I cried after he died, in part because I was the one to pull the curtains, and also because it was him.

I was confused, and I felt guilty because I was confused. I didn’t have any doubt whatsoever about what I felt for Taekwoon, but I didn’t know why I was so sad that Jekyll was suddenly…

Gone.

I knew I should have been relieved. I was alone in my own head, and all my vampire tendencies were gone with him. I should have been celebrating. Instead, I was…

Cuddled up with the all the wolves in the bedroom, I was surrounded by overgrown rabbits. This time I’d seen them all change, so I knew which rabbit was which; Hongbin was the deep gray wolf with the white left forepaw, and he was curled up to my right, his back lined up with my side, his nose tucked under his tail. Chocolate Ken was once again thrown across my legs, but this time Ravi was with him, Ravi being the wolf with the blue-gray coat and black-dipped paws; both of them were currently snoring up a storm (Ravi considerably louder than Ken, however).

The adorable sandy brown wolf with his paint-dipped tail found himself relaxing to the left, sprawled out with his white stained tail sticking straight out for some unknown reason, his paws occasionally twitching like he was dreaming about running. This adorable mountain of fur was Sanghyuk, and he was also constantly fighting off snowball Hakyeon—the white wolf was so desperate for cuddles, but Sanghyuk refused even in sleep, although he didn’t mind curling up against the raven wolf I was snuggling.

Taekwoon had his nose pressed below my ear, so I both felt and heard every time he inhaled and exhaled. I found comfort in hearing them all breathe, but they all sounded different, which proved that even my sense of hearing had been changing without me noticing. It was a little regretful because now I felt kind of lame, but it was reassuring to know that I was human again.

Being a human is so boring.

I knew he wasn’t in my head, I knew he wasn’t alive, and I knew it was just a memory of his thought, but it still unsettled me, and it unsettled me to know that I was remembering that thought for a reason.

Sighing quietly, I turned a little more into Taekwoon and snuggled closer, hugging him, hoping sleep would claim me before I could think any deeper. I was done with my thoughts, too frustrated. I was afraid where they would take me next. I was afraid to admit things I had started to suppress since the death of the vampire, terrified to acknowledge that I was indeed a monster without having to be inhuman.

Taekwoon’s breathing pattern changed and he started to stiffen, no longer completely relaxed in sleep. He shifted a little, and then I was looking him in the eye. I averted my gaze after a second exactly, and he sighed. It wasn’t long before he was in his human form, pulling me closer to him, his bare chest giving off the warm, comforting scent of dark spices, amber leather, and peppermint, his possessive fragrance tantalizing. I was reassured immediately, and I clung onto him shamelessly.

“What’s on your mind?” he whispered, speaking quietly so he wouldn’t wake up the other wolves.

A stupid part of me wanted to bottle everything up, shame rearing its head. Thinking twice about it, I took a deep breath and leaned away enough so I could look at him softly, sliding my hand to cup his neck affectionately. “You don’t hate me for killing Jekyll?”

His eyebrows moved up slowly, and then he relaxed his expression, exhaling soundlessly. “It was supposed to happen. It was even timed perfectly.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine, closing his eyes. “I was going to say that I should have killed him a long time ago, but then I wouldn’t have met you.”

Winding his arms around my waist, finding a more comfortable position, he snuggled in closer (Ravi and Ken managed to blanket his legs, too, and they didn’t even wake up). With his palms pressing into the small of my back, he reminded me, “I love you. Out of everything that happened, you’re the best part.”

Blushing, I hid my face against his chest. “Even with the short time span?” I mumbled meekly, recalling the short amount of time it had taken for us to fall in love.

Chuckling quietly, he reassured me, “Even with the short time span.”

After a moment of hesitation, I whispered, “Even if I’m going to get old and wrinkly?”

He stilled, and I regretted asking that particular question immediately.

Leaning back to look me in the eye, his eyebrow cocked, his expression stern, he looked quite daunting. I could barely look at him, so I chose to cower like the ninny I was, although if he let his guard down, I wouldn’t hesitate to head him.

