Epilogue - Mia
Epilogue - Mia
I don’t know how long I’ve been laughing for, but I can no longer feel my cheeks. My sides ache from
trying to breathe while laughing, one side of my face is smeared with frosting and the glitter bombs they
shoot at me have my hair all tangled up.
Doubled over, full of cake, and laughing at Niko looking confused at the sight in front of him.
It’s the afternoon of the autumnal Equinox, and I along with the Pente brides have decided to get to
know each other better. They’ve moved onto the pack lands and are staying in the mansion with us
until they’re married to their partners.
Maxim still hasn’t returned after going out to look for his missing bride, but Niko doesn’t seem worried
about it. Me, on the other hand, I am not sure if I’m worried about the bride or Maxim himself.
I get up and walk towards him, throwing my arms around his neck. “Hello, my love,” I greet him in a
cheery voice. “I didn’t expect you back until later this evening.”
“The meetings wrapped up sooner than expected,” he says, frowning at the giggling women behind
him. “Am I missing something?”
“Nope! We’re just getting to know each other better,” I say, turning back to look at them.
Just a few days ago they were terrified little lambs, now they’ve relaxed some. Well, I suppose the
champagne is helping quite a bit.
“Hmm, well I’ll leave you to it; when you’re done, come to my office, I have something to show you,” he
says and presses a kiss to my forehead before walking back to the mansion. “Enjoy, ladies.”
I watch as he walks away with a squeezing heart, then I turn back to women who have gone quiet.
They look up at me expectantly, but I have no idea why until I sit down next to Gianna and she takes
my hand in hers.
“Luna, how…” she starts, blushing. “How did you get someone as scary as the Alpha to fall in love with
you?”
I blink and turn to look at their faces shining with the same curious look present on Gianna’s face. That
question makes me think a bit, because there’s no way you can get Niko to do anything he doesn’t
want to do.
“How did I get Niko to fall in love with me?” I sit back in the wrought-iron chair and cross my arms. “I
don’t think I did anything of the sort.”
Eden rolls her eyes. “Yeah and my father isn’t a cold as fuck asshole who sells off his daughters,” she
says, scoffing. “You’ve got the second most powerful Alpha wrapped around your little finger, Luna.
Spill your secrets so we know what we need to do about our situations.”
I frown at this. “Situations? Are the Gammas-”
“Cold? Ignores us? Never talks? Yeah, pretty much,” Eden interjects, then she sighs. “We’ll be here for
a while and know what’s expected of us. But…how do we do that when our husbands are literal walls
of stone?”
Oh…The Gammas can be quite intimidating. I remember how much they scared me when I first met
them in Sin City - I can’t imagine spending a lot of time with them. Then again, Niko was the same.
I look at each of their faces; Gianna with her kind blue eyes, Eden with the defiance lingering in her
green ones, Noelle and Demi and their unreadable hazel color, and Alessia with her distant gray eyes.
These women will come to be my family soon; they’ll be the sisters I never had and since I am their
Luna, I feel a responsibility to them.
Sighing, I offer them a small smile. “All I did was be myself; I did nothing different. I didn’t push, didn’t
pry, didn’t force him to love me. One thing I did wrong was lying to him when I should have just told him
the truth, and that was the worst mistake I ever made.” I say, cringing at the memory of running away
from the pack house.
Alessia sits forward and narrows her eyes at me. “So, just be as we are? Nothing over the top to try
and break the ice?”
I nod. “You ladies need to remember that the Gammas are battle ready and hardened from years of
fighting. Alpha Nikolaos trained them and honed their skills to the best of his ability, so they’re always
primed for war. The last thing they will want is to fight a war with their partners at home,” I say, thinking
back to Divan’s words.
“Be yourselves. Be the kind women I see today. Apart from me and the Alpha, the Gammas have never
experienced true kindness; kindness that doesn’t hide ulterior motives. The only advice I can give you
today is to not push things with these soldiers, give them and yourselves the time to adjust to things.”
