Vindicated by Bella Klaus
Epilogue
In the ten years since I first met Fenrir, not a day had passed when I didn’t thank fate for bringing me the best of all mates. We never celebrated our anniversaries—not because it was the night I was murdered, but because we were both too busy with Full Moon Mixers.
Fenrir and I walked hand in hand through a cordon of armed enforcers. Behind them the crowd stretched all the way to the cluster of tall buildings that surrounded us on three sides.
The sky was a dark indigo, and the full moon illuminated the wisps of clouds, a vibrant shade of steel blue. Drumbeats filled the air, played by shamans in white linen tunics positioned at the base of the stage.
“It’s even more crowded than last year,”Fenrir grumbled into our bond.
I squeezed his hand. “Just think of all the business our people are getting from other cities.”
He chuckled, and we continued toward the stage.
These days, we couldn’t hold mixers in the alpha’s compound. Not with the population being eight times what it was a decade ago.
Now, Logris was called Shifter City, a haven that welcomed all species… as long as they descended from people who could transform into animals. Lunaris was now mostly wolves, although a few rodents like Big Felipei and Chubby Cheryl had refused to leave Nivalis Row.
We had villages for sleuths of bears, prides of lions, bands of gorillas, and every other imaginable group of shifters. All were welcome—as long as they weren’t associated with the Supernatural Council.
Mondo stood at the microphone and cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Let’s have a round of applause for the alphas of Shifter City!”
My lips curled into a smile. Mondo was the name the twins called themselves when they merged into a seven-foot-tall human with fierce eyes who shifted into a wolf nearly as formidable as Fenrir’s.
Applause filled the courtyard, making my wolf howl.
“Are you all right?”Fenrir said into our bond and gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
I leaned in to his side and smiled. “You ask me this every year.”
“That was an intense few weeks,” he replied. “And I still can’t believe you hid the extent of your injuries.”
A groan reverberated in my chest. Even after ten years, Fenrir still grumbled about what had happened in Hell. Seriously, it was worse than my supposedly jilting him in the cave.
“Have I ever hidden an injury from you since then?”I asked.
Fenrir harrumphed. “You could have bled to death.”
“Do I need to remind you that a shifter can stay alive with an injury as long as they transform into their alternate shape?”
“You’re lucky I love you so much,”he grumbled.
I blew out a long breath. After defeating Marchosias, Fenrir had used his power to open a portal into Loki’s cave. I followed him in my wolf form and helped a little as he freed his father and secured Queen Hel to the rock.
She wouldn’t suffer thousands of years of venom in her eyes because Fenrir also freed his brother, the giant snake, before leaving his sister to rot. Nobody would miss her—not even her harem of red demons. The moment we explained to Loki what we had done, he shape-shifted into Hel and demanded the diamond-and-ruby ring.
Now, it was Loki who sat on the throne of the Sixth, disguised as his daughter. According to him, this was his ultimate act of mischief. Hel’s personality was so erratic that no one would notice the difference.
As we reached the end of the walkway and the foot of the stairs, I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “And I love you, even when you can’t let go of a grudge.”
The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile.
“How’s your dad?”I asked. “Is he still behaving himself?”
Fenrir chuckled. “Ruling the Sixth Faction of Hell is his biggest scam yet.”
I gave him an approving nod. Because Fenrir’s immense power had given him domain over all shifters, it also meant he could keep Loki under control. No one apart from his father, Thor, and his stepmother knew what we had done.
We descended the stage’s steps to raucous cheers. Half these people weren’t even here to support those coming to find their mate—they were here to catch a glimpse of Fenrir, who so many now worshipped as the Shifter God.
A laugh bubbled up in my chest. This was exactly what Marchosias had wanted, yet my mate preferred the company of our extended family.
Mum stood on the far left with the new Norse shaman, a Neutral named Erik Haraldsson, one of the few in that pack who hadn’t been trained by Grog. He wore a necklace of bones identical to Mum’s and his pale yellow hair hung in long pigtails down to his muscular chest.
As the drums reached a crescendo, a flash of white fur appeared on the edge of my vision. I clenched my teeth. “Not another one.”
Fenrir stiffened. “Problems?”
“Yes,” I snarled.
He turned to me and smirked. “Where there’s one, three others will follow.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You knew.”
“Not particularly.”Fenrir rocked back and forth on his feet.
“Of all the irresponsible—”
“They made the long journey. Let them onstage.”
I huffed an annoyed breath. “Did they fly all the way from Lunaris?”
Sköll poked his head out from beneath the stage and stared at me through huge turquoise eyes that made my heart melt. In his human form, he was an exact clone of Fenrir with angelic blond ringlets and a dazzling little smile.
He tilted his head to the side to gauge my expression, and when I rolled my eyes, he scrambled onto the stage with a happy yip.
I knelt toward him with my arms outstretched but he flared his leathery white wings and flew onto my shoulder.
“Where are your brothers and sister?” I asked.
Sköll licked my face and whined.
“No one’s in trouble this time.” I plucked him off my shoulder and cradled him to my chest.
Fenrir turned to Sköll and frowned. “Did you fly here alone?”
The pup stilled, his eyes widening. He probably didn’t want to get his siblings into trouble.
My question was answered when another flash of fur appeared from the same point beneath the stage where Sköll had appeared.