After a good fifteen seconds of mean-mugging me (although I was beginning to acknowledge that I had some serious issues because I was starting to grow faint with how attractive his angry expression was), he shook his head at me and told me, in quite the no-nonsense tone of voice, “You are not allowed to have that complex.”

Of course I gaped at him. After I recovered enough, however, I narrowed my eyes at him and decided to express my indignation. “How easy is that to say for someone who’s going to stay looking twenty-three or twenty-five—at most—for the rest of his life?” Shaking my head slowly, I wasn’t so much indignant anymore as genuinely sad. “I’m going to look like your mom, then your grandma, and then…”

He pulled me close to him, sealing his lips to mine sweetly. Kissing away my pain and sadness, he made me forget that we were discussing something very important.

Pulling away, blinking quickly so I could make sense of what just happened, I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re really unfair.” But it wasn’t in me to stay away from him. In fact, I came back for more, much to his quiet amusement.

Hongbin held up a picture of me in a princess costume, grinning. “This has to go up.”

I looked closer at the picture, mortification spawning. “No, it doesn’t.” I hadn’t felt this embarrassed in a long time, not after all the Spartan training from Jenna. That I could still feel this level of chagrin was impressive, yet I wasn’t all too proud. Reaching for it numbly, I raised my eyebrows at the vaguely familiar portrait.

Still grinning, his dimples giving him extra boyish charm, Hongbin shuffled closer so he could keep staring at the picture with me. “How long ago was this?”

His interest tickled, Sanghyuk stood up from his armchair and started walking over, too, setting down the comic book he’d been reading.

Taekwoon quit playing the piano, a single high note hanging lightly in the air before drifting away to oblivion. He turned around on the piano bench to see what we were going on about, and Ken walked around from standing beside him (they were all musically gifted and had failed to mention that until now—Ken had been singing about a rose petal floating in the wind trying to reach the pond).

Grinning, Ken bunny-hopped over and jumped onto Hyuk’s back, looking over his shoulder. “What is it, what is it?”

Joining me, his arms coming around me from behind to settle loosely against my lower belly, Taekwoon rested his chin on my shoulder, staring down at the framed image. Clearing my throat, trying to remember just how long ago it really was, I counted back the years and exhaled with a puff. “I was eight years old, I think. That was the last Halloween I had a thing for princesses—wait, no, I was a queen. I argued with my dad for hours about the difference it made.”

Hakyeon and Ravi came walking in with two trays of hot chocolate and cookies just when I answered, and when they saw us all gathered together, they flocked.

“What, what, what?” Hakyeon demanded, too curious for his own good.

Taekwoon answered in his quiet manner, “Mia is a queen.”

I blushed and everybody started whooping at that statement. Knowing he’d done it on purpose, I elbowed Taekwoon’s stomach lightly, getting him to laugh. It was the best I’d felt in a while, to be honest, and the waters were starting to clear up again, no longer so murky.

“Well, we knew that already,” Hakyeon teased, and I stuck my tongue out at him playfully, getting him to laugh. He set the tray aside and came closer and leaned in to get a better look, then went nuts when he saw the picture. “You’re such a cutie!”

Following his lead, the guys started raining teasing compliments, and Taekwoon’s arms tightened around me. Laughing, I let my head fall back against my werewolf boyfriend’s shoulder and shook my head, staring at the ceiling.

“So we can put it up, right?” Sanghyuk insisted. “We put up Hongbin’s photographs.”

I lifted my head and looked around at all the scenic portraits. “He’s the photographer in the pack?”

Hongbin gasped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Holding up my hands, placating, I grinned. “I would have been surprised with anybody, I promise.”

Jumping down from Hyuk’s back, Ken reached over and tickled Hongbin’s chin. “It’s ‘cause you’re so pretty.”

Narrowing his eyes at Ken, Hongbin mumbled, “I don’t like you sometimes.”

Gasping, Ken opened his mouth wide to launch into a long rant, but Hakyeon beat him to it.

“Okay, okay, it’s been decided! Unless Mia’s super against it, all of her baby pictures are going up with ours. Especially this one.” He held up a picture that would have followed the queen image, and in this one, I was dressed up in a puppy costume—or maybe I was dressed up as a wolf, because the ears were suspiciously pointy and gray, which could have also explained why he was wiggling his eyebrows.

