Epilogue
One Year Later
Yury
Snow falls outside the window, soft and relentless. The same way it did the night she first stepped into my life.
The fire burns low, throwing amber light over the nursery.
Sophia sits in the rocking chair, a blanket draped across her lap, our twins pressed against her chest. Two perfect, sleeping miracles.
Both dark haired, both of them making small, sighing sounds that fill the house better than music ever could.
She hums under her breath, a tune I don’t know. Something soft, maybe from her mother. Every now and then she looks up at me, eyes shining, and the world stops moving.
A year ago, I didn’t know peace could look like this.
I should be working, there are messages waiting, people needing my signature, decisions that could shift empires, but I can’t look away from her.
She’s wearing one of my shirts again, sleeves rolled up, collar slipping down one shoulder. Her hair’s longer now, a dark curtain that brushes the twins’ tiny fists as they dream. She smells like milk and vanilla and the faint trace of pine that’s seeped into every room this season.
Three months old, and they’ve already ruined me.
I cross the room quietly, careful not to wake them. She smiles without looking up. “They’ve just fallen asleep,” she whispers.
“I know.” I rest my hand on the back of the chair, lean down until my mouth is near her ear. “You should too.”
She laughs softly. “I will. When they let me.”
I brush a kiss over her temple, and she tilts her head toward me like she can’t help it. That small, instinctive trust still wrecks me.
“You’ve been staring at me all evening,” she murmurs.
“Because I can.”
She glances up, playful and tired all at once. “You’re still the most possessive man I’ve ever known.”
“I told you I would be.”
Her laugh fades into a soft sigh. She adjusts one of the babies, her hand gentle but sure. “They have your eyes.”
“They have your mouth.” I trace a fingertip over our daughter’s tiny cheek. “Your strength too.”
Sophia’s eyes soften. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
I sink to my knees beside her, one hand resting over hers. Her fingers are slender, warm. I notice then, the faint change in her pulse. She’s glowing in that way she did before. There’s a subtle difference in her scent, in the way her body’s already preparing for what’s next.
She hasn’t noticed yet. Too busy living the life we built. But I see it. I feel it.
“You’re pregnant again.”
Her eyes lift, startled. “What?”
I brush my thumb over her knuckles. “You are. I can tell.”
She laughs softly, shaking her head. “I think I’d know, Yury.”
“You will. Soon.” I lean in and kiss her shoulder, tasting the warmth of her skin. “I can feel it in you.”
She rolls her eyes, smiling as she does when she thinks I’m being dramatic. “You always think you know everything.”
“Only when it comes to you.”
The twins stir, tiny noises like contentment. Sophia rocks them gently, the rhythm hypnotic. “You’re serious?”
I nod. “Completely.”
For a while, neither of us speaks. The fire crackles, snow presses against the windows, and the faint smell of cinnamon drifts from the kitchen.
She looks down at the babies and whispers, “I’m not scared this time.”
“I wouldn’t let you be.”
She meets my eyes. “You always keep your promises.”
I stand, sliding my hand through her hair, letting my thumb rest beneath her chin until she looks at me. “And I’ll keep this one too. You’ll never want for anything again. Not you, not them, not the next one.”
Her smile softens. “You mean our next ones.”
I can’t help it, I laugh quietly, shaking my head. “You’ll be the death of me, angelu.”
She reaches for my wrist, pressing a kiss to the inside of it. “No. I’ll be your life.”
She’s right. She’s always right.
When she finally lays the twins in their crib, I draw her against me from behind, both of us watching them sleep. Their small breaths, the way their fingers curl like they’re already learning to hold on.
Outside, the bells in the valley start to ring. Midnight. Christmas Eve.
Sophia turns in my arms, looking up at me. Her eyes shimmer in the firelight, full of love and exhaustion and something eternal.
“Happy Christmas, Yury.”
I press my forehead to hers. “Happy Christmas, Mrs. Dubovich.”
When I kiss her, it’s slow and certain. The kind of kiss that carries the weight of everything we’ve built, the danger, the devotion, the family born from it. And as the snow keeps falling, and our children sleep, I realize this: I don’t need to own the world.
