Liberty for Wolves

Epilogue

'Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs.' – Isaiah Berlin

LFW

True peace is hard to come by. For monsters, peace is not often deserved. But for wolves, there are packs; once the sheep are destroyed, a pack is safe, and warm, and bright.

Packs are forever.

LFW

ONE YEAR LATER

Edward:

Summer was halfway over for Forks. The humans in the areas were still excited, still in the highlight of vacation, trying to hold on to as many memories as possible. Humans always found this time of year exciting.

For vampires, no season was truly better than any other. It was all the same when you were frozen in time, destined to never age or change in anyway. But recently, I had begun viewing summer in a different light. I had heard that finding your imprint would change your life, and now I knew it for sure. My imprint made everything brighter in general, especially summer. For in summer, a remarkable change came over my imprint, and she became human.

But my imprint, my Puppy, had been gone for nearly a year.

It was hard to think about the last time I had seen her. She had been covered in blood, having just torn through two other wolves, one of which had been her maker. My family and I had hardly had a chance to respond to her attacking them before they were already taken care of. When it was over, and the bodies of the two wolves laid at her paws, she had been breathing heavily, growling at us.

I had stepped forward, intending to calm her down, but it had had a different effect on her. She had snapped out whatever rage she had been in, and glanced down to the bodies on the ground. Her eyes had met the childlike body of her maker in horror, and she had turned and run before I could stop her.

For the next few months, we searched endlessly for any hint of my imprint. We had followed a blood trail into the woods – thankfully, none of it had been hers – but it eventually led to a river, where she had washed off. Somehow, she had evaded us. Every once in awhile, one of us would catch a glimpse of her scent, leading us to believe that she was still nearby, but the trail would end before we found her. And two months after the fight, there was no trace of her at all.

Winter came and went, and Bella was nowhere to be found.

I remember when I had found her the winter before. She had been freezing through the winter, suffering like any animal would in such a harsh climate. And this winter was just as cold. It broke my heart thinking about her out there on her own, possibly freezing to death. I didn't understand why she had left, or where she might have gone.

The only thing that had prevented me from going mad was Alice's vision. Shortly after we had given up on finding her for the winter, she had got a glimpse. Before, she had never been able to see my imprint. It had been an annoyance for her – to have the vision be so unclear because of Bella made it harder for her to understand things. But this vision… Bella was completely visible.

There was no way to tell when it happened, but it was a simple image: sometime in the future, Bella and I would be running together through the woods, clearly happy. So I knew I would see her again.

I had assumed that she would return once the warm weather came. I knew she would have shifted back to her human form, and just thought it would be the obvious time for her to return to us – to me. But she hadn't. The first day of summer had come and gone, and that was two months ago now. There was still not a trace of her.

But sometimes, things happen suddenly. I had barely time to react when I suddenly heard the light sound of running in the woods. Wolves had a way of evading the sense of our kind, I had learned – only other wolves could sense them coming from far away. But they couldn't completely hide, and so I was outside by the time she stepped out.

She was human again, as I knew she would be. And she looked beautiful. When I had first found her in the forest, she had been filthy – as most animals stuck in the woods were. But now, she had hardly any dirt on her. She didn't look like she had spent the better part of a year in the woods, which led me to believe that she hadn't. But that didn't matter to me. All that mattered was that she was back.

She was hesitant in a way that made her look smaller. And while I perhaps should have started questioning her, I was too overcome with light to hold back. In an instant, I was right in front of her. I couldn't take my eyes away from her face – I wanted to do nothing more than look at her forever.

"Edward," she began, but she never finished. I pulled her into my arms, and covered her mouth with my own. She was still for a moment, before she started kissing me back, wrapping her arms around my neck.

This was where she belonged, where I belonged. She was warmer than anything I had ever felt before. For me, she was the best part of the year. She was my summer.

My home.

LFW

Author's note: Well, that's it. I'm sure some of you are going to be annoyed that I glossed over the actual fighting scene, but I've never been good at writing the actual conflict, I'm just good at the build up. Plus, I was just really prepared for this story to come to an end.

I posted the first chapter of this story in February of 2012, when I was in year 11 of high school. I am now just beginning my third year of university. It seems so strange to finally say goodbye to this story. This is going to be my last Twilight fanfiction ever. It's been a good time, but as I've stated before, I'm simply no longer interested in Edward and Bella's story.

I'd like to thank you all for reading this, and sticking with me until the end. I've had a great time. As I said at the end of the last chapter, I might have a few outtakes to post, such as the first chapter from the Before the Imprint story for this I had been intending to write, and I also might post something eventually from the missing year between the fight with James and Victoria and when Bella returned to Edward. I know what happened in that year, and it makes me quite happy, so I'd like to eventually tell all of you, but who knows.

Goodbye for now.

Review, please, and remember me.