Stephanie and her mentor, Christopher, spend a great deal of time with Steven's mother trying to do all they can to help her. For Stephanie, it's a desperate attempt to give Steven a part of his life that had been unfairly torn from him. She hopes that she can give his mother some peace and let them reconcile.
As they work with her they are slowly able to restore her, but sadly Stephanie doesn't believe that Steven's mother will ever be near what she was before her long years of abuse.
Steven's uncle would spend many hours at her side talking to her, reassuring her that she was now safe, that her husband was no more and wouldn't hurt her ever again.
After months and months of working with her she slowly starts to become a part of the world once more.
Steven and Rikki confront Emily about her actions and get the answers they wanted to have, although they weren't what they wanted to hear. Neither one was satisfied with the truth, but then again neither was Emily about her child being true chosen with her father. That had been a hard pill to swallow and that because of her actions her daughter won't be able to take her rightful place and wear his mark or he hers. Rikki is known as his mistress and no one is happy about that, not even Stephanie.
Stephanie has a good talking to Emily about her decisions and what happened to her. Emily learned a healthy fear of Steven's chosen. After that she stayed as far away from Stephanie as she could.
As for the decision Talon set before her the night they came home from the attack against the government facility, Stephanie had a hard time thinking of anything else. It became so distracting that she gathered all her consorts and a few of the other leaders that would be affected by her decision one way or another.
Rather to her surprise the other supers, with only a few dissenters were all in favor of her taking the throne over all of them.
Not surprisingly, it was the witches that gave her the most grief of taking up a role of being a queen.
More alphas had come and given her their blood bond, like Luke had done. Leaders of the nearly extinct other animal shifters had done the same.
Irregardless of the wishes of the witches, Stephanie had become the queen of the supers. If there was a problem between species they bring it to her and she deals with it. There are no more fights between them. Old animosities die hard, though, and sometimes Stephanie wants to scream at them.
At times she does. When they refuse to listen to her she not only screams but lightening starts flinging off her hair and a few times they've seen her with fireballs forming in her hands. When that happens they shut up rather quickly.
When they act like two year olds she treats them like two year olds. She shuts them into a room together and makes sure they are bound by air so that they can't move. They aren't released until they talk to each other with out screaming and wanting to kill one another.
So far this method has worked remarkably well. Since none of them like the idea of being shut in with their supposed enemy they learn how to talk civilly to each other and communications become much better.
Still over all, Stephanie spends a great deal of her time in research.
There are far too many hell labs still in operation and no few government research labs as well.
The hell labs are taken down without a trace as soon as they find out ways to infiltrate them. In time they become so adept at doing so that they aren't really much of a problem. The government facilities on the other hand are much more delicate.
The government becomes more intense in the hunt for the supers forcing them to become far more defensive and they start killing more. They hate to do it.
Stephanie becomes disgusted at it all. It's becoming a vicious cycle. She decides to end it any way that she has to. She saves the video of each location that she and the others take down.
She slowly starts releasing the videos of the torture, experiments and hell that they experience both with the hell labs and the government. At first there is little in the way of out cry against the hell labs or governments usage of them, but slowly the people take up voice against what their government is allowing. Especially when they see the sight of the innocent children that are caught up in it all.
Some of the supers, under cover as normal humans, are elected to ruling sections of the government. In time, even the president that is elected is a super. That is where the government funding of the research labs is over and done. The hell labs had been made illegal years before, but that hadn't stopped them.
But Stephanie and the others had done a great job of finding and shutting them down.
Finally, there was just the hunters left.
As per her oath, Stephanie allows the vampires to deal with the hunters. She prefers them dead to the uncertain fate they would receive in the human courts.
For his part, Tracey is more than pleased with being able to have his people deal death to the hunters. Their blood is tasty enough, doesn't have the zing that witches blood has, but it is rather exotic to them.
It takes nearly an hundred years, but Stephanie is finally able to say that the hunters are no longer an issue. Under her reign the supers have found prosperity of a kind they've never had before.
They are a long lived people as long as they aren't hunted and killed, but they aren't a prolific people. Still, as the years go by animal shifters grow. Most prefer to stay in the forests, they are careful to stay away from humans except in designated areas and humans return the favor.
In time the fear and animosity that had remained between normal humans and the supers wears down. Stephanie makes sure that the supers don't make the regular humans feel like they are less. She educates the humans that although the supers are able to do things that normal humans can't that there is a price to be paid.
Sometimes that price is a high one indeed.
For Stephanie it came with the miscarriage of baby after baby. Over the years she finally gives up on having any children of her own. So when some decades after she starts her reign she makes it to her final month before delivery she is finally able to hope.
"The baby nursery is ready, Stephanie, are you sure you don't want to know what we are having?" Talon asks once more, for the thousandth time.
