Destiny had spilled everything and gave his plan. The police chief and her senior deputies were at first reluctant to agree, and then they took a day to confer about what to do while mulling over all the new information. Eventually, they had summoned him back to talk again. They had reached the conclusion that he hoped they would reach. This was much too dangerous for humans to deal with on their own. They needed the assistance of shifters who knew what other shifters would do, how they would act, and the tricks they would try.
It was the police involvement which had taken so long.
While Destiny led this mock battle with his wolves—where everyone was under strict instruction to not kill unless their own lives depended it—the police had been moving into position. They were Phase Two of this ambush, the figurative killing blow. The murderers would all be exhausted. The police would be fresh, bringing with them their guns and strict training and knowledge.
While he had been fighting with Anubis, the police must have moved in. All of them had their guns out, brandishing them. Some of them were in motion, quelling skirmishes, and slapping handcuffs on wrists. The others had their guns out, threatening anything that moved.
Now, all eyes were on him. Everyone was watching him about to murder someone who was defenseless, begging for his life.
Markus pushed forward through the crowd, dropping down to his knees near Destiny. He reached out. Destiny felt a gentle touch on his fur, smoothing down his bristling hackles.
“It’s okay,” Markus whispered. “You did it. Now, let it go. Know your limit.”
Know my limits. Like you.
This was the end of it all. They could move on now. They could now live out the rest of their lives in whatever way they pleased, without this shadow hanging over him.
Destiny shifted, pushing away from Anubis and retreating into Markus’ arms. He leaned his cheek on top of Markus’ head, holding an arm around his waist. The two of them watched as the chief of police came over and slapped a pair of cuffs on Anubis.
It’s finally over.
15
Months flew by. Markus watched the days go on and on, always stopping to take a deep breath when everything felt too crazy. He wanted to enjoy the life he had now before it all changed again.
The police investigation was still ongoing and would probably be going on for years yet as Pensacola tried to get its feet back under itself in the face of so much loss. Wolves were still in the hospital. The park where the fight between LF and SC had taken place was still closed down, being cleaned and restored. Security had tightened in stores and restaurants and museums everywhere, and would probably not relax again for a very long time. Funeral homes were overflowing with bodies, the directors working around the clock to prepare for the services each day. Churches were flooded with shifters who had never been religious before and who would never be religious again, putting aside their beliefs to say goodbye one last time.
Every single one of the wolves in Anubis’s pack was arrested, currently in jail without possibility of getting out on bail while awaiting their future trials. According to reports, Yak had already confessed everything. His brawn was no match for interrogation. The story he gave matched exactly with what Destiny theorized: he had joined up with Anubis’ group after getting out of jail and told them all about Pensacola. Lawyers were working out some kind of bargain, a lesser sentence in exchange for his cooperation.
Word was, the judge overseeing all of these cases was a hardass. He wouldn’t go for the deal. Markus was so glad about that he could have kissed the man.
For the first couple of months, everything was chaotic. Markus was busy from dawn to dusk, attending funerals, giving statements to the police, going to doctor’s visits, and everything else that daily life demanded from him.
Then, slowly, it all started to taper off. There were only so many times that the police could listen to the same testimonies before they didn’t need to hear anymore. The funerals petered out until they became a rare occurrence instead of an everyday thing.
Destiny bought a small house located more or less directly between the east and west ends of Pensacola. He put several other pack wolves in charge of the parking garage, though he continued to make near-daily trips there to help with what he could. However, the more pregnant Markus became, the more time Destiny spent at home. They decorated their house together, and the end result looked like shit compared to all the pictures in the decorating magazines, but it was theirs and that was all that mattered. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen with an actual counter island. There was just so much of it that Markus often had to stop and sit down and just admire it.
The only room which didn’t look terrible was the second, smaller bedroom. It was their nursery, decorated in an abundance of bright pink based on the sex of the baby during an ultrasound. Markus had been able to see nothing but a shifting gray mass of static. But it was his shifting gray mass, and he loved it so much.
He had never loved anything the way he loved his unborn child. It was different somehow from his love for Destiny, fiercer, more protective. It was a love so intense it made him ache. He would lie awake with his hands on his rounding stomach, feeling the little life underneath stirring around, and he would just ache with love and anticipation.
He already knew what she sounded like, having heard her rapid heartbeat during several doctor visits. He had seen her moving during the ultrasounds, even if he couldn’t really tell what parts of her were moving. He could feel her moving around inside him, discovering her limbs, testing her limits. He loved her so much. He couldn’t wait to meet her. The suspense was almost enough to kill him.
Not all of the pregnancy was equally as exciting. He ran into all the various difficulties a pregnancy brought, his body arriving at the milestones so efficiently that you could almost set a watch by it. There were days when he thought it would be better to die than to wake up again with swollen feet and a dry mouth and a sour stomach that rebelled against him unceasingly. He was tired and moody.
