Page 34 of All Good Things

"You've never manipulated me into anything." I reached for his hand and pulled it to my chest, covering my heart. "It must have been eating you up inside." I swallowed against the tears building in my throat as a minor detail from the past few days suddenly loomed large in front of me. I laughed, startling everyone in the room.

"You finished the three-room addition," I explained, laughing again when it did nothing to alleviate his confusion. "Even when you didn't know what was going to happen, you never gave up on us."

He shook his head slowly.

"You never intended to let me go," I explained, wiping one sneaky tear from my eye. "Even when I thought that you really didn't want me, that you didn't trust me, you never gave up on us."

"Of course not." Clint's eyes were suspiciously bright. "I may have found you on the auction block, but you're my soulmate. The other half of my heart. I've known that since the beginning."

The silence in the room was thick and heavy when Adalwolfa cleared her throat. She plucked a familiar leather-bound book from thin air, smirking when Clint patted his pocket and frowned, then she passed it to Rafe.

Rafe accepted the book and flipped through the pages. From where I sat I could see that the second half of the book was no longer blank. He opened it to the last page, and a relieved sigh escaped him as he looked back up. He met the eyes of each person in the room, lingering on Colby for the briefest of moments, and then cleared his throat.

"The Empath and his Alpha lived happily ever after," Rafe read solemnly, a triumphant grin on his face. "The end."

The End