Three months.

Three months since she’d left Damon’s Mountains determined to get stronger.

Three months since the second war.

Three months since humans had uploaded shaky video of the shifters destroying Covington.

Three months since the government had opened an official investigation into who was to blame for all the casualties and all the damage to the town.

Three months since Red Havoc thought they were going to lose their alpha.

Greyson was watching her. He did that a lot. Ghost cat, always worried she would backslide, but she would prove herself to him, and to the rest of Red Havoc, with time. She smiled at him where he sat balanced on the back two legs of his neon blue, plastic chair. Grey had his hands linked behind his head, and when he was busted watching her, he smiled unapologetically. His neck was so scarred up now, not even his tattoos could hide the damage, but he didn’t seem to mind.

This life required scars, Lynn had come to learn. Some were on the outside, and some they carried on the inside. But scars weren’t shameful. They meant survival. They meant putting in work. They meant sticking around and getting through the hard stuff just on the chance that things could get better.

And for Lynn, things had gotten better—better than she’d ever imagined.

“All I’m saying,” Jaxon said, “is that I feel sorry for you, Lynn.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “I don’t even want to know,” she said, nestling closer to Jathan in his lap. He’d been scratching her back for the last half an hour, calming her, but he was as quiet as she was because they were waiting for something important.

“You picked the twin who got the genetic deficit for dick size.”

“Oh my God,” Annalise complained from where she stood by the grill, flipping steaks and corn on the cob. “Again? We have to talk about your dicks again?”

“Always!” Jax said. “We always have to talk about them because that shithead won’t stop burning the words my dick is way bigger into our front yard! Four weeks in a row? Really?”

“That wasn’t me, bro,” Jathan said in a bored voice.

“Screw you, yes it was,” Jax scoffed. “You used to do the same thing when we lived with the Gray backs. Clinton taught me how to do that too, just so you know. Next week I’m burning a life-sized portrait of my dick into your stupid yard. It’s gonna be enormous.”

Nearly unseating Lynn off his lap, Jathan leaned over and kicked the leg of Jaxon’s chair so hard, he fell backward, yelling a string of curses that would make a sailor blush.

“Language!” Jenny, Ben’s mate, admonished, jamming her finger at the two six-year-old panther cubs playing near the entrance of the clearing. “The last thing I need is the boys repeating ‘suck my hairy balls’ at school. They already get in trouble enough with what Barret’s been teaching them.”

“I simply taught them how to grow plants,” Barret defended himself from where he was sitting behind Eden.

Weed, Genevieve signed. You taught them how to grow weed.

“One of these days, Barret…” Jenny’s warning tapered off as she stared up at the sky through her oversize red sunglasses. She rubbed the swell of her belly. She was tanning on a plastic recliner in a red and white polka-dot bikini.

Barret paused from his diligent work of making a hundred tiny little braids in Eden’s blond hair to scoff, “One of these days, what?”

“I’m gonna kick you in your hairy balls,” Jenny muttered. Ben bellowed a single laugh from where he was putting fresh logs in the fire pit for the next crew bonfire.

As Barret tied a little pink rubber band into the braid he’d just finished in Eden’s hair, he griped primly, “I’m tired of everyone always picking on me.”

Anson rubbed his eyes and made crying noises.

“Shut up, Anson! I get in trouble all the time, and I don’t even do anything wrong.”

“Oh yeah?” Kaylee asked from where she was lounging in Anson’s lap. “Who really burned the words my dick is way bigger into Jax and Annalise’s yard? Hmm?”

“It’s not wrong if it’s true,” Barret barked out remorselessly.

Jax hadn’t bothered getting up yet from where he’d fallen and lifted his head off the ground high enough to glare at Barret. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? You did it?” He picked up an empty blue beer can beside him and chucked it at Barret, who was flipping Kaylee off. The tin bounced off his forehead with a hollow thunk, and now Lynn was laughing right along with the others.

