After finishing my shower that night, I came into the bedroom to find Tristan lying on his back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Well, not really a ceiling. The master suite had a skylight that nearly covered the whole ceiling. The moonlight beamed down on him through the glass, casting a bright glow on his skin.

I pulled my hair up into a bun and joined him on the bed.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

He turned slightly to look at me. “I don’t think you want to know.”

“I do. Or I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Murder. That’s what I’m thinking. I’m going to murder Jack Osborne,” he stated.

“It might not be as easy as we think,” I said, turning over on my side and looking at his profile.

I couldn’t be this near to him and not touch him, so I let my fingers and hands rove over his flesh, tracing the intricate design of his tattoo.

”You don't think? That's what I wanted to do the first time. We've minded our businesses this whole time—Devin and I—but this is a prime example of what happens when we start thinking that we’re untouchable even with our combined numbers. I’ve made this mistake once before.”

“It’s not a mistake, Tristan. If anyone is responsible for this, it’s Jack Osborne. He just won’t quit.”

“And neither will I. Do you think we’ll still be fighting our enemies during the decades to come?”

“History has a way of repeating itself, but there are some things we can do to prevent our demise and save our race,” I said.

“You think your gifts are part of that?” he asked.

“Why else would the gods allow me to see future events? And why else would the spirits allow me access to ancient magic?”

“I don’t know. Before you came into my life, we never mentioned the gods, and I don’t talk to the spirits. They don’t talk to me either.”

“They get the message to you in a different way.”

This time he turned on his side, looking at me with curiosity.

“Our mate bond is one of them,” I said. “We mate not only for lifelong companionship and love, but we mate to ensure the continuity of our kind. By drawing a Caedmon or an Arnou to his or her mate, the spirits set the course for our future.”

“At one point, the Arnou men thought we were cursed from ever finding mates.”

”When you reunited with Caedmon, and when you and Devin completed a blood bond to unite the packs, you broke that curse.”

He pushed a wet strand of hair behind my ear. “And then I found you.”

“And then you found me,” I whispered.

“The visions we see when we’re together in the aftermath, is that part of it?”

“Yes. Visions of our future. Happy ones like what the gods and the spirits show us in the aftermath serve as encouragement, possibly even proof when some of us remain skeptical that we've met the one.”

“Do the spirits show you the bad things?”

A feeling of sourness grew in the pit of her stomach. He seemed disappointed when I didn’t answer.

“You suppress them,” he concluded.

“I’ve come to learn the exact moment they’re about to happen,” she said. “It’s hard to explain. I guess you can think about it like being thrown on the railroad tracks with a train barreling at you going one hundred miles an hour. You’d jump off before you got hit, right?”

He nodded.

“If I get hit by a freight train, it’s going to be on my terms,” I said. “So, I developed other ways to see. I don’t wait until the visions are fed to me.”

“No, but this way requires excess use of your magic,” he stated.

I sighed, rolled over, and rose from the bed. I tightened my robe around me and walked over to the small bar on the adjacent wall. I made us both a glass of Scotch.

Tristan rose to a sitting position. The absence of an expression on his face when he shifted upward didn’t match the brief escalation of negative energy in the room.

He was still hurting.

I gave him a glass and then settled on the bed with mine.

“You know what I think?” I asked, taking a swig of Scotch and cringing as it burned on the way down.

“What?” Tristan chugged down the entire glass.

I thought about where my intentions were with this new plan I developed while in the shower and drank some more Scotch. Just maybe if I could change the spell to get the Converted to turn on the Osbornes instead, there would be less collateral damage. After realizing that getting back at the Osbornes by turning the same magic on them wouldn’t immediately solve the problem of the venom, I blew outward in frustration.

I shook my head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Yes, it does matter what you think,” Tristan said.

I tilted the drink to my lips again, but Tristan took the glass away from me and placed both of our glasses on the nightstand beside the bed. Without saying a word, he pulled me in for a kiss. His mouth caressing mine made my angst disappear. Suddenly, I was wondering who was helping who. If it weren’t for Tristan, I would’ve been a mess. I didn’t deal well with grief or problems of this magnitude.

