HER Young Mate (Completed)

Epilogue

(Please listen to song as you read or before- it's what inspired the whole story, and idk, gives this epilogue more depth, so yeah, please listen, and enjoy!)

Epilogue:

I watch her in the field of flowers I first kissed her in. Back then it was just a grassy field, but this spring and all summer, as the children first learned to crawl, the flowers bloomed with them. I swear it's magic, it's the magic she creates everywhere she goes.

I can tell she's thinking about something bad. Her eyes are distant, and she's stopped eating the apple she brought out with her. She's silent, and I stop at a tree a good distance away. Just to watch her.

She looks as beautiful as the day I met her- only more so in some impossible way, because now I look at her with the knowledge that she has given me every part of her, every part of her soul that she was able to share- was shared with me. I see the darker parts of her shimmering in her eyes, as something from her past haunts her, but she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, as the last few moments of the summer dance around her. With each breeze fall is welcomed closer, and I know she's trying to savor the comfort of the forest in its last moments of warmth.

She looks like a painting. Delicate pale features against a mess of colors, she stands out on the horizon. The flowers sway like an ocean around her, and she isn't like an island- hard or stable in its wake, but like a flower herself- adrift.

She is, like she has always been, a flame. The sparking embers in the wind of the bonfires. The furnace that burns passionately and unpredictably. She is a flame that never goes out.

She is everything, she just doesn't always know it.

>>>

"Coralie?"

I look up. I don't know how long I've been sitting here, but seeing his face brings me back to reality.

"Danny!" I exclaim his name back, because I'm so excited to see his face. So strong, so mature, so different than the first time I kissed him, in this very spot. He had grown so much since then, now his genes have caught up, and he remains the same, but the first time I kissed him here, well he was hardly a man at all. Now as he smiles at me, a baby on each hip, I can't help but beam at that mature face. The grown man that I love, with the same bright fire in his eyes.

He always says I'm his flame, his fire, the light... But I think it's really in him, I just ignite it. I see the flame in his soul, I feel it when he's near, and it shines in those green eyes just the same. He is the center of us all, the power, the fuel. From the day he ran into my arms- from that very moment- he became the heart of our family. He is the heart that beats in my very chest, and now that heart beats in our children. I smile so happily, because his beautiful face brings a wave of peace over the sore scars, that I had just been thinking of.

I can't even remember what was bothering me.

"Where's Gavin?" I ask, as he sets down Morgan on unsteady legs. She wobbled for a moment, before plopping down. Danny smirks, perfectly, and turns just enough to show that he's sleeping against his back in a sling, bundled up tightly in a warm blanket- the one he prefers the most, because it smells of Danny- and Gavin is just like me, in almost every way, and loved being snuggled up to his father.

"How are you feeling?" He asks, still across the field. "We were missing you, but if you want a moment, love, we can come back... You look so peaceful, I almost didn't bother you..."

"You could never bother me," I smile, and I see pride in his eyes, the pride he always has when he is around his family, and I make him happy. A smile of completeness... and I am so humbled that I've helped him gain that. It's what I'm most proud of.

I didn't think I'd make it to this day, seeing all three of our children, being his wife, even just being home. There were so many times it could have all crumbled, but we both fought too hard. Too hard to let anything come between us. It's what I was put on this earth to do, and now I know that.

When I first saw him running out of this forest- and realized he was my mate- I saw the loneliness in his soul, in his eyes. I felt the empty space in his heart. The need he had for a home. I saw that spark he had, the flames that could grow someday, his strength. He just needed... Me.

He needed us. He needed a family.

Every sacrifice was worth it, because more than anything... I needed him, too.

I needed him more than I could ever imagine in those first few moments, even when I felt the pull of being his mate, it could never compare to the need I have for him now. The insatiable need for his love.

I had always imagined running free into the night, just myself and the wind, but as the cool breeze brushes over me now, I know that would have never made me happy. Not this happy. I had felt the loneliness of a family falling apart, I always thought it was because we didn't have a Luna, that we were all lone in our own way... Now I know it was that I was running from becoming a Luna myself.

I know now that it was always supposed to be me, just as much as it was always supposed to be him. That my family was falling apart, because I was scared, and I ran. That they all needed me, and I needed them. And it was Daniel who pulled that from me, without him I would have never found my own strength. Without his undying need for me, I would have never found what I wanted myself.

And I want this. Here. And now. Forever.

My family, my friends, my heart, my children, for all time, is all I could ever ask for. They were soft cradling arms that were just behind me, a safety that is always there. A safety that lets me open my arms, and fly in the night. They are the freedom in my veins that I had always sought after. They were the wind in my hair as I ran through the night. They were the stars, and Daniel is the moon, and I am the forest. I am the comfort and the strength that they all need, and they are the rush that makes me soar above the clouds, they are the feeling of the night.

They are what gives me life.

"No," I reply to Danny as he waits with Payton still on his hip, "Bring those beautiful children over here, and stay with me until the moon comes up." I say, as he beams, a wide smile that goes up to his green eyes again, warm and begging for affection.

"Are you sure your feeling alright?" He chuckles as he walks closer, and Morgan crawls with ferocity towards me, her own little spark glowing.

"I feel great, love..." I chuckle, as I look back at him. "...I feel free- like wind, like fire."

End.