"Mom!" an insistent voice called to me through the door.

"Just a second," I called back.

"Mom!" my six-year-old daughter repeated.

"I heard you, Denise. I'll be out in a second."

I pulled on a sweater and made my way out of Serge's and my bedroom.

Denise was waiting in the hallway. "Look what I made," she demanded, holding up a piece of paper for my perusal.

She had drawn a picture of a wolf in a field of flowers. "It's very nice," I told her with a smile. Her drawings were becoming ever more complex with time.

"I'm going to give it to Uncle Matthias when he comes."

"I bet he'll love it. Now, I've got to go finish getting everything ready," I told her. "Go play entertain Nancy and Trevor."

She did not look very happy at my direction, but she reluctantly walked away.

I walked out of the hall and into the kitchen, as I had so many times before.

My husband was in the kitchen and he looked over at me as I entered. I smile and walked over to him and into his arms. We kissed for a long, lingering moment and then I looked up at him.

"What else needs to be done?" I asked, tilting my head.

"All the coolers are filled. Your father is outside starting the fire, Moramay is outside organizing the tables, and the kids are somewhere."

A vehicle pulled up into the driveway and peeked out the living room window. "Karen and Dan are here with their kids."

"Oh good, then their kids can keep an eye on ours."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head at him. "You can't just expect them to do it."

"If they don't Karen, will put them to work. I'm saving them."

"Good point."

There was a knock at the door. "Come in," I called loudly.

"Hello," Karen said as she came in the house, her two younger children following her in the door. "Need some help?" she offered.

"Sure," Serge said.

"Dan and Sebastian are just taking the coolers around back."

I handed her some bowls to carry outside and she passed them to her children.

Payton whined loudly. "Mom." At thirteen he was already almost as tall as his mother.

She shook her head at his protest. "Take that outside and then you can watch the younger kids if you'd prefer."

"'Kay," he said as he made his way outside with his load.

"Do you need help?" Macy offered me. At fifteen she was very pretty. Her appearance was different than her mother's, but she retained some of Karen's softness.

I smiled at her. "You can go help with the kids outside, if you want. I think we've gotten everything handled in here."

She smiled and it reminded me of how vexed Dan was at the amount of attention she got from boys. He definitely did not find that funny.

I found his reaction hilarious.

* * *  *  *  *  * * *

We finished in the kitchen and we carried everything outside by the time our other guests began to show up. Tabitha waddled in with Bobby, who seemed to think she might break at any given moment. The only thing I was concerned might break at that moment was her water.

Leah and Sierra had driven over together and followed right behind them.

Other pack members trickled into the backyard carrying lawn chairs and dishes. Then my brother and Jodi wandered in and we made easy conversation.

My father was in his wolf form and my children and Payton were chasing him around in circles in theirs.

Dan cringed as one of the boys of the pack sat down with Macy and begin talking to her. Serge laughed at him.

I wondered if he would still be laughing in a decade when Denise was that age and Nancy was a pre-teen. That was going to be fun. I grinned at him and he smiled back, blissfully unaware of my wicked thoughts.

Then he raked his eyes over me and a completely different sort of wicked thought occupied my mind. I returned a playful warning look.

A few more people trickled in as the afternoon wore on and the evening began. I had a feeling of contentment amongst my family and friends and pack.

I spotted Derrick as he made his way to our house. I had grown used to his thrall guilt and he never failed to elicit my sympathy.

Although Serge never talked about it, his state still preyed upon my husband's mind, but there was nothing that we could do about the matter. We would if we could and we still searched for a solution. I prayed that he would be as lucky as me and find his way out from under his magic chains as I had.

Derrick lived in a small house that Serge had ordered built within the curse's radius. Otherwise, Derrick went where Serge went as I had while I was in the same state. I liked Derrick and felt a kinship with him, as I also did with Bobby and the other former thralls. All our experiences had been different, but we all knew what it was like to be slave to the harsh magic. Once released we moved away from direct experience, but the memory remained deep in the cells and the blood and the flesh.

But everyone had their scars, and mine was at least allowed to heal.

"Derrick!" I called. "Want to come sit over here?" I called.

I watched his sharp intake of breath and the way his eyes met mine before skittering away into the tree line. He nodded and walked over, his shoulders slightly hunched.

He sat down beside me in one of the lawn chairs around the fire. "How's the fight?" I asked him. I had watched his improvement over the years and I wished there was more that could be done.

