Mated By Fate by Christa Wick
Epilogue
"Why doI feel like there are a hundred people pressing against the walls of this house?” Lana asked from where she sat in a rocking chair nursing her newborn son.
Artemis Gladwin, Seth's mother, lifted her nose to the air to take a few deep sniffs of the vicinity before contradicting her daughter-in-law cheerfully. “More than a hundred. I’d say twice that, at the least."
Eyes stretching wide, Lana looked to Esme for confirmation.
Esme chuckled and nodded. "Pretty much everyone from the clan is lining up for the reception.” She smiled softly as she stroked the full head of hair the adorable new member of the pack was born with. "The guards have a rotation schedule with fifteen minute shifts so they will all get a chance to stop by. There are visitors from the Louisiana, Missouri, and West Virginia clans, too. Maybe a few others. I sent Denver to get more tables to hold all the gifts."
Lana looked from her son to the women, her gaze misting and a small sniffle of alarm escaping her. Unable to interpret her daughter-in-law's distress, Artemis flashed a confused frown at Esme.
"There is a saying among humans that it takes a village to raise a child," Esme explained. "But it is seldom anything more than that—a saying, an empty platitude. In most modern human cultures, only children born to celebrities or royalty draw crowds of any kind."
Esme shifted her attention from Artemis back to Lana, continuing gently so as not to make the new mother feel any more overwhelmed. "For shifters, however, that saying is a deep truth. All that energy you feel is coming from wolves that are here to pay homage to the first offspring born to any of the clans in many years.”
Lana smiled then. “That’s so amazing.”
“It is,” Esme agreed. “I think it’s also a bit contagious. In terms of wanting to bond with the next generation of the packs, it’s my understanding that many have come from all over to petition Jack for the chance to foster the other young cubs discovered these last two weeks."
“In a roundabout way, you could say all the visiting single men out there have caught a similar fever as well,” Artemis added with a bawdy laugh that managed to tease a smile out of Lana. “A whole bunch of them have come by to see if they match with any of the newly discovered latents the clan is sheltering."
Artemis leaned in to give Esme a hug and a wink. "With those charms you sent making it possible for us to travel more safely from California, every unmated male was lining up on our doorstep to volunteer as our bodyguards for the trip. I was ready to give them all tools to fix up some things around the house while they were there, but Jacob wouldn't let me. The clan leader eventually just held a lottery.”
"Wasted opportunity," Lana agreed with a laugh, her mood noticeably lifted.
“I imagine Seth would similarly chase off any men you tried to have work on your house.”
“Oh, he’d be much worse.”
The women giggled in agreement.
“Okay, my dear. You'll want to finish dressing," Artemis said, edging Esme out of the way so that she would be closer when Lana extended her arms for someone to take the sleeping baby.
Reading her mother-in-law's cue, Lana lifted Dash. Artemis claimed him with a wide smile and glowing cheeks, the bulk of her face disappearing as she dropped her head to nuzzle her nose against his cheek.
"I'll help you dress," Esme said, extending an arm to Lana.
Lana pulled onto her feet, leaning slightly on Esme as the two women left the room.
"I didn't expect to be this tired," she confessed once they were alone in her bedroom.
"You gave birth to pure magic. I recall female shifters being equally exhausted back in the day."
Lana's head bobbed. "That's what everyone keeps telling me."
Esme guided Lana to the bed and sat down next to her.
"No one is hiding anything from you," she assured her. "Dash smells exactly as he should for a shifter baby. You said he's nursing—"
"Boy, is he,” Lana laughed, fresh color pinking her cheeks. "Voracious little bugger."
"Six weeks from now, there will be more cubs from the female shifters who have conceived," Esme continued. "And in nine weeks—"
"The next latent will give birth," Lana finished, rising from the bed to grab the blouse and skirt she had selected for the reception welcoming Dash to the clan. "I think I'll feel less of a freak after that."
"I prefer to think of you as a miracle," Esme corrected, her gaze going to the play of light through the curtains as Lana changed clothes.
"Miracle, smeeracle," Lana joked, threading the last button on her blouse. "How do I look? Presentable?"
“You look gorgeous," Esme answered. "I believe our mates are waiting for us in the hall."
"Yeah, mine feels a bit twitchy," Lana said, voice rising to push the words at Seth since he would be able to hear them no matter how softly she spoke.
A playful growl from outside vibrated the walls in response.
Lana immediately lit up. Hearing her mate’s grumpy call seemed to evaporate the last of the new-mother anxiety she’d been showing, which was a relief to Esme. Not wanting to keep the two apart any longer, she opened the door so Seth could storm in and pull his mate into his arms.
Denver stood off to the side while the couple began making their way to the awaiting crowd, his focus locked on Esme the entire time.
That intense gaze instantly made her melt as thoroughly as Lana had melted into her mate’s arms. And the second she felt his hand slide across the small of her back, Esme was hit with that warm blast of contentment and connectedness she’d only ever felt with Denver.
His eyes softened as if he could hear her thoughts. And as surely as if she could hear his, she knew right in that moment he was thinking of all the other ways he could and would be making her melt later.
She shivered.
He grinned.
"How goes crowd control?" Lana asked, interrupting their silent foreplay as they all got closer to the front of the house where Artemis and Jacob waited with the baby.
Seth growled less playfully than before.
Denver outright laughed. “I’m not sure how much control is going on out there. I bet Seth earlier that there’s bound to be at least a dozen hookups before the night is over.”
Lana blinked in surprise. “That many?”
"One of Jacob's guards matched one of the latents we brought in last week almost as soon as he arrived. Not to be outdone, minutes later, one of the West Virginia wolves matched with the first latent we found after Lana.”
“Go latents,” whistled Lana.
“It’s not just the latents,” added Seth. “The latest update is a she-wolf who'd never stepped foot off the sanctuary in New York is now attached at the hip to a cowboy shifter she just met visiting from the Wyoming clan.”
“It’s your charms, Esme,” Lana said, her hand sneaking out to snag and squeeze hers. "They're bringing everyone back together, making it safer for them to travel…making the shifters one people again."
Reclaiming her son from Artemis, Lana held him to her chest while Seth tucked them both protectively in his arms as they finally stepped outside to greet the excited crowd.
Esme and Denver stayed back to let the couple share the joy of their son’s birth with their audience, and vice versa.
As the first line of people came forward to coo over Dash, Esme felt Denver come up behind her, bracing her back against his broad chest as he wrapped his arms around her. “Lana was half right. It’s not just your charms, mate. It’s you. Everything you’ve done and continue to do.”
Esme sank into his strong embrace, feeling not just his words, but also his ever-growing love fill her heart.
His lips brushed her ear. “And they aren’t just one people, they’re your people. All of them out there.”
Yes, they were. Even now, the reminder that she was no longer an outcast still had the power to make her emotional.
And fiercely protective.
While today’s celebration was proof of how much they had to look forward to in their collective futures, Esme didn’t need her magic to know their enemies were still out there, the dark forces after them still more dangerous than ever.
Let them come. They’ll have to go through me.
“Was that a growl, baby?” He raised a brow. “I didn’t think latents growled.”
“This one does.”
“Keep that up and I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself, love.”
Despite more heated warnings from Denver a few times through the night, she kept it up.
And as promised, he wasn’t able to control himself. At all.
—the end—
* * *
turn the page
for an excerpt from the next
book in the series!
Book 2: Masked by Danger
(Cade & Iris’s story)
and fear not, there is more to come for
Denver & Esme in the series finale
Book 3: Marked by Magic
(Available in Sept)
* * *
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