The Clear Choice

{ Chapter 47 }

Clary's POV

White sheets billowed all around and I was buried in a sea of thin fabric and lemon-yellow sunlight. I laughed into the mattress and felt a warm rush of emotion as I laid in Issac and I's king sized bed. Soft wind blew around us from the huge windows being open, the summer air carrying our laughter gently.

My hands found his body in the waves of sheets and I cuddled close to him, our bare skin tan from the frequent sun. Freckles had bloomed on our cheeks and Issac's eyes got greener. I had my hair chopped my hair to my shoulders and Issac's had become a curly mess. I heard his laugh and it made me smile into his strong shoulder as I wrapped myself around him.

Everything was perfect. I moved my body to sit on his stomach and grabbed one of the numerous white sheets to wrap around my bare torso. He laid splayed out beneath me with his arms stretched out to his sides, a beautiful sense of calm in his eyes. I leaned forward and kissed his cheek softy.

His hands slid up my thighs and up around to my back, his touch electrifying. My fingertips traced up his flat chest and rested on his jaw, my Wolf purring contentedly in my mind.

I yelped with a laugh as Issac flipped us over, his eyes swirling as he hovered above me. Our lips met and every kiss was like the first one we shared in the pack house backyard. That day our mouths were unsure and our minds were timid of the feelings we had for each other. Now, I held him close and revealed in the fact that he was mine and we had made it through together. I wasn't scared of anything anymore and every time I touched him, my fingers were confident and strong.

My fingers threaded into his soft hair and I sighed into his mouth. It was early but not early enough for us to get out of bed yet.

This new life was extraordinary. I was the leader that I always wanted to be and had Issac by my side.

The Saltus pack was now the biggest pack in North America, its size increased by the Purum pack merge and from the Lacus and Patet wolves that had stayed here when they found their Mates during the war. There were less rogues these days now that there was a place everyone could belong.

The Purum pack mountains had become ours and we had extended our territory to the abandoned cabins on its opposite side. We were making future plans to expand even further.

Surprisingly many of the purebloods didn't stay up in their distant home, and before I knew it I was adjusting myself to seeing so many white wolves in the forest.

My mother stayed up in the mountains and I'd visit her every once in a while but we were never that close. Also, she was just a hard shell of the powerful she-wolf she used to be now that my father was gone.

We had lost many, but we are greater than what we have lost in the end. We are a stronger species and made a treaty to stay away from the humans. The closest human settlement had become abandoned after the war and I was unsure as to where the next one was.

I lost myself in Issac's touch and his body pressed up against mind once I thought of all the people we lost. It was a crushing feeling that I didn't like.

Nina had changed so much and the light behind her eyes would probably be extinguished if it weren't for my brother. They had become so close and I couldn't think of a better person for Zak than Nina.

Lucas's funeral was attended separately by the whole pack because of his sacrifice for his Alpha. The whole thing was so hard and Issac didn't speak the whole day of it.

Issac's father's funeral wasn't so much as sad as it was calming. A wolf should die soon after it's Mate does, but Marcus held on for years. He was a strong leader, but it was his time. He had been the one to kill Kane in the end. I shouldn't've been in the middle of them.

It was something I kept to myself, the things my father told me when it was just him and I on that ledge in the storm.

He told me he knew I'd be the one to start this war, he saw a fire in my soul the day I was born. But he had chose me to be the spy. He had chose me to start all this. When I think of the things the four first purebloods showed me when I was between life and death, my father made more sense to me.

He wanted this to end this way. He knew of the secret that unpures could become purebloods easily, and he kept his secret until he died. I still don't know exactly where I went when I fell off that cliff. But I do remember my father's huge wolf wrapping himself around my small body as everything became a black blur of silence. I knew I had been pronounced dead for about an hour but somehow I was given the choice to return and I wasn't going to waste it. I had a future and it was here.

I sighed as Issac's arms held me close. I did what we always did on the roof and shut off all my senses except hearing.

The pack house echoed with life. Pups were running around as a result of all the new Mated wolves. I could here Lira and Tobias down the hall in their room, laughing at a joke I didn't catch. They were so different and yet they balanced each other perfectly; something Toby really needed. I listened harder and heard the summer breeze stir the pines and the birds. The hum of conversation in the Saltus pack mind link was alive and happy, not throbbing and dark like after all the deaths of the war.

I found my brothers voice and zeroed in on it. He was in the backyard with Nina, talking to her as they laid in the grass. She was quiet these days but she smiled and it reached her eyes.

I found Rosaline's sweet voice and she was with her human Mate, Peter, in the kitchen downstairs. I smiled as my ears picked up a tiny heartbeat in her stomach.

I heard wolves howling, racing, and barking; the happy noises fusing together and making my Wolf content with the prosperity of our pack.

I sat up in the large bed, Issac's body following mine as I sat in his lap. His lips pressed against my shoulder as I gazed out the window. The curtains were lifted away by the soft wind and I smiled at the view.

My eyes traveled over the healthy green forest and the patches of land that would grow the trees we replanted after they were burned. The sky was a sea-bright blue and it went on forever, cloudless and warm.

My gaze latched onto the grey mountains in the distance and I smiled.

I had been running my whole life. Running from a life I couldn't live. I had ran past the border and into the heart of the man I now loved more than anything.

I was done running. I would stay and live with the fact that in the end, I had made the clear choice and saved those who needed saving.

Including myself.

THE END

A/N
Ahhhhhhh it's over...
This has been such an experience for me and I can't thank you all enough for the reaction I got and the readers who've been there through every chapter. you rock.

There are thoughts on a sequel... but I have another story idea I want to start and I don't know what I'll do!! Comment your input!!

Thanks again, you're all so lovely and I hope you enjoyed reading TCC, I loved writing it (:

Until next time,
-Carolyn