“Hati?” I walked to the edge of the platform and peered down, only to find the tops of the enforcers’ heads. “Where did she go?”
Fenrir wrapped an arm around my waist and guided me back toward the middle of the stage, where Mum and Erik were drawing down the moon. Because of the sheer volume of young people attending the Mixer, we needed the magic of two full shamans and their acolytes to uncover the soul bonds.
I bounced Sköll in my arms, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for the other pups.
The enforcers arranged all the eligible shifters into a large circle with women on one side and men on the other. I turned Sköll toward the ceremony and asked, “Is this what you came to see?”
He barked.
“Don’t look now,” Fenrir said.
“Hati?”I asked.
His laugh filled my ears. “She’s nearly as daring as Sköll.”
“It was probably her idea to sneak out to watch the Mixer.”
A little gray bundle bounded across the stage and placed her paws on Fenrir’s shin. Hati stared up at us through eyes as turquoise as her brother’s but the black markings around her face made her irises all the more striking.
Warmth filled my chest. It was hard to stay annoyed with any of them, especially Hati. As a little girl, she had hair as blue as mine, a face full of freckles, and a dazzling smile. She was the leader of her little pack of siblings, but Sköll was the muscle.
Fenrir picked her up by the scruff and placed her in my arms. She wriggled against her brother and gave me a happy bark. When my wolf barked back, I huffed a laugh. Was I the only one who was bothered by their illicit flying?
I pressed my nose against Hati’s snout and inhaled her earthy scent. “Why am I the one left holding the pups?”
“You’ll see why in a minute,”Fenrir replied.
“Alpha.” Mondo climbed the steps, holding a pup with tawny brown fur in one hand and another with jet black fur in the other. “We found this pair crawling beneath the stage.”
My stomach dropped. Six-year-old pups making the journey across Shifter City was bad enough, but Garmr and Amarok were only four.
I glowered down at Sköll and Hati. “You brought your little brothers?”
They shook their heads with identical whines.
My wolf barked to say she believed them.
“Next year, we’re going to place a ward around their suite.”
Fenrir scoffed. “This time next year, one of them will probably teach themselves to breathe fire and burn through any magical barriers.”
I shuddered at the thought of my pups roaming the skies at night. They were normally so well behaved, but they’d overheard everyone talking about the preparations for the Mixer.
As the drums continued, strings of light crossed the circle, stretching from one soul to another. According to Mum, who had been forced to attend the other mixers, our events resulted in more matches of fated mates because we weren’t exclusive to one species. It turned out that the magic didn’t discriminate as much as shifters did.
I turned my attention back to Garmr and Amarok. The two babies of our family. When Fenrir and I realized that we could only have multiple births, we decided to put a pause on new pups until the ones we had were old enough to take care of themselves.
Amarok was my youngest. As a little boy, he had eyes and hair as blue as mine, and his wolf also shared Wolfette’s black fur, yellow eyes, and leathery wings. Apart from that, he was the same as any other pup: mischievous, cheerful, and carefree—nothing like how I was as a child.
“Are you all right?”I asked him.
“You’re forgetting they’re demigods,”Fenrir said. “Tough little buggers.”
I leaned down, gave him a kiss on the snout, and turned to Garmr’s wide green eyes.
He was the most sensible of my pups, and the least likely to get into trouble. It was a surprise he hadn’t stayed at home, but then he’d probably decided to accompany his older brother and sister to take care of Amarok. With his tawny fur, he was the most colorful of my pups and often reminded me of a fox. Mum always looked at him with a wistful smile and said he was the spitting image of her long-dead wolf.
Garmr tilted his head to the side with a questioning bark.
My wolf gave him a sympathetic whine. She didn’t believe the unauthorized escapade was Garmr’s fault.
“I’m more disappointed than angry.” I gazed from Garmr to Amarok to Hati to Sköll. “Your pup-sitters are probably frantic with worry right now and have sent out several search parties.”
Four sets of whines reached my ears.
“What if someone from outside Logris decided to abduct you?” I asked.
Hati opened her jaws and let out a puff of fire.
My stomach dropped. “Bloody Hell.”
“Shit,” Fenrir muttered. “I was hoping they wouldn’t develop their other powers until they were at least sixteen.”
“That’s what I get for mating with a wolf god.” I gave Hati a kiss on the head. It looked like the little she-wolf had an answer for everything.
A hush fell across the crowd, and Mum let out a surprised yelp.
My gaze snapped from the pups to the other side of the stage, where Mum and Erik the Norse shaman stood face to face with a string of power the size of my little finger connecting their hearts.
Fenrir groaned. “It looks like we’re about to lose our high shamaness.”
I gave him a nudge in the side. “Erik might want to move here.”
“He had bloody well better,” Fenrir muttered. “Losing the Owens was bad enough.”
When Phina got pregnant with twins, they had moved to be closer to their grandchildren—all because of Dolph’s Shifter Trials. Phina hadn’t even met the requirements, yet she somehow managed to compete. The contest had been hair-raising and a little more than unexpected. At the end of it, Fenrir had promised never, ever to hold such a contest.
At least not in Shifter City.
I shook my head. Phina’s participation in that trial was a long, convoluted story. One best reserved for another time.
END OF THE REJECTED MATE
READ THE SHIFTER TRIALS
