There were no rules to werewolf football. None that Alison could discern, anyway.

The game, such as it was, seemed to consist of standing in a sunny, dirty field outside the edge of town and throwing a football for four wolves to chase and fight over. It was a warm spring, but the ground was damp and cold, and when four huge werewolves trampled it, it soon became nothing but mud. Which only made the game better.

Alison gripped the football and looked for a likely catcher. Tessa was standing twenty feet away, her hands in the air. She was hugely pregnant, about to give birth any day, but she was still game and ready to catch, her big belly casting a shadow in the sunshine. Anna was sitting in a folding chair on the sidelines—she was pregnant, too, but only in her first trimester, and the morning sickness was hitting her hard today. She gave a faint wave but didn’t get up.

Alison herself was four months pregnant with her second baby, but she had dodged morning sickness this time. She found Nadine, the only Donovan mate who wasn’t pregnant today—though Alison happened to know that she and Devon had been trying for weeks—running toward the trees, her hands up. “Me!” she shouted. “Here!”

Alison threw the ball. Nadine caught it and turned to sprint for the trees, her legs pumping hard. And then the wolves chased her.

Brody, Heath, Ian, and Devon were all in wolf form, and they all came from nowhere, speeding behind Nadine. “No fair!” Nadine shouted as they overtook her. She spun and threw the ball to Tessa, who moved as fast as she could—that was, not very fast—to catch it. The four wolves spun and headed for Tessa instead.

Tessa spun and threw to Alison, who threw to Nadine again, but this time Heath’s wolf leapt and caught the ball in midair. It was his turn to sprint toward the trees with the ball in his mouth, his brothers on his tail. The ensuing tackle ended up in a tangle of fur and mud, all four wolves wrestling until Ian broke away with the ball in his mouth. He ran to Anna and dropped it at her feet, his tongue hanging out.

Anna looked down at the ball—deflated, ripped nearly in half, covered in dirt and wolf slobber—and said, “Do we win?”

“Go!” came a delighted cry. Alison looked down at her daughter, Skylar, almost one and walking on her chubby legs into the middle of four huge werewolves. “Again!” she cried, waving her arms.

Alison opened the rubber tote on the sidelines and pulled out another football. “She says go again,” she told the Donovan brothers. “So we do it. Go!”

She threw the ball to Tessa this time, who threw it to Nadine. Nadine only got three feet before Devon tackled her—gently, of course, for a two-hundred-pound wolf—and butted his head into her hip. She threw the ball back to Tessa and tackled Devon back, throwing herself onto his back and dropping him to the ground. They wrestled, Nadine shrieking with laughter, while Tessa threw the ball again.

This time, Brody caught it, his wolf’s body twisting like mercury in the sunlight as he leapt. He hit the ground and Heath was on him immediately, growling and digging his teeth into the scruff of Brody’s neck as Ian tried to wrest the ball from his jaws. That particular fight left all three of them covered in mud from head to paws, but this time Heath emerged the victor, bringing the shredded ball and dropping it at Tessa’s feet. She bent and kissed his muddy nose, and they started again.

And so it went, until the sun was high, and Tessa’s feet hurt, and Skylar got hungry and sat on the folding chair next to Anna, eating a cracker and a slice of apple. The last shredded football was dropped in the mud, the winner was completely unclear, and the four wolves ran into the trees in different directions to change into men again. Alison was packing up their supplies when she heard Skylar shout, “Daddy!” and she knew Brody had emerged once more.

Skylar wriggled off her chair and ran toward her father. Brody—dressed now, his arms and face muddy—scooped her up and kissed her, getting dried mud on her skin. Skylar laughed in delight.

“You totally cheated,” Devon said to Brody as he walked toward Nadine, who was almost as muddy as he was.

“There are no rules,” Brody pointed out. “I couldn’t cheat. Besides, I don’t think I won.”

“That was me,” Heath said. He took Tessa’s hand and kissed it; she looked delighted and disgusted at the same time. “I totally won.”

“Yeah, Heath,” Ian said, rolling his eyes. “You totally won.” He turned to the rest of them. “I’m taking Anna home now to rest.”

They left, and Tessa looked Heath up and down. “You can’t come in the house like that,” she said. “I’m going to hose you off.”

“I look forward to it,” he said, and led her to his truck.

Devon didn’t even bother to say goodbye; he already had Nadine slung over his shoulder, and she was laughing and holding on as he carried her off.

Brody was still holding Skylar. Getting a grip on her wriggling body, he leaned down and kissed Alison—just a little longer than necessary, and then longer again. He tasted like man and werewolf and a little bit like mud, and when he pulled away she could have sworn she felt the faintest flutter in her belly, as if the baby in there knew exactly what was going on.

On the other side of the field was a park—yet another park they’d managed to put in over the last year and a half. Kids were playing in it, while the adults sat and talked. The Falls was finally at peace.

“You hungry?” Brody asked her.

“Yes,” Alison said, “and so are your kids. Both of them.”

“Then let’s go home and eat.” But he didn’t make a move. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her instead. He kept going until Skylar said, “Daddy, stop!” Then he pulled away, laughing softly.

Alison thought this might be the happiest moment in a long, long series of happy moments. “Thank you,” she said to Brody.

His eyebrows went up. “For what?”

There wasn’t really an answer to that. But still, she gave him one.

She smiled at Brody Donovan. “Everything,” she said.