"No, Talon, I don't want to know what I'm having."
"You won't jinx yourself finding out, Stephanie," Ethan reassures her.
"I know. This is likely to be my only complete pregnancy. I don't want to know. I've hoped too many times just to have my hopes dashed. I just want this baby to be born healthy and happy."
"Not baby, love. Remember? Tracey assured you that there is more than one in there." Talon reminds her.
"Yeah, but then he was smirking when he said that and I don't know just how much I can believe him."
"You can believe me, Stephanie, completely. Haven't I proven myself over the years?" Tracey asks coming into the room.
"Tracey? What are you doing here?" Stephanie asks Tracey shocked.
Tracey had moved to the city and set up his court there. Dara and Tracey have three children ten years a part, his youngest now thirty years old.
"Dara sent me. I'm not to leave until you give birth, her orders." Tracey says after kissing Stephanie. He's missed them all terribly, but the vampires needed space away from the court of the other supers.
"You are in fact having four." Tracey frowns. "You aren't nearly as big as you should be for that many babies. Let me examine you, please?"
Tracey had studied with that witch he'd found years ago, Christopher Jones. He'd learned a great deal about healing. He stills prefers dealing death than saving lives, but he can now do so much more than he could decades ago when he first met the witches that saved him and his court from slavery.
"They are doing well, they are all healthy, just sitting in such a way that they aren't showing as much as they should by now. However, you are fairly close to delivery, Stephanie. I hope you are ready because they likely will be here in the next few days."
"Lovely, I'll be able to breathe again soon.
"When will I be able to see my god children?" Stephanie pins Tracey with her stare when she asks him that question.
Tracey sighs, "They will be here when you have the children. Dara made sure that they will not be occupied."
"You had to threaten them to come see me?" Stephanie says sadly. She loves her godchildren. They are what kept her sane every time she lost her own children.
"No, she just made sure that their schedules were clear. I think Shelby found her beloved, but don't tell her that I told you." Tracey smile indulgently at thoughts of his oldest, the crown princess.
"No, she didn't?" Talon says shocked. Shelby is only fifty or so years of age, young for a vampire to find their beloved.
Tracey nods, "I believe so, but until she admits it, I shouldn't have said anything."
"What about the other two?" Ethan inquires. The second child, a son, has always been rather close with Ethan, but they haven't heard anything from him for awhile.
Tracey shrugs, "He'll be here, he promised Dara, but I don't know any more about his life than you all do. And my youngest is too busy chasing the girls to pay much attention to anything else, but he'll be here as well."
"Tracey, what are we having," Jet asks once Stephanie falls asleep.
"You want me dead, Jet? What have I ever done to you?" Tracey asks more than a little hurt that Jet asks him that question knowing that Stephanie wants it to be a surprise.
"You know that I don't. I just want to know what we are having."
"No, you want to know who the father is." Tracey says with finality.
"You can tell that even though the children aren't born yet?" Jet demands to know.
"I can, but I won't say. Does it really matter? Stephanie loves all of us and you all promised to accept any child of hers as if it is yours."
"Yes, we will, but we also need to know for the bloodlines. That is important and we can't ignore that."
Tracey gives them all a faint smile. "I will tell you as they are born, which child belongs to which father."
The four witches/warlocks are left staring at him, "What?" They managed to get over their shock at the same time and say the same word.
"Each child has a different father. It's too bad I couldn't give her one as well." Tracey says with a twinkle in his eye the only thing to denote his amusement at their shock.
The four stand there as the information slowly makes it way inside their brains. Then they get the biggest shit eating smiles Tracey has ever seen. "You all are idiots, you know that?"
They all roll their eyes, "We are well aware, Stephanie tells us on a regular basis." Steven says sourly.
This will likely be Steven's only child since they found out that Rikki can't have children. Rikki is just as excited as Stephanie about this pregnancy. The two have become best friends over the years, although, Stephanie still feels guilty for taking Rikki's rightful place.
It had taken Rikki telling Stephanie that if Stephanie hadn't done so then Steven would likely be dead or he would never have a child since Rikki wouldn't have permitted Steven to have other lovers like warlocks normally have.
"Ah, love, would you like to go to the bathroom?" Ethan asks Stephanie as she stands up.
Stephanie looks down at the water leaking down her leg. "Tracey, how soon did you think it would be before I would be delivering?"
"Sooner than I thought, it appears. Are you having the children here?" Tracey responds back.
"No, too many things could go wrong."
"Right, follow as soon as you can," Tracey says gathering his lover up in his arms and racing her to the hospital.
The other four don't take any extra time other than grabbing bags for Stephanie and the babies. They also make phone calls to those that need to know.