Epilogue Part II

Apparently “giving in” to all of her insecurities and built-up emotions of Selene’s past made her paranoid. It was why she didn’t fuck around with feelings at all.
Without Calla and Seff occupying her mind, it left room for ridiculous notions. For example, *What if Kiran doesn’t want me?*
Fuck that shit. She didn’t need *him*. She did not need to depend on anyone—especially Kiran Cyrus.
Yet he caught her glaring at every werewolf who tried to dance with him to scare them away. Lingering beside her, he flicked her ear. “Your jealousy is tangible, Selene,” he remarked with a cocky smirk. “Are you now territorial of me with other females?”
Selene bared her teeth and growled. “It’s not jealousy, it is—”
“Kiran! Selene!”
Seff’s voice made them turn, surprising Kiran’s playful hiss, “Possessiveness.”
They had just adjusted to the crowded ballroom of Hyacinth’s—now the Bleize family’s—mansion. The trial was over and Sloe and Fern, Seff’s shithead older brothers, were entertaining their pack. Selene was not happy with the new Alpha, but it was no longer her concern.
It was the first time they could speak with Seff closely. And she was radiant—happier than Selene had ever seen her, even when she made love to her. Selene refused to apply particular meaning to that.
She faltered to a stop. “Kiran! Your *ear*!”
He threw his head back and laughed, smoothing his hair so the mangled appendage was more exposed. Selene smile wryly. “You just noticed?”
Seff blushed. “Well, I was preoccupied… Oh, Selene, I have—”
Her smile faded when Seff untucked a necklace from underneath her neckline. Before she could remove it, Selene stopped her. “Keep it. The moon still belongs to you.”
Seff’s eyes were glossy, and she nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered. She looked at Kiran. “Both of you.”
They left the morning after the trial.
“Was it therapeutic?” asked Kiran as they walked toward the edge of the Magnolia territory before they Shifted.
Behind them, Sienna grumbled. “I thought you two hated sentimentality.”
Lona, in a brave move, nudged her fellow Delta. “Love changes us all, even grumpy Alphas.”
Sienna scoffed but fell silent.
Selene resonated with Sienna’s comment but refused Lona’s. *Fuck feelings. Fuck love. I’ll never change who I became*.
And yet she found herself refraining a small smile and considered Kiran’s question. The Manor was not Calla’s home, but she swore she could feel an echo of her—her essence, like fresh air, blooming flowers, and a tangible sort of kindness amongst the carefree Magnolia wolves.
When she parted with Seff last night, it was her final goodbye to the green and white ghosts who had followed her all these years. Seff had told her Calla found peace. Selene didn’t believe she could live her life in such a concept, but nonetheless, she still felt a sense of resolution.
“Yes,” was all she said.
Two male voices laughed behind her.
“How sweet,” crowed Altan, followed by Elio’s snigger, “What a beautiful acceptance, Luna!”
Without looking back Selene responded, “Is this how you wish to repay my kindness of allowing you to come?”
“Yes,” Aura hushed, “be nice. Luan, keep up.”
I *am*, Auntie!” Luan complained. “Stop babying me.”
Selene sighed inwardly. “My entourage is meant to be strong and silent.”
“Are they embarrassing your image of the fearsome Moon pack, dear?”
“If you call me that again I will leave your corpse here.”
-
Selene considered dissolving her harem.
It and all the pretty Omegas in it were only an escape, something to try and fill the void within her. Now it was finally filled and she didn’t need—didn’t want—to continue the practice of escapism.
So she offered her pack the option: stay as a Moon wolf or return to their birth pack. Castle Night and the Moon would always be their home if they wished, but they were no longer bound to the Luna.
She didn’t stay long enough to see the divide. She retrieved Calla’s letters and portrait as well as all the records kept for the “contest” so she could prove to Kiran that she won.
The Sun pack would hate her no matter how much Kiran told them not to, so Apollo’s Keep could never be her home. It was another facet of paranoia: what if she was losing her home and her pack’s loyalty by leaving to be with Kiran? Would their love turn to hate by the hand of betrayal?
*Fuck feelings. Fuck love*.
