"He’s a good instructor," Kade says, his physical voice a deep, warm rumble.
"He’s a better Mortar," I reply, leaning my head against his shoulder. "He’s teaching them how to hold the world together without asking it to do the work for them."
Kade chuckles, pressing a kiss to my temple. "Just like his mother."
We stand in comfortable silence, watching the pack. The integration school is thriving. The UN observers are stationed at the perimeter, respectful and entirely hands-off. The Global Resonance Initiative is pumping clean, limitless energy into the human grid, and in exchange, the Blackthorn Pack is richer, safer, and more secure than it has been in three hundred years.
We did it. We built a new world from the ashes of the old.
The quiet room, Kade projects, his mental voice soft