Catching sight of it, the guys pounced, and Taekwoon even ditched me to snatch the framed picture away, bringing it closer to inspect thoroughly with a big smile on his face. Ravi and Ken both crowded around him, and Hongbin and Sanghyuk were the unfortunate ones, unable to see much.

“Let me see, too!” Hyuk whined, tugging on Ken’s shirtsleeve.

Hongbin pulled on the waistband of Ravi’s jeans, trying fruitlessly to yank him back. “Hey, get your head out of the way.”

Ravi started to literally wag his head back and forth. “Sorry, not sorry.”

“Oh, my god,” I mumbled, covering my head with both hands. I stared at them, just shy of humiliated, while Hakyeon laughed, already going through more pictures.

I gave up on keeping embarrassing childhood pictures buried and went to sit down instead, tucking my legs underneath me. I watched them from afar, my new family. I was still getting to know them, all of them—including Taekwoon—but now I had the reassurance that I had all the time in the world to do just that.

Well, all the time my mortal life would allow.

Taking a deep breath, battling back the depression that was threatening to overpower me, I reasoned with myself that it would be okay. Being human wasn’t so bad; I hadn’t had a problem with it before. In fact, when I was turning into a vampire, I was desperate to turn back.

I looked at Taekwoon, analyzing his facial features. My gaze trailed over his intense eyes with those long lashes and I remembered how easily I could get lost in his stare; I skimmed the soft line of his nose, imagining running my fingertip down the gentle slope, and then over the planes of his elegant cheekbones. I got the sudden urge to cup his face, maybe because I was staring at his sharp jaw line now, maybe because I was also staring at his mouth. One thing I was positive about, though, was that I wanted to be held by him and never let go. He was all the reassurance I needed.

He caught me staring, but instead of looking away, I smiled a little at him, my heart swelling in my chest. I wanted him to know how much he bothered me, but in the good way. His eyes warmed and he nodded once, proving that we didn’t need words to communicate.

Then he held up a picture of me with cake smeared on my face from a cousin’s birthday party and I rolled my eyes, getting up from the sofa. “Must we do this now?” I complained childishly while the guys gawked and laughed at my twelve-year-old self in the frame. I’d gotten hit in the face by the ball playing first base in gym class so I was missing a tooth too, and that made the picture all the more embarrassing because I hadn’t cared at the time, but now I was doubly humiliated.

Hyuk held up another picture of me building a sand turtle when we went to visit family in Oceanside. “You’re wearing pigtails!”

I stared at the picture Hyuk was holding and grinned. “Hey, I didn’t even know they took a picture of that.”

“It looks like they took a picture of almost everything you did,” Hakyeon observed warmly.

Smiling, I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I was an only child, and they couldn’t have any more kids, so they went a little overboard with me, I guess.” I cleared my throat, shrugging lightly. “Well, at first.”

Ken shimmied over and threw his arms around me. “Hey. Hyukkie used to be an only child, but now we have you too, so you’ll be spoiled in measured amounts.”

Hongbin and Ravi exchanged bemused glances. "Is there such a thing?" Hongbin asked, and Ravi shrugged.

Hyuk whipped around to look at Ken with his mouth hanging open. “I’m not a child anymore!”

“Your cooking skills beg to differ,” Ravi teased quietly, making Hakyeon and Hongbin laugh while Sanghyuk glared harmless daggers.

Hugging Ken back, I relaxed some more, no longer as tentative as before. “Thanks, Ken.” I grinned. “But I want to spoil Hyukkie too.”

It didn’t help his case, but he couldn’t stop himself and stomped his foot. “I’m not a child!” Hyuk exclaimed.

Hakyeon grabbed him up in his arms and cooed, “Oh, of course you aren’t, our little grown man!”

That got everybody else’s teasing directed towards Sanghyuk, including troublemaker Ken’s, and that’s when Taekwoon snuck in and snagged me from behind, pulling me close to his body. Leaning into him, I relaxed even more, practically going limp in his embrace, taking deep breaths of his scent. More than anything, it was the smell of coming home at long last.