He Will Be Mine

Chapter 100: Epilogue

Tyler: Two Weeks After the Start of the Rogue War

I've had about enough of these rogues coming up out of the ground and waltzing right up to our borders to threaten and taunt us. The scouts have done their jobs. We know where they're hiding, and how they're getting around. And we know what we need to do about it.

But Aly is worried about taking the fight to the tunnels. We're wolves, and we like being outside. The tunnels might be narrow and cramped, and we'll be at a disadvantage because we've not lived inside them for years. It will be hard to go in and maintain our formations. They might have stockpiles of weapons.

But guess what? We have a secret weapon too. Me. Those rogue bastards can try it, but their stupid weapons won't work. They can try to crowd me, pin me, swarm me, and all it will do is make Zeke madder. I'll clear the damn tunnels myself if I have to. I'm not spending even one more night awake worrying whether they're going to start popping out again and expecting us to play whack-a-mole to fight them off.

We're clearing out those tunnels and destroying them. We're taking their stockpiles. We're smoking out those pesky gophers, and we're doing it now. Then they'll have to travel above-ground through the woods like the rest of us. I call this Mission: Evening the Score. But Aly says I watch too much television.

Well, let's just hope they're not getting TV service in their underground hideouts so they'll never see it coming.

Alyssa: Two Months After the Start of the Rogue War

Despite everything going on with the rogues, in a lot of ways, life goes on. Our people go to work, to school, to daycare. My mom still works in her garden, and my dad still joins us for training in the mornings. The threat is far from over, and there are still curfews and limitations being enforced, but I'm glad a sense of normalcy has returned.

It helps a lot that we finally finished clearing out and burying in the rogue tunnels near us. Once they no longer had that easy access to our borders, and once our patrols started to be able to spot them in enough time that we could mobilize before they reached us, people started to relax a bit. In fact, school resumes today, and it's Matt's first day at work.

Tyler and I, on the other hand, have another matter to contend with. We've been nervously sitting side-by-side on an exam table at the infirmary waiting for Corey to join us. We went to him because though it felt like it was time to get a professional's opinion, something like this needs to be handled privately by someone we trust so that the rest of the pack won't catch wind of it.

They can't know that their Alpha might be struggling with infertility, especially not now when I need their support more than ever. Though it hasn't been incredibly long since we abandoned our birth control, it's been long enough that we're starting to worry. For most Alphas, a pregnancy will result from their first coupling with a fated mate if there's nothing preventing it. We completed our mating back in March, and now it's late August, and there's still no sign of any pups in our near future.

Just to be sure there's not something going on health-wise, Corey had me undergo a bunch of testing, all of which he handled discreetly on his own just like we asked. Now, we're waiting for the results and his final verdict.

"I have good news," he declares after finally joining us in the room.

"Just tell us everything, good or bad," I demand nervously, feeling too stressed for sugar coatings right now.

"Well first off, your home tests were accurate. You're not pregnant yet, though that's not the good news," he announces, glancing up at us to gauge our reactions.