Spring Will Come Again

Eventually, Aunt Margo and detective Marcus join us back in Silver Manor.

Margo steps forward to hug me in the most affectionate and emotional display I’ve ever seen from her. Apparently, all it took for my great-aunt to get in touch with her feelings was a war between werewolves and a handful of near-death experiences.

Who knew.

My brilliant, paranoid aunt accompanies us into the bunker and helps us get word to Ash on the other side of the bolted steel door to un-barricade herself from the medical facility.

A few minutes later, the door swings open.

Before I can even say anything, Ash throws herself into my arms, crying and laughing as we tell her over and over again.

“Kade is gone. We won. It’s really over.”

Behind her, Elder Hilda mutters a prayer of thanks to the Moon Goddess.

I wince as Ash squeezes me affectionately.

“Easy! I’m relieved to see you too. Ow!”

“Shit! Sorry! Are you okay?” she asks, stepping back to examine me as if she were a nurse appraising her patient. Will steps up beside me, and Ash’s eyes widen with excitement.

“Will! You magnificent badass, you’re not dead!”

She hugs my mate with enough force to tackle a grown man, but Will only chuckles.

“Glad to see you’re still alive as well,” he says, hugging her back. I can only imagine the fuss she’s going to make when she finds out that she’s going to be the Argent pack’s next Beta.

Hesitantly, I walk past them toward Elder Hilda, the question evident in my gaze. My aunt nods at the healer with a sad smile.

“This way, child. I think there’s something you’ll want to see.”

I follow the stout woman toward the back of the room, and she leads me to a pair of strange glass cylinders.

“They’re stasis chambers,” the healer explains. They look like white glass coffins with an assortment of monitors, tubes, and cables connected between them and other devices.

Inside them…

I go still, my heart thundering in my chest.

“Mom,” I whisper, stepping up to the edge of the strange container. With the exception of a few scars, she looks exactly how I remember her. Elizabeth Silver lies completely still inside the glass, her eyes closed.

I look over at the other chamber beside her, wiping my tears with the back of my sleeve. My father seems so peaceful; it almost looks like he could be sleeping. I press my hand against the glass, surprised to find it almost as cold as ice beneath my touch.

“Can they hear me?” I ask, my voice shaking with emotion.

“I’m sorry, my Luna. They cannot,” Elder Hilda replies apologetically. “They are frozen in every sense of the word. I’ve done everything in my power to help them, and the chambers keep them stable. They are suspended in a space somewhere between dead and alive.”

Ash and Will walk up to join me. My mate stands behind me, resting his hands on my shoulder as I lean back against him. Ash stands by my side and slips her hand into my own with a reassuring squeeze.

My family loves me so loud that even as my parents lie silent, I don’t feel alone.

“But there’s hope?” I ask Elder Hilda. Will answers before she can.

“Always.”

The healer gives him a disapproving glance, but there’s a smile in her eyes that she can’t hide.

“I believe so, yes. As of right now, we simply don’t have the technology, nor the magic, to wake them. But with time, anything is possible, and you know better than most that stranger things have happened.”

I look at my parents, frozen in their slumber. It’s closer to them than I’ve been since the crash. They’re not here, but not gone either.

“I won’t lie to you, Jane. Never again,” Aunt Margo says from the other side of the room. “It will likely be a very long time before they wake up. It might take years before we stand a chance of bringing them back properly. They wouldn’t want you to wait around for them, so I need you to know that they will be cared for. With every resource at my disposal, I will work to return your family to you.”

In some ways, she already has.

Because what is family, really, if not the people who love you unconditionally?

“Thank you, Margo. Thank you for everything.”

Even the messy parts. I can’t change any of it, but I have no regrets.

I glance around the room at the detective, my aunt, my best friend, and my mate. I will lead our pack with my whole heart, and I won’t do it alone. I will continue to become someone my parents can be proud of, and one day, they will wake up. I’m sure of it. I can feel it with every fiber of my being; we will be reunited once again.

And, oh, the stories I’ll tell them.

As we all file out of the room and then make our way out of the bunker, Marcus stands with an arm wrapped protectively around my aunt. For perhaps the first time in her life, Lady Margo lets herself be helped, and she leans against the detective gratefully. Many of us have been alone for so long that we are still learning to be a team. To be a true pack.

There’s a lot to be done as we move forward and rebuild, but despite the long road ahead and the blood on our hands, both figurative and literal, my mate still finds a moment to make me smile. Will nods toward my aunt and the detective, aching his eyebrows suggestively at how close they’re standing.

I wink at Will playfully, wondering through our bond if I should play matchmaker to Lady Margo and Detective Marcus. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

Will laughs, and I stop for a moment to take it all in, lingering by the grand double doors at the entrance of the mansion. Outside, the sunlight glistens on the melting snow, and I notice between the muddy earth of the quiet battlefield around Silver Manor, flowers have started to bloom.

Spring has finally come to Wynter City, and I’m astonished by the way joy and sorrow can blend together so beautifully. Love and death, friends and foes, light and darkness, violence and peace, chaos and order, laughter and tears. They’re not opposites but rather two sides of the same coin. It all swirls together in a magnificent mess.

It’s all just… life.

And I can’t wait to keep living it.