I already have it.
Sophia
He has been softer with me since I had the twins, and it’s been driving me insane. It started around the second trimester when I began to show, and it never stopped, even when the doctor gave me the all clear.
Now I’m heavier, softer, saggier. As wonderful as becoming a mother was, the feeling that I lost my power grates against my nerves.
“What’s on your mind?” Yury asks me once we leave the nursery and pad through to our room.
“It’s nothing,” I say, not knowing how to for the sentences without sounding pathetic.
He pulls me back into him. “Not so fast, angelu,” he says before sliding his hand over my shoulders and rubbing at the tension. “Tell me.”
“I’m not delicate or fragile.” The words burst from me, louder than I’d intended and I shrink back from them.
His eyebrows flicker. “I know. You have proven that time and time again.”
“Then why are you being so gentle with me? I need what we had before.” I don’t know why tears have sprung to my eyes, and I brush them away in frustration. “I need to feel the way I did before.”
“I see,” he says, smoothing a thumb over my cheek. “I didn’t realize you felt this way.”
I shake my head lightly and blink away the last of the tears. “Forget it—” he cuts me off by pulling me against him and crashing his mouth to mine. His tongue is immediately in my mouth and I open wider for him on a groan.
This is what I need. The way he takes his own pleasure by giving me mine is what lights a fire in me. It’s the only thing that satisfies this craving I have.
“Okay, Sophia, I hear you,” he grunts as he unfastens his belt with one hand and spins me around with the other. I’m so grateful to not be in the missionary position that my panties flood immediately with my arousal.
“I hear you need my cock,” he grunts as he pulls my pyjama bottoms down along with my panties. “I can smell how much you need my cock.” He swipes his fingers through my folds and I hear as he noisily sucks my juices from them.
“Yury, I need you,” I keen, pressing my ass back and leaning forward over our bed. That’s when he sees it, the butt plug that had been long put away after that first time we used it.
“Fuck, Sophia, how long have you been wearing that?” He doesn’t wait for my reply. He slides the thick rod of his cock into me with a groan so guttural I feel the world shake around me.
“All day,” I moan. “I need you. I need to feel so full it aches in the best way.”
He doesn’t hesitate, thrusting into me with a ferocity that tells me he needs this too.
“You feel so good wrapped around my cock,” he grunts.
I let his words mix with the sensation of his cock pressing into me, and feel my mind begin to sharpen to the pleasure that builds in my pussy.
“I love your greedy pussy, how it squeezes and sucks at my cock, how it milks me dry.” His words are desperate rasps as he loses himself in his own pleasure. But they aren’t the words I need to hear.
“Tell me, Yury, tell me you want to breed me,” I beg.
“You’re already proven, angelu.” He thrusts faster, one hand on my ass, the other snaking around my hip to reach my clit. “We’re already proven. I fucking bred twins into you. Made you round and swollen with my seed. Now you want me to breed you again when you’re already pregnant. Fuck.”
His thrusts become erratic and I know his is close. His fingers pinch my clit then work it in tight circles.
“I’m going to come, and you’re going to take it all. You’re going to keep that toy in your ass as punishment for not telling me what you needed sooner.” His words are grunts now, breathless with exertion.
The edge is in reach, and when his hand comes down sharply on my ass, I finally break over the crest of it.
I shudder as I moan through it, my pussy clenching around him, milking him just how he said I do. He follows me over, never relenting on my clit, lifting his hand off my ass to hold the toy in place while we both come.
He stays inside me for a while, our legs trembling beneath us, barely holding us up.
“I love keeping my cock in your warm pussy,” he says, and I grind back against him.
“I love it when you keep it in there. When you harden inside me again. When your fuck me because you’re insatiable and desperate to claim me. Own me.” It’s a confession. We both know it.
He slaps my ass again, a little lighter this time, but I still whimper at the thrill it sends straight to my clit.
“Rest up, Sophia,” he says as he withdraws. “You won’t be sleeping tonight.”