“We are,” Connor said. “You good?”

“I am,” Gabriel said. “But I could use a drink.”

“A-fucking-men.”

* * *

• • •

As it turned out, the European delegates hadn’t needed a fancy party, formal talks, or expensive, fancy hors d’oeuvres. They just needed to be thrown together into the Cadogan House ballroom with chaos swirling outside—and my father’s best Scotch.

My father had opened Cadogan to all the delegates who’d wanted shelter, thinking the House’s stash of food and weapons would at least give them some respite and protection if Hyde Park shifted to the green land. While we’d been working on the plan to trick Ruadan, they’d cobbled together a rough plan for a new vampire council. They’d still have to get the French and Spanish delegates’ okay, but it was a start.

And when that was done, they’d all but taken over the House. They poured champagne and mingled with vampires in Cadogan T-shirts, shifters, and nymphs to celebrate Chicago’s return. The television monitors were tuned to the celebration, where people emerged from cars on the LSD, embracing one another and thrilled to be stuck in traffic again.

Theo flirted with a nymph. Petra and Lulu—who figured the magic was done so the party was just a party—chatted in a corner. Connor talked to his uncles, drinking bottled beer and occasionally casting glances my way. We’d need to talk about the kiss . . . about everything. But for now, we could just be.

I’d skipped the champagne for blood—I needed the boost—and watched revelers run up and down the House’s main hallway. My father would probably rein them in tomorrow. But for tonight, everyone was happy.

EPILOGUE

The night was warm, the air sweet with the last growth of summer. And on the breeze, the first chill of fall.

Two men sat in low chairs, the fire pit between them. Inside it, wood popped and sparked and flame flickered and danced beneath the slowly spinning rotisserie.

Father and son with fire and charring meat, reenacting the same moment that had been played a million times over the course of history. Gabriel and Connor Keene. Alpha and heir apparent, preparing for another historic moment.

“Alaska,” the son said. “You pissed?”

The father stretched out his long legs, crossed them at the ankles. “I wasn’t angry you were going to Alaska, and I’m not angry you’re staying. Those are your decisions to make.”

“You said I had responsibilities. That I couldn’t shirk my duties to do what was easier.”

“You doing what’s easier by staying here?”

“Fuck, no. Easier would be hitting the road. Feeling the sun, the wind. Sunrises, sunsets, and everything in between.” He smiled slyly. “And if I was lucky, a chance to . . . work out some aggression.”

Gabriel smiled. “Coyotes can pack a punch. Might have been easier, but you’d have been bloody for a few miles.”

“I don’t mind a fight.”

“So I’ve seen. And you don’t mind jumping into one, either. Even if the fight isn’t yours.”

“Chicago is our home.”

“And that’s all you’re interested in? The city. Not the girl?”

Silence rang through the room.

Without comment, Gabriel sipped his beer. “Alpha isn’t taking the hard road or the easy road. Alpha is doing the thing that needs to be done. Sometimes that decision will be for you. Sometimes that decision will be for the Pack. And sometimes you have to decide between them.”

He looked over at his son. “Miranda will fight you for the Pack. Her and maybe others. They want the Pack, and they’ll fight for it using whatever weapons they need to use.”

Connor’s body went rigid, protective. His father was no threat, but he’d mentioned the possibility, and that had his instincts working. “They can try. But the Pack’s mine.”

Gabriel’s eyes gleamed. “You’re mine,” he said. “And I’m proud of you. But watch your back. And hers.”

Knowledge swirled in Gabriel’s eyes, magic shifting and shimmering. He knew something. And that put Connor on alert. But he didn’t bother asking which “her” his father meant.

After that kiss, there’d been no doubt for him at all. And his father would have known that, would have felt the truth of it. “Why do I need to watch her back? What’s coming?”

But his father shook his head. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”

“If there’s a prophecy, I deserve to know it.”

“Not if it’s not her prophecy.”

Connor’s jaw worked. Anger, flame surrounding a core of icy terror, burned in his eyes when he looked at his father. “If she’s in danger—”

“We’re all in danger,” Gabriel said, then took another drink of beer. “‘Dying since the day we’re born.’”

“Don’t give me song lyrics, and don’t test me. Not about this.”

“I can’t give you information. Just be careful of her. She has enemies.”

Connor sat back again. He could deal with enemies. Enjoyed dealing with them. What was the point of being alpha otherwise?

“Doesn’t matter if the road is hard,” Connor finally said. “The road is the road.” He gave his father a glinting look. “Didn’t you teach me that?”

“I’m shocked to learn you listened, whelp. Your head’s as hard as a damn rock most of the time.”

“Built-in helmet,” Connor said, the same joke he’d been making for fifteen years.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “No funnier today than it was the first forty times.”

“But accurate,” Connor said.

“Decisions will have to be made. Between love and responsibility.”

“They always do. That’s the road, too. And the only way to reach the destination.” Connor took a drink.

“Are we done with this conversation?”

“I think we’ve covered it sufficiently.”

“Good,” Gabriel said, shifting in his chair. “I feel like I’m in a therapist’s office.”

Connor snorted. “No member of the NAC Pack has ever willingly walked into a therapist’s office. Court order? Maybe. But not willingly.”

“That’s because we’re surrounded by things that comfort,” Gabriel said, moving closer to the fire and crossing his ankles on the fire pit’s stone surround. “You have darkness, stars, booze, fire. There is nothing more that you need. Except possibly a good woman.”

And, by his reckoning, his son was moving closer to that particular goal.