. “I’ve magnet-fished in another body of water called Silver Lake that lies not too many miles north of Luna’s home. They don’t have the most creative or imaginative names for places here, do they?”

“Maybe you’d prefer the likes of Mukilteo, Puyallup, and Quileute?” I asked. “We have those names too.”

“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “Do they mean Silver Lake in another language?”

I snorted. “They might.”

“That you’ve found our pack’s missing medallion means a great deal to us,” Mom told Duncan.

“It was an honor to quest for something of value to Luna’s family,” he replied. “I was wondering… Well, we discovered that it has the power to nullify controlling magic.” He waved to his forehead but didn’t continue on. Maybe he didn’t want to admit to being susceptible to that in front of my mother?

I didn’t point out that she’d been there when he’d been clutching his forehead the day before and fighting not to give in.

“I wondered if I might borrow it for a while,” he said. “Luna did destroy the device that was being used specifically on me, but those who held it have many other magical artifacts. Until we’ve dealt with those men, it would be ideal to have extra protection against such items.”

Mom picked up the medallion, turning it over in her hands several times as she examined it from all angles. I expected her to object, to say that the pack couldn’t risk losing it.

“I believe,” she said slowly, lifting it toward Duncan, “that you may be meant to wear it.”

He blinked. “ Meant to?”

“You went on a quest to find it and succeeded when nobody else has, and you are of the Old World with the ability to turn into the bipedfuris. I believed before that you would be a good mate for my daughter, to give her powerful werewolf offspring, but now I think it is more than that.”

“Oh?” Was that wariness in Duncan’s tone?

Worried I knew where Mom was going with this, I didn’t blame him for it.

“You were meant to impregnate my daughter,” she said.

I slumped and groaned. Why did she have to bring that up every time Duncan was here?

“That’s really romantic, Mom,” I muttered.

“I was hoping for recreational hunting and frolicking before talk of impregnation came up.” Duncan’s tone was light, but his eyes had grown haunted.

Mom handed the medallion to him. “You may use it while you are in the area and working with my daughter. Or until… Well, you have a place in the pack now. If you want it.”

“I’ll think about it. Thanks.” Eyes still haunted, Duncan only met my gaze briefly before walking out.

I shook my head, afraid my mother would drive him away. Offspring weren’t what I wanted from him. We hadn’t even had sex yet. I just liked him and enjoyed his company and wished the world would leave us alone long enough that we could, as he’d said, hunt and frolic recreationally.

“He would be an acceptable mate for you,” Mom told me, “and a capable alpha for the pack.”

“I have no doubt of that,” I said.

What I didn’t know was if Duncan wanted either of those things.

THE END

Thank you for continuing on with Luna’s adventure!

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