"It continues. It's hard because I know I don't deserve to for things to get better after—" He frowned. "No, that's the curse talking."

"You're right about that," I agreed. I would have liked to criticize the magic, but I well remembered how it would punish me for the words of others so I kept my mouth shut.

Then my attention was diverted by a couple of new arrivals. Austin and his wife and infant son came around the corner, his voice booming. He had always been jovial, but the long awaited arrival of their first child had only made him more so.

And behind him came Matthias, his hand interlaced with Lacy's. I smiled and waved at them. Matthias grinned back and I was pleased to see that there seemed to be no trace of the old pain.

Behind him came two more people. He stopped and talked to the man I recognized as the former prince of the eastern wolves, and then Matthias came over to the fire. Derrick wandered over to Bobby, and began talking to Bobby and the unknown woman who had come with Matthias.

"How's it going, Elise?" Matthias asked easily.

"It's great, how're things with you and the pack?"

Matthias grinned. "Trouble like always. They never stop."

"How's the thrall?"

Matthias's grim expression was answer enough. "If only I could release him, but even if I could, who knows what he would get up to? It's safer this way, but it's like I've got an arrogant mournful shadow wherever I go. Even under the curse he's a frigging cocky bastard."

"Poor Matt," I teased.

"You were a much better thrall," he joked.

"I was an excellent thrall," I agreed with a grin.

Serge was apparently listening to our conversation. "I prefer you as you are now," he commented as he sat beside me and took my hand.

I wondered if he was jealous so I squeezed his in return to reassure him.

Matthias looked over at me. "Lacy and I are getting married," he told me.

I smiled. "Oh, Matt. Congratulations," I told him. I was relieved that I had no reservations. I was genuinely happy for them.

Derrick was still talking to the woman who had come with Matthias and Lacy. "Who is that?" I asked Matthias.

Matthias followed my gaze as Lacy joined us and wrapped her arms around him from behind his chair. "Oh, that's Melissa. She's sort of an assistant, sort of helps manage Jordan, I guess? I still have no idea what I'm doing."

"You're too modest," Lacy told him.

I grinned at her. "He really has changed then. When we were kids there was not a modest bone in his body."

She playfully pulled at Matthias's cheek and he scowled good naturedly. "Well, maybe modest is the wrong word? How about pessimistic and unenthusiastic?"

I laughed at Matthias as she pecked him on the cheek. He wore the same face he made when his sister's had tormented him and I laughed again.

"Anyway, Melissa was just a kid when the eastern wolves took over her pack and the king made her a thrall hostage. She's been free since he died, but the magic seemed to have shaped her so that she feels more comfortable around authority."

"She's happier around Matt so he lets her work with him," Lacy interjected.

I looked over at the thrall and the former thrall and saw something on Derrick's face that I had not seen before.

Maybe love had another chance to remove the thrall curse after all. I was curious if it alone would work. I smiled, kissed Serge on the cheek and looked into the roaring fire.

Between the flames, my husband, and my friend, I felt perfectly warm.

* * *  *  *  *  * * *

Author's Note: Whoop! I hope you liked this ending. (It's the happier of the two, so if you like happy endings, you/random chance chose right.)

It's always such an adrenaline rush to finish a story, and getting it all posted is such a relief.

Now that I'm done semi-polishing these endings up for posting (I'm sure I missed a lot, I went through 52 chapters in a couple of weeks. I'm so done.)  I'm sure more editing is needed, so please feel free to point out any plot issues you noticed.

Except I'm never done. I'm still writing/posting How To Survive a Werewolf Romance. If you haven't checked it out, it's full of bad puns, jokes, and werewolf satire. Besides that, I'm going to do a touch up edit of the Vampire & the Rebel, before going back to the beginning of Trifecta to clean up the early chapters.

And then, I'm going to start getting an offline trilogy I wrote ready to try to publish.

And I can't forget that new book I was not supposed to start but I started anyways. (I blame bad influences who were all like, "You should totally start it while you're inspired.") It's got fairies, which I've wanted to write something about for at least a year. I'm not going to post it on Wattpad for the time being, but I do plan on doing something with it eventually.

So, if you like my writing enough that you think my future writing projects might interest you, please follow me here, on Instagram (@nelle.ivy) or on Twitter (@ivy_nelle) where I'll post future information. I post quotes or whatever occasionally on Instagram, and I swear I will tweet something, some day. But it is not this day.

Readers are the best part of writing. Thanks so much for reading!