God, this crew was a mess. She loved them.

The sound of a car engine rumbled through the clearing, and Raif and Bentley stopped playing in the mud in the dirt road. “Mom! They’re here!” Bentley yelled as the two boys stood and sprinted back toward them.

Lynn’s heart began drumming against her chest. She looked over her shoulder at Jathan, but he was smiling so big she couldn’t be nervous if she tried.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Three months ago, she’d told her parents she wasn’t ready to keep Amberlynn safe yet. There had been too much work to do on herself before she knew she could give her the life she deserved. Today things were different because she’d patched up her inside scars and done the work. Her eyes prickled with emotion, and she nodded. “I’m ready. Jathan?”

“Yeah?” he asked, brushing his knuckle down her cheek.

“I’ll be good at this, right?”

“You’re gonna be amazing. And I’m gonna be right here with you.” There were honest tones infused in every word, so she had to believe him, because he truly believed in her.

Her dad’s old Pontiac bounced and bumped up the gravel road, and Lynn stood. Behind her Jathan hugged his arms around her chest and pressed a comforting kiss against her temple.

Everything was prepared. Amberlynn’s nursery was ready for her to sleep there. Lynn had bought everything she needed for her baby to come home. She’d felt this huge hole and massive weight in the last few months that she hadn’t understood until right now, this moment.

The last puzzle piece that had been missing from her life was sitting in a little car seat in that black Pontiac.

The crew touched her as she walked past them, just a brush of fingertips against her arms that warmed her from the inside out. Jathan gripped her hand in his massive one. So strong and safe. He’d been her safe place from the second she’d left here for Damon’s Mountains. He’d been the one to take her away from here, the one to begin fixing her insides, and the one to send her home. In this moment, holding his hand, feeling the soft touches from her crew as she made her way toward the car—toward a happy future—she felt like the luckiest person in the world.

When Mom got out, she was already crying. This had to be hard on them, giving up the child they’d raised for the last year, but when Lynn opened her mouth to apologize, Mom hugged her up tight and whispered in her ear, “I’m so proud of you.”

Lynn hugged her back, gripping her shirt. It felt so damn good to make people proud instead of disappointed. And then Dad was there, and she could tell he was proud too, just from his smile. “It’s so damn good to see you like this, Lynn. This is where me and your mom always dreamed of you ending up.”

“In Red Havoc?” she asked, her eyes glued to the gurgling little redhead in his arm.

“No, baby girl. Happy. You look so happy. I can feel it coming off you in waves.”

Dad handed her Amberlynn, and Lynn did her best not to fall apart as she brought her to her hip and rested her forehead on her daughter’s. Beside her, Dad shook Jathan’s hand in that mannish way big dominant male shifters did.

“Hi, baby,” she whispered, rocking back and forth.

Amberlynn began playing with a lock of Lynn’s hair. It was such a simple thing to happen, but something she thought she’d never get to be a part of. She’d been so close to gone, and now here she was, in this moment, with her crew and her parents. With her mate and her daughter. Her daughter.

Jathan’s hand was rubbing her back now, and she looked up at him through her tears. His dark eyes were full, too. He scrubbed his hand down his beard, then leaned down and cupped the back of Amberlynn’s head. He kissed the top of it, and then he did the same to Lynn, but stayed there, hugging her close. “My girls,” he said in a thick voice.

It was the best feeling in the world to go from complete numbness to holding her little girl in her arms, having her heart so full. She was overwhelmed with joy as she stood there, holding her baby, surrounded by Jathan’s strength. Moments like these were what made a lifetime. They were what made a life great. Her life was amazing, and she was so glad she hadn’t quit.

Now…

Lynn was a survivor.

She was a fighter.

She was a proud Red Havoc panther.

A friend.

A daughter.

A mate.

She was a mother.

She was exactly as she was supposed to be.

 

 

 

 

The End

The Beginning