Behind me, a shadow appeared, distracting me as it grew and grew. Not like with Cyrilo and Jana, who had faded into nothing. Mine was the shape of a wolf. It speared out of me, twenty feet into the sky, larger than me by a hundred times. Its snout was to the side. Its teeth bared.

When it froze, my role evidently played, I darted my attention to Lara.

She had morphed from a child and into a woman, the darkness behind her bloomed into a single light that was so bright, I shielded my eyes.

At her back, a massive orb appeared, and within seconds, I saw the crescent moon. It turned her skin into silver, but her eyes gleamed back at me, glinting like they were metal too. Her belly became round with child, and she patted it lovingly, before her arms were suddenly full.

When that segment froze as the baby morphed into a man I didn’t, couldn’t recognize, I turned to Merinda. In front of her, Eli, Austin, and Ethan were standing. They smiled at me, reached out for me, and I longed, with all my being, to go to them. To reach back for them, but I couldn’t. I was here to watch.

To play witness.

Knight appeared in Eli’s arms, only he changed. Dropping to the ground and growing up before my eyes. His hand reached out to the side, to where Maribel stood. Seth appeared, and he was doused in shadows. Like Cyrilo and Jana, only, he was still standing. He didn’t fade into nothing as they had.

Then another baby appeared, transforming into a woman. Only then, behind the girl, just like it had with Lara, an orb blossomed into being, but it was golden. A thousand times more powerful than what was evidently the moon behind Lara.

She stepped forward, a smile on her lips, and everything faded away into the darkness behind the sun. Everything apart from Knight, Lara’s son, and Daniel.

I watched as their hands reached out, collided, tangling, and as they formed a unit, shadows danced forth, whispering over the sun, bringing darkness with it.

When Seth stepped forward, straight through the sun, breaking the foursome’s hands apart, I gasped, and with that, I found myself no longer in the clearing.

No longer in a dream.

I jerked into wakefulness at the same time as Knight burst into tears, and with the knot having disappeared, I untangled myself from Eli, kissing him when he roused from a nap too, and made my way to my son’s bassinet.

When I made it, I almost screamed when I saw his eyes gleamed golden, but before I could wonder if I was losing my mind, I rubbed my own and saw that his were normal when I opened them again.

I wasn’t sure what I’d just seen. The future?

I knew from Jana that no future was fixed. Everything could change. Free will could alter anything and everything, but that didn’t stop me from lifting Knight up and holding him to me.

Tightly.

Seventeen

Lara

Nevaehai was incredible. Knowing what it was, where I was, all of it was enough to make even the most apathetic person dance a jig, but who I was with made it a million times better.

I peered up at the sky, an endless twilit sky, and smiled as I rocked my head to the side when Todd asked, “What are you thinking?”

We were both as naked as the day we were born, lying in the middle of nowhere, relaxing as we slowly got to know one another. Kisses, lovemaking, laps in the Pond of Dreams, food with a single wish—this had to be what heaven felt like.

“I was thinking that I was going to push you away, and that I was a dumbass.”

He snorted. “You were scared.”

“You’re right. I was. Of everything.” I hummed as I thought about the information that my brain was storing away, filing in an order that only I’d ever be able to understand. However long we’d been here, my brain was still working hard, still filing away, still trying to bring order out of chaos. “Funny.”

“What is?”

“That now I know there’s no point to it.”

“To being scared? Fear isn’t a futile emotion. You had a reason to be frightened,” he soothed, making me smile as I rolled into him, settling my leg on his thighs where his dick rubbed against the upper curve of my leg.

“I did, but not where you’re concerned.”

“You could sense I brought change. And you’re stubborn,” he appeased.

I crinkled my nose at him. “You’re too understanding and accepting for your own good.”

His eyes sparkled at that. “In this, I can be. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re mine, aren’t you?”

“Now you’re just smug.”

“Exactly,” he retorted with a laugh. “I can’t win.” He pressed his hand to my side and, with a yawn, rocked his head back. “The love I have for you is something I can’t even begin to quantify.” His eyes were warm as he looked at me, loaded with emotion and sentiment that couldn’t be mistaken. Couldn’t be ignored. “It was always there, always waiting to bloom, but now it’s here, it’s like I’ve never been without it.”

My heart felt too full, and though I didn’t want to cry, I was choking on the emotions and sentiments he was pouring my way. Because I was speechless, I just reached over and cupped his chin, then bit my lip when he repeated, “I love you, Lara. I know, to you, it might be swift. We barely know each other—”

That was when I stopped him. Shaking my head, I informed him, “You don’t have to say that to me anymore. We do know each other. Deep inside, where it counts. And I love you too, Todd.”

The curve of his lips deepened, but I felt his satisfaction. Felt the inner peace that came with my declaration.

“I never thought I’d come here, so to be here with you is a gift I never could have foreseen,” he whispered, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “You should remember that. Just because we know so much that our brains could explode with it, you must never forget that we can’t control the future with it. We can’t stop something from happening, even though we know change is on its way.”

I could see the sense in what he was saying, even knew there was a futility and an arrogance in believing that one could change the future, but when it boiled down to protecting family and friends, I knew that had to be close to impossible.

“Father knew he’d die at Rainford’s hands,” Todd informed me, his tone soft, his words quiet. “But he didn’t stop it. Did nothing to prevent it.”

“Why? How did he know?”

“Because he just did. He was good at reading people. Kingsley Rainford treated my entire family like we were slaves. But, equally, the only person who could take him down in the pack was me—after my father had died and I’d transcended.”

Words like transcended and ascended were getting to be a part of my vocabulary now, so I barely batted an eye as I understood he meant the kumiho spirit had passed into him with his father’s death.

I bit my lip. “I’m sorry, Todd.”

“Don’t be,” he said gruffly. “We all die at some point. We’re just lucky if our death comes with a purpose. If we had left the pack, if Father abandoned his fate, then we wouldn’t be here now, would we? You wouldn’t be the Moon Child.”

He said that, but I knew he was torn up about it because if he wasn’t, he’d have left Daniel alone.