by Bella Jacobs
As the band gets going after and we all dance around the bonfire under the stars, I would swear that every light in the sky is celebrating with us.
And then, one by one, families trail off to put their little ones to sleep, the single folks go down to sit by the water and hear the elders tell stories of water horses who live in lakes just like these, and couples of all ages sneak away to the woods.
Or, in our case, to our private yurt on a cliff on the opposite side of the island with a stunning view of the snow-covered hills gleaming in the light of the full moon.
I sit beside Maxim on the bench outside the yurt for a long time, just holding his hand and watching the moon rise and feeling so grateful it feels like my chest will burst.
“Oral for your thoughts?” Maxim finally asks.
My lips curve, but I keep my eyes on the sky. “As if I don’t realize I can have that for free, any time I want.”
“Just one of the many keeper-worthy services I provide.”
“Isn’t that the truth.” I lean my head on his shoulder. “I was just thinking about how grateful I am for all of this. For you and our people and the chance to bring our baby into a relatively peaceful world. I mean, I know uniting the packs is messy business, but you’re all making such good progress. And now that the Parallel packs aren’t coming over to Human Side and making trouble all the time…” I look up at him, my forehead furrowing. “Is it awful that a part of me is grateful for that, too? Even though horrible things could be happening to innocent people there for all we know?”
Maxim considers that for a moment, before he shakes his head. “No. As soon as we’re able to help the people there, we will. In the meantime, you shouldn’t be miserable simply because misery exists. Misery will always exist, but I… I don’t know. I don’t think we’re born to suffer.” He brushes my hair from my forehead. “Do you?”
Holding his gaze, I shake my head gently. “No, I think we were born to love each other, in good times and bad, just like we promised in our vows.” Tears fill my eyes again as I add, “So why don’t we go do some of that, big bad?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He stands, scoops me up in his strong arms, and carries me over the threshold—or through the yurt tent flap—and lays me down on the big fluffy bed in the center.
There, we prove our love for each other all night long, and in the morning, Maxim surprises me with a sleeve of the gross, perpetually stale-tasting crackers that are the only thing that can nuke my morning sickness on contact. That, as much as all the incredible things he did to my body last night, make me know, deep down in my bones, that I am loved.
And though in so many ways my life is just beginning, I know that there’s nothing better than that.
Not in this world, or any other.
Epilogue Two
Diana
Two summers later…
One of my favorite things about being a bird—aside from the flying?
The food.
Turns out I’m really into mice, which is a good thing considering the cat my brother and Willow adopted two Christmases ago is the biggest scaredy feline in the world. Sunshine is a sweetheart and super cute, with her fluffy orange coat and bright green eyes, but I swear she wets herself if a fly gets into the apartment, let alone a mouse.
And hey, it’s New York City. Sometimes we have mice, especially on the roof where all the open trash cans are.
Thank. Goodness.
I swoop, diving from my perch atop the slide to destroy a rodent who’s dared to creep from beneath the bin at the edge of the playground. I turn back to Willow as I shake it in my beak, keeping an eye on her as I gulp down my treat in one bite, honoring my promise to my brother not to drop my guard while he slips downstairs for a business call.
These days, our enemies are few and far between, and Maxim is only days from being elected ruler of the allied packs of Human Side, but where the safety of his wife and child are concerned, he’s still a fanatic.
And really, who can blame him?
Willow is the best, and my nephew is so stinking adorable I can hardly stand it. I just want to bite his chubby little cheeks off.
Sometimes I…actually want to do that. Literally. But I don’t. And I never would. I trust myself completely, but I can’t deny the animal part of me is growing every day.
I can sense that makes Willow sad sometimes, but I don’t feel sad anymore. I don’t feel many human emotions, in fact, except love.
Love remains.
It not only remains, it flourishes. My love for my family and my people has grown stronger than I imagined possible. I’m just so proud of them and all the good work they’re doing in the world. I’m such a sap, Willow and I had to work out “love” in owl sign language the very first week I was transformed.
I land beside her on the park bench now, and flash a love sign her way, hooting as she flashes it back.
“Love you, too, cutie,” she says as James Alexander Thorn the Second—named for his grandad—gums on a teething biscuit in her lap. He’s a year old today and his gummy smile has been replaced by several cute little baby teeth. James is so precious even his teeth are adorable, and that’s a fact. “But maybe a little less mousing while I’m around, if you can help it. I almost threw up in my mouth.”
I hoot again and flash her the “wimp” sign.
She laughs. “Yes. I am a wimp. A wimp with a weak stomach. So have mercy on me, will you?”
I narrow my eyes, suspicion blooming inside me. But before I can remember if we have a sign for “pregnant” not just “baby,” Willow’s mom emerges from the elevator and races down the pathway toward the playground, laugh-crying in the way only she can.
“A baby!” she shouts. “Another baby! I knew it! I just knew it!”