I don’t know if I’m getting through to them at all, but from the looks on their faces, I don’t think they
expected this advice. But truth be told, there’s no easy way to get through to a warrior who only knows
violence.
As much as people think I worked magic, I didn’t tame Nikolaos, not in the slightest. The cold Alpha is
still there; he just reserves the sweet part for me.
After a few minutes, I think the lesson has stuck because the looks on their faces are all different. The
determination to get through to their partners is there, but now it seems like there’s some renewed
motivation.
I hope this is a good thing.
The afternoon draws to a close when I tell them I need to head up to feed Ares. My breasts are full and
hard, so that gives me all the indication that my son will be waking up soon. After I say goodbye, they
still stay in the back garden to sip on their champagne; I didn’t indulge for obvious reasons. Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.
Like clockwork, Ariadne has Ares in her arms and he’s already starting to get niggly. “He just woke up,”
she says with a smile as she hands him to me. “Something tells me the beasty is starving.”
When she says this, I look down to see the wet spots on my blouse and chuckle. It’s only been a short
while since I gave birth, but Ares is already looking more and more like Niko. From the proud nose, to
the constant scowl on his little face.
I have a sneaky suspicion that he’ll be a formidable Alpha like his father, too.
After feeding and burping him, I express the rest, clean up and change into a fresh shirt and sports bra.
Then I head to the nursery and smile at what I see.
“Are you certain you’re okay to still watch him?” I ask Ariadne as she settles into her chair by the
window in the nursery. “I could call the minders?”
She makes a dismissive noise and waves me away. “He’s my only great-grandchild; I would like to
spend every waking moment with him,” she says with a warm smile.
I walk over to her and give her a hug. “Thank you,” is all I manage to say, but I am certain she knows
how much I mean it. Grandmothers are a blessing; great-grandmothers are even more so.
Kissing her silver hair, I walk out of the nursery towards Niko’s office. He mentioned needing to show
me something, but it didn’t seem like bad news.
He’s sifting through some paperwork and looks up when I enter, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Did
you have fun today?”
I nod and walk around his desk to sit on his lap. “I did; the brides wanted some advice from me seeing
as I tamed the SilverCrest Alpha.”
His eyebrow lifts and amusement fills those gorgeous green eyes. “Oh, did you? And what advice did
you give them?” he asks as he leans back in his chair to look at me properly.
I place my arms around his neck and sigh. “I told them to just be themselves and not hide anything
from their partners. The last thing they want is a war inside their own homes after coming back from
fighting one.”
“That is good advice; well done, Luna,” he says, pressing his lips to mine in a chaste kiss. “Now, I have
a surprise for you.”
I hardly ever get excited or curious anymore, but those feelings are gnawing at my stomach right now.
He reaches down and unlocks the bottom drawer of his desk, then hands me a brown envelope.
“Go ahead, open it,” he says as he places the envelope in my hands and kisses my fingers.
Swallowing hard as a frown marrs my eyebrows, I take it from him and open it with shaky hands. That
frown deepens when I pull out the official-looking papers and when I start to read them, my heart drops.
“I thought it was fitting,” he says, wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing the side of my head.
“Wouldn’t you say?”
Warm tears cascade down my cheeks as I re-read the words in front of me; my name is Mia Ioannides,
married to Nikolaos Ioannides since the 16th of December - the day I ran into him in that alley.
“I finally managed to recover your hidden files and had a few things changed including the identity of
your real father. Giovanni will not have a hold on you anymore, Mia, you’re finally free of him.” He
whispers into my ear as my tears continue to fall down.
I put the papers down and throw my arms around him in an embrace, sobbing at yet another kindness
Niko has shown me. My life changed when I ran into him in that alley, and since then it has been for the
better.
“Thank you, Nikolaos,” I murmured past the tears. “Thank you for everything.”
“You’ve given me a reason to breathe, kardia mou; this is the least I could do,” he says, stroking my
hair as I continue to cry. “I should be the one thanking you.”
