Epilogue
Ophelia
We stayed for two weeks after the confrontation with Rocko, though Henry started daily video calls with the pack in Montana. Nola still wasn’t quite right, though neither Deirdre nor I could figure out what had gone wrong. She didn’t feel like herself and couldn’t explain what was different, so we were at an impasse. Eventually it became clear that traveling could be difficult for her, so flying back wasn’t an option. Not that I minded the idea of a long, cross-country drive in a car that didn’t break down every other mile.
Silas remained a wolfman, though he seemed to settle down a little when it became clear no one would hurt or provoke him. He still prowled the storm cellar under Deirdre’s house and occasionally went up into her yard after the guys built an unfortunate enclosure in the empty lot behind the garden. Apparently Miles purchased it months before when it came up for sale but hadn’t yet decided what to do with it. A zoo cage for a wolfman was a sad thing to need, but at least they had the space and means to give him options.
No one really talked about what would happen if Silas didn’t get better on his own, and when I asked, Henry changed the subject. It made my stomach hurt to think about, since it was clear that he couldn’t just keep on in the shape he was in. It made me hate Rocko even more, though I hadn’t thought it possible.
Deirdre and I worked every day to search through her books for a possible solution, though nothing seemed to help cut through the magical fog that Rocko left around Silas. We couldn’t even see what Rocko had done, so didn’t have a place to start in undoing it. I tried not to despair, since Deirdre had the kind of grim determination it took to conquer worlds and I had full faith that she would figure something out.
I liked her less as she made me practice exercises for controlling my magic and reactions, since it was draining and annoying to constantly feel like I failed at everything and couldn’t do what she did in a snap of her fingers. She damn well encouraged my frustration too, under the guise that it helped test my control, although I assumed it was just the perverse pleasure she took in someone else’s suffering. She claimed that wasn’t it, but she sure smiled a lot as I huffed and cursed and threw things around the workroom when I couldn’t light a goddamn candle.
After two weeks, it was clear that we weren’t going to find an immediate solution for Silas, and Henry couldn’t delay any longer. He offered, very reluctantly, that I could stay in the city while he went to Montana to sort things out, but it didn’t feel like a real option. I needed him around just as much as he needed me, and that safety, the security in that knowledge... I wasn’t ready to let that go. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being out of reach.
So we packed up a big-ass SUV with everything Nola and Fran brought—which wasn’t much, the few things I had from my car, and a couple bags of stuff for Henry. At least the man knew how to travel light. We left early in the morning, so there wouldn’t be a bunch of tears and sad goodbyes, though somehow the rest of the pack knew and were there anyway. Henry said his gruff farewells and muttered about being back in a few months, and Deirdre hugged me quickly.
She arched a dark eyebrow. “Keep practicing, even when you don’t feel like it. I have no doubt that Henry’s pack will test the limits of your concentration and patience, but make yourself uncomfortable. It’s the only way we grow, witch. I expect reports, too.”
I nodded, swallowing the knot in my throat. “Thank you for helping me. Well, thank you for figuring out what was wrong with me. I’m less grateful for some of the ways you decided to ‘help.’”
“You’re welcome,” she said, grinning. Deirdre patted my shoulder and shooed me toward the car. “And there was never anything wrong with you. Remember that.”
I half-turned. “You better call the moment you know how we can fix Silas. I’ll be back the next day.”
“It’s a really long drive to Montana,” Henry said under his breath. “It might be four or five days. I’m just saying.”
I frowned at him. “She knows what I...” But when I turned back, Deirdre had disappeared, the door to the house closing behind her.
“She’s not much for goodbyes,” Miles said. He shook my hand, then clapped me on the shoulder hard enough I almost fell over into Henry. “But we’ll take you up on that. If we figure out what’s wrong in the next three months, we’ll call. If not, we’ll see you back in the summer and expect all of your help figuring it out.”
“Of course.” I hesitated, feeling like there was something else to say, but the rest of the pack drifted back toward the house. There was no one else to say goodbye to, and there wasn’t any reason to draw things out. I took a deep breath and squeezed Henry’s hand. “Okay. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Nola and Fran were already in the back seat, Fran completely asleep and Nola frowning at her phone, so I hopped in the passenger side to help Henry navigate as he drove. I glanced back. The big house in the semi-respectable part of the city was the first place I’d really felt at home in a long, long time. Part of me hated to leave for even a few months, and the rest of me figured it might be a permanent move after all, if things were as dire as Mercy believed and Fran hinted. Henry insisted it was only three months, but there was no way to tell until we got there.
So we needed to get started.
Henry caught my hand in his after he climbed in the driver’s seat and started up the car, pulling away from the street without looking back. Only Cricket remained on the porch as Miles raised his hand in a negligent farewell, so I faced forward and checked the GPS for the fastest way out of the city.
“Okay, babe,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s find our next adventure.”
“You got it,” he said, and lifted my hand so he could kiss the back of it. “To our next adventure.”
I smiled and leaned back, relaxing, and figured it would be the first of many.
* * *
I hopeyou enjoyed reading Hunting Grounds! Want to find out what happens next when human Persephone stumbles across the SilverLine pack and catches Dodge’s attention? Take a sneak peek at Head Hunter!
* * *
Dodge movedinto the witch’s house shortly after the incident with the sorcerer and Henry’s mate ended with Silas getting stuck in a monstrous half-wolf, half-man form. He could have stayed in the packhouse downtown in the old factory, but he preferred to be close enough to keep an eye on Silas. The poor bastard still paced and growled in the storm-cellar in the fancy house that the alpha’s mate owned. It had become the central residence for Evershaw, the alpha, and a few other senior wolves in the pack. Only Todd Evershaw, the alpha’s cousin, stayed at the place downtown to keep an eye on the rest of their misfit pack.
He still wasn’t entirely comfortable in the big ass mansion that Deirdre, the alpha’s mate, had inherited from her family. It was an old house, creaky and full of history, and it reminded him way too much of where he came from: where his grandparents lived and how much they fucking judged people. How much they’d judged his mother.
So he couldn’t relax much in the house unless he was chilling in the storm cellar with Silas, his feet propped up, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. At least the crazy wolfman had settled down somewhat, at least when Dodge was around, and Dodge could doze down there without fear of getting his throat ripped out.
Otherwise he paced through the house and along the porch, or went outside to do the same when Deirdre finally got too irritated with the noise and yelled at him to stop making such a racket. She’d gotten more irritable after the confrontation with the sorcerer and not being able to figure out what kind of fucked up magic lingered on Silas. Dodge had his own theories on why the witch was hard to be around, but it wasn’t his business and he wasn’t about to offer an opinion on the alpha’s mate.