“Did Maxim tell you?” Willow huffs and rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s not really mad. “He promised we’d wait until James’s birthday dinner tonight.”
“I caught him buying you a present downstairs, and put two and two together,” her mother says, plopping down beside Willow on the bench and throwing her arms around both her daughter and grandson. “I’m so excited!” She beams past Willow to include me. “Hey there, Diana. Did you know?”
I shake my head and make the “yay” sign.
Wendy laughs. “Yay for sure. All the yay. And it’s going to be a girl this time, isn’t it? I can just feel it.”
“No,” Willow says, startling as her eyes begin to glow and she continues in a slightly dazed voice. “Oh wow, that hasn’t happened in a while. But…no, it’s… He’s going to be another boy.” Her eyes widen and jerk excitedly to mine. “And Diana’s going to be the first person to hold him. With her human arms. You’re going to be human again, Dee! By the time baby two is born!”
I cock my head and then lift my wings into the air, hoping I’m doing a decent job of pretending to be excited about Willow’s revelation.
But the truth is I’m not sure I want to be human again.
Not without Jacob. I don’t feel sad when I think about him anymore, but I sense I will be if I slip back into my human skin. Jacob might be dead, or simply trapped in the Parallel, but from where I sit, it doesn’t really matter. I can’t make contact with him either way, can’t confess my sins or beg for forgiveness or promise that I’ll always love him.
I can’t know—and might never know—if he’s alive, let alone anything else.
Maybe he still misses me. Maybe he’s moved on.
Maybe he would understand what I did with Axe, the mysterious man who straight up disappeared that night in the forest, never to be seen again. Maybe not.
Honestly, it all feels like a dream now.
My human life was a dream.
My owl life is what’s real and my owl is very happy when I sit down to my place at dinner later to find a lightly grilled rabbit prepared just for me.
I would have preferred it raw, but this is still very nice. Very thoughtful. And intensely delicious.
I take my time ripping bites from my food with my beak, watching my family celebrate my nephew and basking in their happy glow.
Even a year and a half after all the madness, I’m still so grateful for peace and happiness, and for these people who are my home.
After the cake and presents, after James is tucked into his crib and Willow’s parents and my father head back to their own apartments, Sunshine the cat and I sit together on the couch, watching Willow and Maxim slow dance to an old record.
Willow leans into his chest, his lips rest atop her head, and they move like they’re two halves of a whole, so in sync it’s hard to imagine that they were ever apart, let alone at odds.
They used to hate each other, I tell Sunshine again, because she’s high strung and has a hard time remembering stuff aside from all the things that have scared her in the past day or two.
Don’t believe you, she says, snuggling closer to my side. Mom and Dad are magic. And my very favorite humans.
Mine too, I coo, the warble in my chest making Sunshine start to purr the way it always does. But they still don’t believe I talk to you. They say house cats don’t talk.
Her eyes slant shut. Well, no one’s perfect. At least they’re pretty close.
Yeah, they are, I agree, pretty damned close.
I’m not sure when I fall asleep, but I wake in my brother’s arms as he tucks me into the nest I built for myself in my room. For a moment I remember being a human child and the memory is…not too bad.
“Night, trouble,” he says, stroking a finger over my head. “Sleep tight.”
I coo at him and close my eyes, deciding maybe it will be okay to be human again sometime soon. Maxim’s head pets are good, but his hugs are the very best.
And I suppose I have to finish growing up, sooner or later.
But not tonight.
Tonight, what I have is enough.
Far more than enough.
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Please enjoy this excerpt from
UNLEASHED
by Bella Jacobs!
(Complete series available now.)
ABOUT THE BOOK
One woman on the run. Four dangerously sexy bodyguards. And a war brewing that will change the shifter world forever…
I’m living on borrowed time, fighting for survival against a deadly new virus that has no cure and a cult doing its best to brainwash me. But when a mysterious note shows up on my windowsill one night, its chilling message--Run, Wren--launches me out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Within hours, everything I thought I knew about my life, my family, and my origins is obliterated, and I'm racking up enemies at an alarming rate. Between the cult I've just escaped, a violent shifter faction out for my blood, and an ancient evil who eats "chosen ones" like me for breakfast, my last hope is to join forces with four dangerous-looking men who claim they were sent to guard my life.
Luke, a werewolf with a rap sheet. Creedence, a lynx shifter who never met a mark he couldn’t con. Kite, a bear kin with a mean right hook and heart of gold. And Dust, my childhood best friend and dude voted least likely to be a secret shape-shifting griffin.
But are these men really what they seem?
Or are my alpha guardians hiding a secret agenda of their own?
I’m not sure, but one thing is for certain—choosing the right allies will mean the difference between life and death. For me, and everyone I love…
WREN
I’m about to retreat to my room to find my center, but before I can make it out of the kitchen, the door bursts open and my mom calls, “Wren, baby! There you are! Oh honey, I’m so glad you’re home!”