Sometimes Destiny would look at him and just start laughing, usually when Markus was in the middle of being moody for no reason. Sometimes this made Markus forget whatever had set him off so he could also laugh. Other times, it made him angry or want to cry.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he snapped at Destiny one night near the end of his pregnancy. He sat in the armchair in their living room, his stomach bulging out so far that he didn’t have much of a lap left.
It’s going to be awful, shedding this weight.
Shifters didn’t really become overweight unless they really worked at it, whether intentionally or not. Once they had that extra weight, it was just as hard for them to get rid of it as it was for humans. The body tended to assume that it had those extra pounds for a reason and was reluctant to shed them lest it ended up needing them.
That was really what he was so angry about tonight, after having spent most of the day trying to find an outfit that still fit him. He hadn’t picked out many new clothes over the course of the past months, knowing that it was futile, that he had to admit that his body was changing, and still doing nothing about it.
Destiny came over to him, sliding in the armchair so Markus ended up on his lap. “Hey,” he murmured. His low voice was a soothing rumble. Even that was annoying sometimes. What right did he have to try to put a stop to something that he couldn’t even understand?
But tonight, Markus took comfort from it. He’d been feeling especially shitty all day, constantly on the verge of tears, and he wanted very much to feel better. Leaning his head on Destiny’s shoulder, relaxing in his warm arms, he listened.
Destiny didn’t say anything, however. He only held on tightly, his fingers sifting slowly upward through Markus’ hair.
That was dandy and all, just not what he wanted. He shifted around in Destiny’s lap and looked up at him. Destiny looked back down at him in return, his eyebrows gently furrowed.
“Aren’t you going to say anythi
ng?”
“Any other time I’ve tried to say something, you act like you’re going to bite me.”
Markus frowned. He unwound his arms from where he’d wrapped them around Destiny, folding them across his chest. “Well, I want you to this time.”
“How’s this?” Destiny murmured. He leaned down, pressed his lips gently to Markus’. “You have the temperament of a wild animal, and I love you anyway.”
Markus scowled at him, then laughed. He hugged his arms around Destiny again, kissing him back. “I love you, too. You idiot.”
They went to bed not much later. Markus got in first, as he always did these days, and he piled pillows and blankets around and underneath himself until he managed to get into a comfortable position. The position probably wouldn’t stay comfortable for long, though. Neither he nor Destiny got much sleep anymore, what with Markus having to constantly rearrange himself.
Destiny climbed up after he was settled, adjusting his position around Markus’ so they could cuddle. He rested one hand on Markus’ stomach, very gently. “Good night, grumpy.”
“Good night, Dusty.”
Markus was suddenly very tired, and he dropped off to sleep as soon as he closed his eyes.
His eyes popped open again some hours later, with gray streamers of dawn light pouring into the bedroom from behind the drawn curtains. He panted, holding his stomach, not quite sure what it was that had awoken him until his insides gave a sudden heave. His stomach seemed to wrench underneath his hands, a spasm that nearly bent him in two. The pain was surreal. It unfurled outward through his body, leaving no part of him untouched. Even his teeth and toenails seemed to be throbbing from the agony.
If he said anything, he was deaf to it, but suddenly Destiny was awake, supporting him, shaking him.
“Muffin! Markus! Are you okay?”
Of course I’m not okay, he wanted to say. He couldn’t manage to find the energy to be irritable right now, so all he did was pant from between clenched teeth.
“Is it the baby?”
“Of course it’s the baby, you fucking moron,” he snarled. Suddenly, he was beyond irritable. He was just plain pissed and god, it felt so good to swear, to relieve some of the pressure building up inside him.
Incredibly, Destiny laughed. It was the laughter of a young boy who had woken up on his birthday after waiting for it all year, filled with the release of delight and anticipation. “Good! Let’s go!”
Throughout the following years, Markus would never quite be able to remember how he got from his bedroom all the way to the hospital. It was like the haziness that came after his concussion, a warped and dreamlike plain that was nothing like reality. If he focused very hard, he might be able to recall the sensation of being picked up by Destiny, supported by him, dressed by him, but words alone wouldn’t be enough to give the proper scale to these feelings. He had been so helpless, so lost in his own pain, wracked by spasms that struck against him like surf pounded to a foam against a cliff.
Then he was in a hospital bed in the maternity ward, everything filtering back into clarity. The room was decorated in pale, inoffensive greens and yellows, probably for the dual purpose of being more like an actual room to increase his comfort, while also being gender neutral to avoid the nonsensical wrath of mothers who wouldn’t want to give birth to their little boy in a pink palace.
As for himself, Markus didn’t care. He only noticed the room because the contrast of it, from his bedroom to this carefully-crafted chamber, was the first thing he was really able to focus on.
