His Lycan Luna Queen novel Chapter Epilogue

AZALEA

One Month Later

We salvaged whatever we could. The thought of rebuilding led to the inevitable truth, a place that had become but a distant memory would now be our home. Where we will rebuild our lives and our Kingdom. Days we spent sifting through what was left of the castle. I still feel a little guilty that I destroyed the place, yet as Kyson told me, home is with our people, not in a physical place.

However, sifting through the wreckage that we once called home, we managed to save a few precious things. How they survived is beyond me.

A few of Kyson’s treasured books and Clarice’s favorite egg flip survived, too. Oh, and let’s not forget that dreaded apron Liam loves so much, the one that smells as bad as it looks. And of all the things to survive, I hoped that wasn’t one of them. But sure enough, it did, and his face had lit up like a kid on Christmas when he showed me. I have a funny feeling that his idea of a fabulous Christmas present involves blood and gore. And maybe more aprons.

Along with the knick-knacks we found was my father’s sword; the other was the jewelry box my mother gave me when I was a baby.

After moving here, Cedric and I started digging through old Landeena and Azure archives, looking for more information on the Eclipsarian. We learned that it is a broken piece of the sword and was used to create Lycan Bloodlines. The stone represented my mother’s gifts, and the sword my father’s. Brought together, they represented a sort of yin and yang, a constant balance, and created infinite power, yet in separate hands, they kept peace. One never overtakes the other, truth in the face of deceit and manipulation, love in the place of hate and war.

Cedric told me my father searched for the talisman, but it was rumored to be nothing more than myth and legend, and my mother told him the only thing she was gifted was the shield. The Eclipsarian was another of my mother’s secrets. My father believed that it was with my mother, and he was right. And all along, it sat in a jewelry box right beneath his nose.

It showed how far my father’s greed went that he would give her an ultimatum. She would either hand it over, or he would force her to marry him, believing he could gain the advantage of her power through my birth. It also showed how much she was willing to sacrifice to ensure it did not fall into his hands.

She instead sacrificed herself just to keep the peace. But the most precious thing salvaged of all was our daughter’s ashes; the bear somehow miraculously survived, so we still have that piece of her, which is now placed in the nursery we have set up, which was my old nursery as a baby. But we’ll forever be grateful for the second chance we now have and the second chance granted to our people and those we thought we lost but weren’t. Abbie had Gannon and Tyson; I have Kyson and this place. For once, we could all breathe and be happy and free. Finally, Abbie and I have freedom, yet death isn’t the freedom we seek anymore; our freedom now has new meaning. It’s living and the futures we know we have with our mates by our sides.

Now, we would finally find peace when we have known none. So, as I look up at the massive iron gates of what was once the Landeena Kingdom, I know we are finally home. A fresh start. But the first thing to go will be the Landeena crest; it will be replaced with the Valkyrie one.

Home used to be some made-up sentiment embedded in us for so long that we forgot the meaning of it. Growing up for Abbie and me, home meant pain, slavery, and then death. We truly believed that death was the only home we would know, the only way we would get freedom and have peace.

But I’ve since learned home was never a place or a thing, but within all of us all along. Home is finding ourselves, our own meaning. Home is with those we love. So I know we will eventually find happiness here, in this place that has been desolate for so long. Forgotten and haunted by the ghosts of a past I never knew was mine.

Yet, in front of me is a future I am indeed excited to live. One beside my King and my family.

Arms wrap around my waist as his hands slide up and over my stomach, a growing bump that holds our future and the future of our people.

“What’s wrong?” Kyson asks as his hands gently trace my growing belly.

“Nothing. I just can’t believe we are here of all places,” I tell him as I watch the Landeena guards race around and secure the perimeter, almost as if it is muscle memory and they had never left.

“And where is that, my Queen?”

“As this Kingdom rises, we shall rise with it. And if this Kingdom falls, we too shall fall,” they finish.

I am in awe of their display and how quickly they would accept this new place as home. I turn to Cedric and retrieve my sword, my fingers wrapping around the hilt. The talisman is cool beneath my palm, and I pledge to my people, feeling it warm in my grip.

“I pledge my heart and my life to Lycania and to every soul that calls it home. I will bleed for them, stand in battle for them, and if fate demands, I will lay down my life for them. From this moment forward, I am Azalea Ivy-Rose Valkyrie, the true Empress of Lycania. This land, these people—they are my kingdom, and they are more than my life.”

I grasp the blade, its weight familiar and grounding. I slide my hand along its edge, the metal kissing my skin, a symbolic severance from the past and a fierce embrace of the future that lies before us.

Yet, as my blood washes over the steel, it transforms. Gone are the crests and symbols of Landeena. In its place, etched in blue and red carved into the replenished steel, lay the makings of a new one. A mixture of all the Kingdoms that rose and fell, the Kingdoms of Lycania. The steel glows and heats, branding and forging. And I can feel the power that lies within its steel, feel the rightfulness of it in my hand when hands move down my arms from behind, and the familiar sparks I love rush over me.

Cedric takes my sword, and Kyson lifts my bleeding hand to his lips from behind me, the warmth of his chest seeping into me as he traces the slice with his tongue, healing the wounds left. And the scar it leaves matches the new crest now emblazoned in the steel.

“More than my life, always more,” Kyson whispers, his breath warm against my ear and I turn in his arms, my bump carrying our son brushing against him. My hands cup each side of his face.

“Forever yours, forever more than my life and beyond every forever,” I whisper.

The End.