Uncaged

Epilogue

The woods of northeastern Maine enveloped the RV in a silent cocoon of leaves. It was late June, and we'd been on the road for a little over a month. Once my graduation was done, Nikki's parents had given us the RV as a gift and told us to go have fun. They said it was to make up for years of her missing out on the good presents, and it was long overdue. They were probably right.

But we took them at their word and did exactly that, we had fun.

Part of the vacation was also a scouting mission. We were looking for other werewolf packs, hoping to get advice on how to manage ours so we wouldn't be considered rogues anymore. The packs were harder to find than we expected, encroaching human civilization had cut back on forest sizes, but we were able to sniff them out with the help of our wolves.

We'd just had a great meeting with the Thorn Tooth pack, who'd given us a lot of good ideas on pack dynamics and how to organize ourselves. We were a bit jealous, they had an actual pack house, and a lot of thick woodlands to play in, as they were located in the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge. They weren't a huge pack, only about 30 adults, but they were still big enough that several of their pack members lived across the border in Canada. Their location was something that Clover and Fera were whining about until we let them out to play in the woods for a few hours.

We kept in contact with everyone back home, and the news there was good as well. There had been a missing persons report filed on Brad by his family, and I did feel a bit guilty for them not knowing what had happened. Brad's Range Rover was found in south Florida near the everglades, and there were fingerprints and blood from one Harold Phillips, a man with quite the rap sheet who coincidentally worked close by the private school that Brad was attending. He was the number one suspect in the disappearance, but so far, he hadn't been found either. I was hoping that the wounds I'd given him would be enough, but now with a manhunt underway for him, I didn't think he'd be bothering us any time soon.

Jasmine was getting witch training and progressing well. She and Jane were going stronger than ever, and I had a feeling they would want to get their own place soon. They were doing community college too, just so Jasmine could continue the training with her mom, and Jane didn't want to be anywhere apart from her mate. Ben had gone off to college in Arizona though. As much as he said he didn't want to be a werewolf, I think he was a bit jealous. He still had the option to join as well, but seemed scared. We would never pressure him, but it wasn't the same without him. He knew about our trip, and I'd told him we'd stop to see him while we were in his area. Considering our planning, it might not be till after the new year though. Adam was loving life in high school now. He was still seeing the same girl, someone who could keep him grounded, and without his sister in school he didn't feel like the little brother anymore. Both of Nikki's parents were great as well, finally back together after so many years and able to spend time together. There had been a lot of tears at first, but now they were like newlyweds again. It was a little sickening.

My parents were just as bad though, with their new wolves making their hormones run crazy. Our damned wolf hearing made me want to sleep with ear plugs with the two of them going at it. Blech. Thank goodness I got to go on the trip away from all that, though the twins and Fran kept complaining about it. My mom's recovery had been complete, and she was able to prove to the medical board that she was able to continue practicing again. She didn't want to go back into surgery though, so she just opened a small pediatric practice instead so she could be home more often, since she'd missed so much of our lives over the last few years. My dad was able to quit and only work one job, and Sam was cooking alongside him to learn more instead of cooking for the family at home. Fran and Leon started to have a social life now that they didn't have to be caretakers anymore, and all of them were so much happier about it.