After that, he almost wished to be in that twilight area again because now it was all just too clear. It was the epitome of a pregnant person’s dilemma, never having what they wanted when they wanted it, always missing the train by a minute or two.
He felt like he could have counted the individual eyebrow hairs on his doctor’s face, whenever the man spoke to him. He could recall the names of all the nurses and would probably possess that skill even on his deathbed. He felt every single contraction that tore through him, coming in greater quantities and intensities until he felt like a bomb doomed to a limbo of eternal explosiveness. Again and again and again, the pain came.
Someone was screaming at some point, at a lot of points, and he knew it was him. Begging, pleading to get the baby out, threatening, bargaining, and finally knowing he would be stuck like this forever.
Then, through the clarity of the pain, a hazy voice murmured in his ear. “Push!”
He pushed, and the world splintered into dark shards.
16
Axel North met the members of his pack at exactly two weeks old, surprising everyone in attendance with his sex.
Destiny had been surprised, too. Furious that a mistake had been made and then humored from then on out by the sight of his little boy in a pink bedroom. This was for sure going to be a child who grew up without being restricted by gender norms.
The doctor said maybe Axel was just a shy little boy in the womb. Destiny thought the real reason was you couldn’t tell a head from a dick on an ultrasound—he hadn’t even been able to see a baby in there—but he kept his opinion to himself. It didn’t really matter, anyway. What mattered was that Axel was here, alive, healthy, and already smiling.
Nearly every member of Shadow Claws was in attendance at this meeting at William Bartram Memorial Park, all gathered around the green sculpture. What remained of the Lethal Freedom wolves were still arriving, albeit in disappointingly small numbers. It seemed like Brock’s solid presence had been the only thing holding them together. Without him, very few wanted to continue on in the LF motorcycle club.
Destiny stood off to the side with his dozing son in his arms, watching as Markus greeted his former pack members. Though bikers were not a touchy-feely group in general, they hugged him now and he embraced them right back. Going through hell together would establish that kind of connection between people.
He dropped his gaze down to Axel. The infant already possessed a full head of curly brown hair, exactly like Markus. One of his eyes was blue, while the other seemed to be a darker shade of some unidentifiable color. Heterochromia, the same thing that caused Destiny to have mismatched eyes. He supposed that, in time, his son’s eye colors would become clearer and then stay that way for good. Even if they didn’t, the baby was still perfect. He could never be anything but perfect.
“Hey.”
Destiny looked up at the sound of the warm voice. He smiled for his mate, knowing Markus would see right through it and not really mind the fact. “Hey, yourself. How is everyone?”
“Still broken,” Markus said. He held out his arms, and Destiny gently handed over their son. Markus hugged the baby very gently, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. “It’s not the same without Brock.”
No one knew where Brock had gone after selling his house. He had disappeared. Gone into hiding most likely, too ashamed to show his face after the part he played in all of this. No doubt he had probably decided this was the best way to help his pack recover, by removing himself from the equation.
Destiny didn’t agree. Without Brock, there was no pack. At the very least, they deserved an apology or some form of official farewell. Without that, they were all just hanging in the air, unable to move on.
That was why Destiny had gathered them here today.
“I don’t blame them,” Destiny murmured. “Not one bit.”
“Do you really think you’ll be able to do this? After last time…”
Destiny nodded, reaching out to wrap his arms around his mate and child. “When you and I broke up, it was what caused there to be two packs in the first place. I hate to say it, but now that Brock is gone…” He paused, tried a different tact. “Now that we’re together again, we can all come together again. We’ll be one pack. Pensacola will belong to all of us again.”
“I hate to be the pessimistic one here…”
Destiny nodded, hugging Markus tighter. “I know.”
Even if the remai
ning members of Lethal Freedom were willing to put aside the differences of the past and become one with Shadow Claw, it wasn’t a union that would happen overnight. It was going to be a ton of work. Compromises would have to be made.
Really, it was going to be quite the adjustment period. But if anyone could do it, Destiny knew that was going to be him.
Soft footsteps approached. Cain walked across the grass, one arm around his mate, Ralphie, who held their fussy child in his arms.
Destiny looked at his second-in-command. “Are we ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Cain said. Even after all this time, he still looked haunted. Destiny supposed it would take a long time to stop, if it ever did. “I don’t think we’re going to get anyone else from Lethal Freedom here. It’s now or never.”
It was now.
Destiny leaned over to give a kiss to Markus then Axel. “I love you,” he said, speaking to both of them.
We love you, too, Markus replied in his thoughts.
Destiny headed off across the grass to see what he could do about repairing the past. He didn’t know how successful he would be, but that didn’t matter so much anymore because he wasn’t going to do this alone. In the areas where he failed, he had the support of his mate to keep him going.
It wasn’t enough to fix all the damage but it was a damn good start.
The End
End of Book 1– Please Read This
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