The young girl, who was probably over a year old, started wiggling in her mother’s arms and clapped her hands together. “Unca Gaga! Unca Gaga!” She was reaching out to Gunnar.
“Well, call me a monkey’s uncle.” Relinquishing her hold on her daughter, Astrid let her youngest brother take her.
Gunnar took the child gingerly in his arms. “Hey, pumpkin.”
“Unca Gaga!”
“She won’t even say Mama, but she can call your name?” Astrid moaned. “Sometimes, I swear she annoys me on purpose.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” Meredith said with a smirk, which earned her a glare from her daughter.
“Sorry to barge in,” Isabelle began. “But Cross said he took Evan to West Virginia with Annaliese.”
“I saw your son there when I went to pick up my granddaughter,” Daric said. “I didn’t take him as I wasn’t sure what your arrangement with Cross was.”
“I’ll call him and ask him—oh! There he is.”
Walking toward them were Cross and Sabrina; Evan in Sabrina’s arms. Excitement, worry, and pure joy all rushed through Isabelle as she sprinted toward them. “Evan!” Tears blinded her eyes, but she didn’t care. “Oh, Evan.” Sabrina relinquished her hold on Evan, and Isabelle held him tight, breathing in his scent. “My baby.”
“Mama! Mama!” he shrieked enthusiastically as Isabelle kissed his cheeks. Ransom had caught up to her and wrapped his arms around them both, pressing a kiss to Evan’s forehead and then hers.
“Th-Thank you,” she said to Cross. “Is he all right? Did the sleeping potion have any effects?”
“Lily said he was dehydrated and in need of a changing, that’s all,” Cross said. “The potion should have no long-lasting effects.”
Her shoulders relaxed, tension draining out of them. “Thank goodness.”
Ransom’s grip tightened on them. “I love you both so damned much,” he whispered. “You’re my heart. Both of you.”
Ransom and Evan were her heart, too, and so was the new life growing inside her. While it felt like the time they had spent apart, the time Evan spent without his father, seemed like a waste, fate had brought them together again. And she would never take any moment for granted from now on.
“I love you,” she murmured against his chest as she breathed in his scent.
“I—”
“What the fuck is that?” Meredith interrupted.
There was a loud mechanical noise overheard. It was rhythmic, like the rapid beating of a heart, going chuf-chuf-chuf-chuf-chuf at an accelerated pace.
As Isabelle looked up, the sun blinded her briefly, but something very large swayed to the side, and she realized what it was. “It’s a helicopter.”
“Did Lucas send for a chopper?” Astrid asked.
“That doesn’t look like the Fenrir chopper,” Isabelle said. “That’s a—”
“News copter,” Cross finished.
“Oh my,” Sabrina gasped.
The chopper closing in on them had the bright blue logo of the local New York news station.
“Jesus fucking tangerine penguins!” Meredith cursed. “And—fucknuts, they’re everywhere!”
Two more choppers had joined in, from the rival stations, plus about several news vans were racing toward them in the distance.
“Oh God, the human hostages.” Astrid slapped her hand on her forehead. “They were all still under control of the necklace, and since we didn’t have enough forgetting potion, we’ve been leaving them under its influence. One of them must have snapped out of it and called the cops.”
“Or posted on their social media,” Isabelle said.
“This is a nightmare,” Astrid groaned. “We’ll never be able to clean this up.”
“We need to start transporting people out of here, son,” Daric said to Cross. “Before this becomes an even bigger circus. Take Annaliese with you.”
Cross turned to Ransom and Isabelle. “Come on, you can hitch with me and Sabrina.”
Exhaustion was taking over her body, and frankly, Isabelle didn’t really give a flying fig if the entire world knew about them right now. She had everything she wanted and needed, after all. “All right.” She held onto Ransom tighter. “Let’s go home.”
“Which home?” Ransom asked. “Manhattan or Kentucky?”
“Don’t forget,” Gunnar added. “You’re also the rightful Alpha of Connecticut.”
“Hmm.” Ransom rubbed his chin. “What do you think, Isabelle?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she rested her cheek on his chest and cuddled Evan closer. He reached up and patted Ransom on the cheek. “As long as we’re all together.”
Epilogue
Two months later …
Ransom poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot and then walked over to the living area and sat down on the large leather couch facing the television. As the commercial faded to black, the screen lit up with the local morning show’s bumpers before the anchor’s face filled the screen.
“Welcome back. And now,” she began, “we bring you news from Washington DC where the Senate hearings on the so-called ‘Supernatural Beings’ have come to their conclusion after three days of testimonies. Live from Capitol Hill, we have Dave Green. Dave?”
“Thanks, Shauna,” the remote reporter greeted as he stood on the steps of the Capitol. “Today marks the fourth and final day of the Senate subcommittee hearings on Supernatural Beings. If you recall, about two months ago, it was revealed the so-called Supernaturals—werewolves, dragons, and witches—have been living among humankind when videos surfaced of these creatures during a battle with their enemy forces now known as the ‘mages.’” The images turned into various wobbly cell phone videos from the battle—Lycans jumping on top of mages, witches throwing potions, and two large dragons flying overhead. “Most of these videos came from the Three Hundred—a group of three hundred humans who were kidnapped by the mages—who had witnessed the entire incident.”
“So, Dave,” Shauna interrupted. “In the past three days, we’ve heard from several witnesses during the inquiries, including medical experts and representatives of some newly-formed anti-Supernatural groups, but also from the Supernaturals themselves, including Sebastian Creed, CEO of Creed Security, one of the largest privately-held security companies in the world, who also was revealed to be a shapeshifting dragon. Mr. Creed came to the hearing with his lawyers after he was served a subpoena, and questioned for over five hours.”
“Yes, Shauna. That was the highlight of the second day’s