Niko dries my tears after a few minutes and cups my face in his hands. “Let’s have dinner, then
afterward I would like to fully appreciate my wife,” he says with a mischievous smirk.
That’s when I remember that we’re legally married now and a shy smile tugs at my lips. “I think I like
that idea,” I say and I stand up. He laces his hands with mine and walks me out of his office to our first
official dinner as husband and wife.
***
I wake up with a start, an odd feeling clawing at my chest. Turning my head, I see Niko is still fast
asleep and tiptoe to the bathroom to splash my face. Something feels off, it has since after we made
love this evening.
Breathing out a sigh, I walk over to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the back garden and I feel
Star stirring. She seems restless, pacing up and down before settling - then doing the same thing
again.
What’s going on? Why do I feel like my whole body is on fire?
I look up at the full moon, noticing its cresting, and exhale again. Looking up at it seems to ease me a
bit, so I level my breathing in an attempt to calm my nerves and the prickling of my skin.
Strong arms wrap around my body and Niko’s scent fills my nose. “Can’t sleep?”
I shake my head. “I was sleeping and woke up feeling…weird,” I say as I lean back onto his bare chest.
His heart is beating just as fast as mine, and I sense the same unease in him as well.
He walks around and tilts my chin up to face him…that’s when the uncomfortable feeling immediately
goes away. Our eyes widen at the same time, our hearts beating in time and the connection we’ve
always shared feels solidified - like a barrel bolt lock sliding into place.
“MATE…” we say in unison, but where I whisper the word, Niko growls it.
He pulls me closer and meets my mouth in a rough kiss, claiming me not only as his wife but now as
his mate. Was this the uneasy feeling my wolf’s way of saying I was close to my mate and needed to
be claimed?
Star must have been as clueless as me because she looks shocked as she sees Niko’s large Lycan
beast looking at her as if he wants to devour her. We never expected to meet our mate since it’s so
rare, but now something is clear.
You can only meet your mate at the Equinox.
He picks me up and carries me back to our bed, ripping off my flimsy nightdress and peppering chaste
kisses all over my chest.
“Mate,” he growls again, nipping at my skin as he dives between my legs. My eyes shoot open and I
look down, but there’s no hesitation in Niko’s scent when he languidly slides his tongue between my
folds.
In our time together, Niko has never done this; he always used to freeze up. But as his tongue works
delicious circles around my oversensitive clit and his claws dig into my thighs, I have a feeling he’s no
longer terrified of initiating intimacy.
My mind is delirious with want as Niko takes me higher and higher, finally letting me down to crash into
tiny little pieces around him. I grip his head with my thighs, pulling on his hair and he growls while I ride
out my orgasm.
I’m still in a haze when I feel his large body covers me and when I open my eyes, his crimson Alpha
ones are staring right into mine. His hand goes to the back of my head, into my hair and my thighs
wrap around my waist before he sinks into me in one swift motion.
I cry out, tears springing into my eyes not simply because of the overwhelming emotion of Niko
claiming me under the full moon, but because Niko initiated this. He didn’t freeze, he didn’t stop or have
a panic attack!
“Vasílissa mou,” he calls me his queen while thrusting slowly and hard inside of me. “I love you; fuck, I
love you so much.”
Our bodies are flush against each other, and he’s looking at me as if I’m precious. “I love you too,
Nikolaos,” I murmur through tears, and when we finally reach our climax and I feel his knot growing.
We fall apart together, out of breath but not letting go. He lifts his head and looks into my eyes, the
crimson gone and replaced with his lovely green color. His bottom lip trembles and he draws his
forehead to mine.
“You were always the silver lining in the mushroom cloud of my fucked up existence,” he whispers in a
shaky voice. “Now I know why.”
When his tears hit my cheek, my heart constricts and I hold him close, neither of us saying a thing. I
know now that it was the Goddess giving me strength that night I escaped from Mikhail and ran into
Niko’s arms. She led me here to find him…
Nikolaos Ioannides, the broken man I helped heal; my husband, my Alpha, and now, my mate.