Drowning with Fire #3 ✔

Epilogue - Ember

Trust is still an issue for me, and for other supernaturals like me.

Though over time, my friends and fellow pack members have all found sanctuary in one another. Theo and I have learnt to keep those we love close to us. The pack trusts each other – not blindly, but in certain knowledge we'll pull through together, no matter what life throws at us.

Theo is a good, fair Alpha – and our pack is strong. Particularly as we'd been through so much together.

We'd taken on hunters and a psycho Alpha to protect Theo, we'd stopped a malicious agency of hunters from finding a 'cure' for supernaturals, and we'd freed Kaden from a dark spirit set on causing as much devastation and suffering as possible.

After the latter, as a pack, we helped Kaden to heal. We frequently visit the moors so they're no longer associated with darkness and corruption and we found the bodies of Kaden's parents, got them cremated and sent them off on the ocean breeze – so they could travel forever. We even brought Kaden's caravan from Lake Oldoy to Hopecliffe and packed it in front of Willow Lodge, which quickly became where we all live.

As Theo gently reminds us from time to time, we can't erase the past; all we can do is look to a brighter future.

Kaden settled well back into being human; the way he sees it, being alive and non-supernatural is a hell of a lot better than being dead and still a werewolf. He claims he was never even a good werewolf anyway, and as a human, his soul is, for the most part, pure as the driven snow. Plus, he can be with Halia now – that's the most important thing to both him and her.

I reconnected with my mum. Being a bus ride away from her makes things a lot easier to cope with; we can stay in touch and visit without getting on each other's nerves. What can I say? The Milburn women have always been stubborn.

So stubborn, in fact, that when a recently cured Eric showed up at my house in Lake Oldoy, my mum didn't even open the door to him. She yelled down at him from an upstairs window and basically told him to get the hell out of Lake Oldoy. So he left – none of us doubts the fact he'll keep his mouth shut about what he experienced by Killian's side.

Theo and Thea made up with their dad, Wednesday reconciled with hers, and Maia even found the courage to go home to her parents. Abi and Zack, having been disowned by their parents, adjusted to life in the UK surprisingly well; in a way, having Theo as an Alpha makes all of us feel like we're home.

Even though Al splits her time between her pixie troupe and the pack, she made up with Wednesday and they started dating again.

And suddenly the pack's all coupled up – all except Thea and Ryder, that is, who are so clearly into one another. None of us doubts the fact that Theo's the one keeping them apart.

But I see the way Ryder looks at Thea and the way she looks at him. And besides forbidden romances make a person all the more alluring.

Maia is more than happy staying single – though no one knows how long that's gonna last. While Maia's got control over her skinwalker spirit, she can still be unpredictable at times. It's a good thing she's got an Alpha and a pack to support her.

We've settled into life in Hopecliffe well. All of us have jobs in or around the village and we try to fit in with the locals, but that's tough when five of us are Americans. It's even tougher when a weird amount of Hopecliffe's population is superstitious.

We throw parties on full moons; even if we do split for safety. Kaden, Halia, Abi, Zack, Wednesday and Al go down to the beach – whereas Theo, Thea, Ryder, Maia and I run up to the moors and let loose. It's true that I'm not affected by the full moon as the others are, but the Phoenix loves to be unleashed now and then.

As a pack, we made a promise to protect Hopecliffe and Lake Oldoy from supernatural threats – to protect both supernaturals and non-supernaturals. No one wants such a threat to appear, but we keep training for the inevitable. We haven't had to do much yet, but when the time comes, we'll be ready.

Every day we don't have to deal with a supernatural catastrophe, I fall deeper and deeper in love with Theo. I don't think I'll ever stop loving him.

It's funny, really; for a long while, I used to think that meeting Theo ruined my easy-going, fairly carefree life – as it meant I was thrown into the deep end of facing supernatural threats. My life became chaotic and dangerous with him in it.

Now I know that the day I met Theo Aquila was, by far, one of the best days of my life.

𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 3

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