The past five weeks were annoyingly reflective. Selene tried to fill it with sleep and sex as much as she could. She tried to, as Kiran put it, tie up loose ends and mend what mistakes she could. *Fine. Not all forms of escapism*.
She just didn’t want to focus on the uncertainty staring her in the face. For decades all there was ahead was a feast of naked bodies offering bliss to stave off the boredom of immortality. Now that immortality was an endless nothing with Kiran just on the edge of it. She could push him off or let him transverse the endlessness with her. And that scared the fuck out of her.
Paranoia thrived off fear. It enhanced her wild thoughts of why, a few days after returning from the trial, she was constantly hungry and nauseous. She had never starved or felt sick to her stomach. An immortal she-wolf was above such things as illness. And she refused to accept what it could mean, much less ask any of her Omegas about it.
But when Kiran held Selene beneath the sheets of his bed, just when she started to lose herself in gentle bliss—a rare thing between them—he inhaled deeply. Pulling back to look at her with furrowed brow, he noted, “You smell differently.”
She grated her teeth. “That is not what you say to gain access to the wonders beneath my underthings, Kiran.”
“Not your smell,” he said indignantly, sitting up. She fell back against the pillows even when Kiran’s shoulders stole the sheets covering her naked body. His gold eyes scanned her. They used to be full of anger and resentment reserved only for her—not doubt there was always capacity for that still—but in the past few weeks…Selene had seen only…whatever emotions were the opposite.
He pulled back the covers to expose her down to her thighs. His searching stopped at her abdomen. The honey-gold seemed to flatten. Reflexively Selene covered her torso with her arms and scowled. But when his eyes met hers, she felt them burn—*oh gods, are these* tears?—and the walls she’d built decades ago because of him crumbled, the past five weeks’ efforts to chip away at the cracks finally paid off.
“Selene,” Kiran rasped, “are you…”
She swallowed. Why was it so hard to say that little three-letter word? But she had to. She *wanted* to. Selene Hilal always got what she wanted.
So she told her greatest and worst love, “Yes.”
-
Selene Hilal knew she would always return to bloodshed.
She was born in blood and she would die in blood.
An immortal thought themselves invincible against all the enemies they make, but there was always a turning point. All things, all beings, werewolves and humans alike, died, and an immortal thought themselves cursed. They lived on, enemy to enemy, loss to loss, an everlasting cycle of love and death.
As years went on, Selene could only stand by as lives bloomed and withered. She watched the gravestones grow in numbers while she remained the night goddess known only for her beautiful blood-stained teeth.
They all died eventually. Her children, her many-greats grandchildren, all her Omegas, Betas, and lesser Alphas…even Seff.
Selene admitted she was young. Not the ancient soul she felt like she was. Even Kiran was still young. But they lived through enough that she wouldn’t mind dying.
She had never been afraid of dying. She just didn’t want to, so she mustered the iron will to make herself strong in every way to avoid the weakness of mortality.
But the world that was not yet dust had so much to offer. Her acceptance of leaving the past where it belonged opened her eyes to the possibility of more than just surviving the world she thought she could conquer, as was the assumed desire of conquerers.
War and power and money and the control of multiple werewolf packs? Writing the names of the males and females she fucked as if they had no value but to exist for her pleasure?
That was no life, not for anyone.
Born, lived, and died in blood.
If blood was the elixir of death, then what was the drink representative of life? Water? It didn’t have the same mystique. Spilling one’s blood—yes, satisfying to hear, a wonderful threat. But there was no equivalent to comparing water to life to whatever the opposite of a threat was.
Whatever.
Just as everyone died, the scrape of time wore down Selene’s will. Her belief in her own invincibly was waning in the face of an unexpected enemy and she realized that while she wasn’t afraid to die, and she hadn’t always been willing to, she had to finally accept that maybe she was *meant* to. And who was she to deny her own fate?
So, as Selene lie in her own blood, her golden mate lying dead beside her just out of reach… With Sloe Amaranth-Bleize looming over her with jaws wide and dripping blood and saliva… With the last few pulses of her heart and her will…
The Luna of the Moon pack realized she could finally see her soulmate after death.