Heart of a Beast

Epilogue

"Are you happy here, Tiberius?"

Tiberius tipped his cowboy hat up and squinted at his mother standing over him. Her head blotted out the sun, illuminating the edges of her lustrous dark brown hair and casting her face in shadow.

It crossed his mind how oddly symbolic her stance was and he smirked to himself before turning his attention away.

"You betcha," he replied.

A peal of squeals rang out among the pups as the oldest male came running around the corner of the packhouse with a big water gun and spraying it on the two younger females prancing around the sprinkler with his two pups bouncing between their feet.

"Hey! No fair! Where's my gun?" the male's younger cousin shouted as she jumped away from the spray of water.

Tiberius' eyes followed the two smaller bundles of brown fur, yipping excitedly as they darted after the older male's feet and started nipping at his heels.

"Hey! Cut it out!"

"Silas. Sadie," Tiberius growled in warning. [You know better. Teddy can't heal like you.]

The twins winced before looking his way with apologetic eyes, one set a pale blue and the other green. Seeing their grandmother there, their tongues hung from the corners of their mouths as they rushed toward them, barking and yipping excitedly.

She kneeled down to scratch them both behind the ears as water dripped from their soft fur coats to the ground. The six-year-olds looked like 10-week-old wolf pups in that awkward stage when their legs started growing longer, but their bodies were still lean and not filled out.

They licked her face while the older two pups continued to play and the Alpha and Luna's daughter shyly approached, looking like a 4-year-old human despite being a few weeks older than Tiberius' pups.

Tiberius' mother ignored the others, focusing her attention on her grandpups, making the Alpha and Luna's daughter feel awkward.

Tiberius opened his arms to her and beckoned her, knowing it would make the pup happy and spite his mother in the process. [Come here, Thea.]

A smile lit up her sun-kissed face. She bobbed her blond head up and down and grabbed her pink towel before wrapping it around her shoulders and plunking herself on his lap.

"How was the meeting?" Tiberius asked his mother as he rubbed the pup's shoulders dry.

"Alpha drives a hard deal."

A slow grin spread across his face. "As he should."

In the years since arriving at the Blauwald Pack and getting to know its members, Tiberius quickly learned not only how close-knit the small pack was, but how close the Alpha was with his grown pups. He wasn't going to give up easily on his daughter, Gwen, and allow Tiberius' parents to force her to join his brother, Lance, in Arizona if he could help it. Not only that, but both Lance and Luna Aubree were still training—Lance for a few more decades at least, and Aubree for a few more years. Gwen was still needed by the pack to finish training the new luna.

He noticed the luna's improvement over the years, especially in physical strength and endurance. Even though she was hundreds of years younger than him, Tiberius saw wisdom growing within her as well.

Tiberius couldn't help but respect his alpha for his love and devotion to his pups and everyone in the pack. It wasn't something he was used to seeing and as the alpha gradually lowered his guard and opened up bit-by-bit to Tiberius, loyalty and understanding grew.

He now proudly bent his neck in submission to the male he once despised—knowing the truth that had been distorted over a hundred years that many lycans were still susceptible to deny.