“Don’t worry too much,” he said.

“But I’m afraid, Tristan, of what will happen if we don’t have a plan that will permanently fix this entire mess, including your bite. This wasn’t in my visions, I…”

“The spirits have shown us enough. If they wanted us to see more, I’m sure they’d show us more. This bite is a non-issue. We’ll get through this. You said it yourself. The visions we have together are proof of what’s to come. They’re proof that you’ll carry my children. I’m not going anywhere, Elisa. I want to see my children and all my grandchildren.”

”Yes…but many things can disrupt the balance. If you…I couldn't live without you…”

“My name is Tristan Vasilije Arnou. I survive. That’s what I do. And you are my Queen. I’ll protect you by any means necessary. Stop worrying…let’s get through one night at a time,” he pleaded.

“Of course.” I smiled. “What time is it, anyway?” I picked up his wrist.

“Ah…before I forget…” He slid off the bed and went to retrieve something from a wall-mounted vault hidden behind a bookcase. ”I was going to wait to give this to you.” He handed me a small box that was neatly wrapped in gold paper.

”A present for me?” I couldn't hold my surprise.

“Open it,” he said, sitting on the bed beside me.

After tearing into the wrapper, my grin widened. I flipped the silk-lined box open to see two elegant watches inside.

“Oh…they’re beautiful.” I picked up both watches and admired them.

One of the diamond watches was made of rose gold and the other a black granite. Tristan always bought things in pairs. He had at least two of everything. Now, he was giving me the same.

Tristan had been getting me gifts since the moment we met. Every single time, he had managed to surprise me, presenting them to me when I least expected it.

“Thank you,” I said, leaning in and kissing him. I chose the rose gold watch to wear and effortlessly clipped it to my wrist. ”Now I'll know what time it is when I'm inside.”

Tristan grinned. “You know, I was kind of jealous that you could tell time just by looking at the position of the sun and moon and the push of the waves along the shore whenever we visited the lake.”

“Something Roman taught me,” I said. “But honestly, I thought you were just getting tired of me using you to tell time.”

“Ne, moja ljubavi.” No, my love. “You can use me for whatever your heart desires.”

The kiss we shared only elevated to something more. I stood at the foot of the bed, pulled my robe open, and let the garment fall to the floor.

Tristan’s lips parted and his gaze raked over my body. I walked between his thighs and traced my fingers up his chest. He closed his eyes and leaned back on his elbows until my fingers met his lips. I would have traced those too, but he opened his mouth and took my finger inside.

“I see your current predicament hasn’t kept you fully down,” I said, my gaze landing on the big erection in his briefs.

He grinned seductively. “What I’d like right now is you down on me.”

I leaned in and kissed him, pressing light kisses to his flesh, trailing downward this time. When I reached his waist, I helped him rid himself of the briefs. Kneeling in front of him, I wrapped my fingers around his thick shaft.

“Down on you like this?” I asked, flicking my tongue over the head of his cock.

He groaned in reply and then nodded.

I opened my mouth and took him, sliding my tongue up and down the length of him. He liked it when I moved deep, so I eased him down my throat until my lips hit the base. Tristan grabbed my hair by the fistful and growled.

“You’re going to kill me,” he moaned, his hips bucking.

No, not literally.

“Gods…” he blurted. “You’re fucking good at that.”

I teased him like that until his balls were drawn taut against his shaft and right up until the point where he was bursting at the seams. I could taste the sweet and salty flavors of his pre-cum as it drained from the tip. I caught his hungry gaze, before gliding back to the top and releasing his cock.

I climbed on the bed, straddling him. My breasts brushed against his face as I seated myself on his thighs. He took the opportunity to lick my nipples, alternating between breasts and teasing the sensitive buds over and over again. He sucked hungrily, and I shuddered against him with every flick of his tongue and nip of his teeth against my skin.