A moment later, her arms are around me from behind, hugging me tight before turning me gently around and lifting her shaking hands to my face. She’s barely five feet and a smidge tall, a good seven inches shorter than my five eight, but Abby Frame has a presence that fills a room.
I’m immediately enveloped in her warm energy and the glow of her smile as she says, “It’s happening, sweetheart, the day we’ve been praying for.”
“What’s happening?” I glance up at Pops, who’s still standing by the door, his muddy boots on the mat.
He smiles tentatively in response, hope and caution warring in his brown eyes as he waves Mom’s way. “Let Abby tell it. She’s the one who found the doctor. She should get to share the good news.”
I shift my focus back to Mom, forehead furrowing. “Another doctor? Mom, you know I’m happy to go see anyone you want me to see, but I’ve already been to—”
“Not just a doctor,” Mom breaks in, practically prancing in place as she grips both of my hands tightly in hers. “A research scientist and doctor on the cutting edge of Meltdown virus research, who’s just put four children into permanent remission with his new procedure. Six months out, and there are no signs of the virus returning. And we got word this afternoon that the doctor has room for you on his schedule! You’re next on the list!”
“Seriously?” My pulse picks up even as my brain fights to keep my blood pressure steady. The brain realized hope is dangerous a long time ago, but the heart never learns. “When? How? What are the success rates? The risks?” The questions spill out of me, but I don’t really care about those things. I’m ready for anything, no matter what the risk vs. reward ratio. If there’s even the ghost of a chance that I can get better, I want that.
I want to live, to dream big instead of editing every ambition. I want to look into my future and see endless possibilities and love and maybe those children Mom was wishing for.
My head spins with excitement, making it hard to concentrate on her words as she begins to lay out the details of the procedure.
But by the time she gets to the risks, I’ve regained my focus.
“There have been some fatalities. About two percent for children, closer to thirty percent for teens.” Worry creeps into her pale-blue eyes, such a close match to my own that people have always assumed she’s my birth mom, even though that’s where the resemblance between us ends. “You’ll be Dr. Highborn’s oldest patient so far, and that likely means an even higher risk of complications. But when I explained your situation, how…” She swallows. “How hard things have been lately, well…”
How hard…
When she explained that I’m dying. That’s what she means. We’ve all been dancing around it for months, looking the other way, “Tra-la-la nothing to see here, folks,” while my organs slowly began to fail.
But here it is, laid out in the cool, mint-and-earth scented air.
Pops must have been working in the herb garden, one part of me observes as another solemnly acknowledges, There goes any doubt about that. You really are dying. You haven’t been being a big melodramatic baby, after all.
“I’m dying.” A sinkhole opens in my chest that widens to encompass the kitchen and then the house and then the entire neighborhood. I feel like I’m in free fall—panicked and helpless as I tumble through an endless black void—but strangely peaceful at the same time.
There’s a power in labeling things.
In facing them.
In looking a monster right in the eye and calling it by its name.
Death, I see you there. I know you’re watching, but I’ve got my eye on you, too, motherfuckah…
“No, you’re not,” Mom says, the words as fierce as she is, my tough little mama who has always refused to give up on me, no matter what. “You’re going to be Dr. Highborn’s first adult success story. You’ve got a good chance, Wren. You’re not that far out of adolescence. I mean, as far as I can see, you look the same as you did the day you turned eighteen.”
“Never could put any meat on your bones.” Pops comes to stand behind
Mom, leaving muddy footprints on the tile. His tone is calm and easy, but those footprints make it clear how upset he is.
Pops doesn’t track in dirt. He lives to get dirt under his fingernails, but he’s too proud of our home to muck it up. He doesn’t own the bungalow, not even after thirty years of on-time disbursements to pay off the second mortgage, but he loves it.
It’s hard to pay off a house when you’re shelling out thousands of dollars a month for experimental medicine our insurance won’t cover. Even with the help of the Church of Humanity Compassion House scholarship fund, my sickness has brought our family to the brink of financial ruin more than once.
“How much is it going to cost?” I ask, my voice small, guilt pressing down on my shoulders again.
I want to live, God knows I do, but I don’t want to ruin my parents in the process. Especially since it sounds like this is a long shot for me, as the first adult guinea pig of this new procedure.
Mom’s eyes fill, but I know immediately it’s her angry cry, not her sad one. Her gaze is on fire behind the shimmer, and I half expect her to send me to my room for a time out until I learn to control my temper, the way she did when I first came to live with her as a feral four-year-old determined to tear off my clothes and run wild through the neighborhood every chance I got.
“Don’t you dare, Wren Frame.” She sniffs, and her lips pucker into a crooked bow at the center of her face. “Don’t you dare talk money at a time like this. Your life doesn’t have a price. We’ve already talked to the bank about a third mortgage, and the lender promised we’d be approved.”