With a determined growl, Tristan grabbed my hips and started to turn us over.

“Don’t move,” I said, sliding my sex over his needy cock. “Let me fuck you.”

“Fuck yes,” was his reply.

His hands moved away from my hips to my ass and he spread me wider and then pushed me down on his cock until his entire length was buried inside me. I closed the distance between us and dug my fingers into his shoulders. I pumped my hips to accommodate his size. I fucked him deliberately slow, moving my hips seductively. As my clit made contact with the base of him over and over again, heat escalated inside of me rapidly. I thought I was deep enough, but he adjusted his pelvis and thrust hard into me, trying to take control. I increased the speed and intensity of my rhythm until we were both gasping for air and reaching for release.

When he began speaking to me in his Slavic tongue, I came undone. I moaned, inching closer and closer to climax. I guess I wasn’t in much control at all. My canines lengthened, and in shame, I buried my face against his neck.

He gripped my neck gently, lifted my chin, and made me look at him.

“You’re beautiful, my Queen. Do not hide this from me,” he whispered. I could sense his animal as it tried to make a deeper connection with mine.

My body convulsed as an explosion pulsed through every nerve and vein in my body. Tristan groaned when I came with the walls of my pussy milking his pulsing shaft. An intense fiery sensation ripped between us as his bulging shaft exploded, pushing his hot seed inside of me. Streams of semen and serum were like fuel to the visions revealed to us. I closed my eyes and let the images take over. It was like looking in through a telescope.

---

“Read the first line on page one-thirty-eight, and tell me what you think it means,” an older, wiser Tristan was speaking to a young boy. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old.

The boy was seated at a desk with Tristan on the other side, shuffling through some paperwork. The boy leaned in and read silently from a journal.

“What did you read?” Tristan asked the boy.

“The strength of a wolf isn’t measured in the timbre of his growl,” the boy replied.

“Dakle? What does that mean to you?”

“It means…” The little boy paused and thought for a second. “It means that it doesn’t matter if a wolf is the biggest or loudest in the room. It doesn’t matter how fast he can run or how hard he can fight. It doesn’t matter how many enemies he can kill. The strength of a wolf isn’t in the amount of weight he can lift, but in the number of burdens he can carry and then overcome.”

Tristan, who had been listening intently to the boy, sat back in his chair and smiled widely.

From the other side of the room, a little girl burst through the door. She looked identical to her brother but she had pigtails and yellow ribbons throughout her hair.

“Daddy!” she cried out.

“Ramona…my sweet rose.”

As he rose from the desk to catch the little girl in his arms and spin her around and around, one thing was proven. Tristan adored his children and his children looked up to him. He was going to be an excellent father.

---

Tristan gasped and his hips jolted upward, throwing us both out of the vision. He leaned forward, resting his chin on my shoulder and breathed heavily, his cock pulsing lightly until the last of his semen had exited him.

I didn't have to ask him if he'd seen the same vision as I. I knew he had. He was quiet as a mouse, probably wondering what else his future would entail.

I wanted that future with him. I wouldn’t let anything get in my way, so I did the only thing I was sure would help. I used the energy we generated from our love-making to execute yet another healing spell—one directed at the wound in his side that hadn't entirely healed yet. On top of that, I added another spell that would put him into a restful sleep.

Before he knew it, I had already completed both spells and the effects were taking root in him.

”What the f…?” he mumbled, leaning back on his elbows until finally, his back hit the bed.

“I’ll heal you again and again if I have to,” I told him, watching as a light went out in his irises.

With a kiss on his lips, I uttered a final command, ”Somnus.”

“Witch,” he whispered in protest, but a grin twitched at his lips. His eyelids fluttered as he fought to keep them open. “Oh…the treachery.” He chuckled softly, but only for a split second and fell fast asleep.

“Rest, Tristan. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow,” I said.

Using telekinesis, I bolted the locks to the door just as he would’ve done on any given night, curled up beside him, and succumbed to the strenuous effects of yet another healing spell.