Epilogue
One Year Later
Caitlyn
Applause thunders through the lecture hall.
I stand at the podium, heart racing, my fingers tight around the cool edge of the award they just pressed into my hand.
It gleams under the lights, heavy, real.
The plaque bears my name and the words I never thought I’d hear in the same sentence: Outstanding Contribution to the Advancement of Botanical Science.
For a moment, I can’t breathe.
Not because of the award itself, though that feels surreal. But because when I glance up, past the sea of faces, my eyes find him.
Sebastian.
He stands at the back of the hall, tall and immovable, his dark suit a sharp contrast to the academic crowd. No mask, no pretense. Just him, arms folded, gaze fixed on me with the same possessive intensity he wore that first night.
My chest tightens.
Even here, especially here, he doesn’t blend. He doesn’t need to. People instinctively part around him, sensing the danger, the authority. He’s an intruder in this quiet world of microscopes and Latin classifications, yet he came anyway. He wouldn’t let me do this alone.
I swallow past the lump in my throat.
The dean’s voice drones on beside me, introducing the next speaker, but my mind has already drifted. Back to the masquerade. Back to the night that changed everything.
I didn’t want to go. My sister pushed the ticket into my hand, insisting I needed a break from the lab. Go, Caitlyn. Just for one night. Dance. Live.
I told myself I was doing it for her. I wore her dress, hid behind a mask, and promised I’d come home early.
Instead, I met him.
The memory unfurls in vivid fragments. The chandeliers. The masks. The way he watched me from across the ballroom like he already owned me. The way his hand closed around mine, pulling me into a dance that wasn’t really a dance at all, but a claiming.
I never went back to being the woman I was before.
And maybe that’s the point.
Because without him, I wouldn’t be standing here now. I’d still be hiding behind my work, terrified of taking up space, whispering my research into voids that didn’t listen. But with him, because of him, I dared.
Sebastian poured resources into my lab without blinking. He silenced every bureaucrat who questioned my methods. He stood behind me while I worked, not interfering, not demanding, just present, steady, a reminder that I was no longer alone.
And today, when I walked up to accept this award, I felt his gaze on me like a brand. Pride. Possession. Love, though he never says the word. He doesn’t need to.
I lift the award slightly, my hands steady now, and the applause rises again. My sister sits near the front, beaming, clapping hard enough to bruise her palms. I smile at her, gratitude swelling in my chest. She thought she was just sending me to a party. She had no idea she was rewriting my life.
The ceremony ends. People gather around, offering congratulations, shaking my hand, asking questions I barely register. I answer politely, but my attention keeps drifting to the back of the room.
He hasn’t moved.
When I finally slip free of the crowd, my heels clicking on the polished floor, I find him waiting in the doorway.
“Congratulations,” he says, his voice low, for me alone.
“Thank you.” I hold up the award with a shaky laugh. “Can you believe it?”
“Yes.” His eyes darken. “The world finally sees what I saw the first night.”
Heat rushes through me. I step closer, lowering my voice. “I thought you only saw me as yours.”
His mouth curves faintly, dangerous and amused. “That too.”
I roll my eyes, but my smile betrays me.
He takes the award from my hands, studying it briefly before tucking it under his arm like it’s just another possession. Then he cups my jaw, tilting my face up, kissing me there in the doorway where anyone could see.
Gasps ripple behind us. Whispers. Scandalized stares.
I don’t care.
Because all I feel is him. His mouth firm against mine, his hand steady on my face, his presence grounding me as surely as it did the night he pulled me into that dance.
When he pulls back, his gaze burns. “The masquerade was the beginning,” he says quietly. “This is forever.”
And I believe him.
Because my sister was right. I needed to step out of the lab, out of my isolation. I thought she was forcing me to live for one night. I didn’t know she was leading me to the man who would change every day after.
Sebastian takes my hand now, leading me out of the hall, out of the applause and the murmurs and the polite academic world that suddenly feels too small. His grip is firm, absolute.
And as we step into the sunlight, award clutched in his other hand, I realize the truth:
I may have been the one who studied orchids, who believed beauty deserved to adapt and survive.
But he was the one who made sure I bloomed.
Sebastian
I’ve spilled blood without blinking. Signed contracts in smoke-filled rooms that shifted the power of entire cities. But I’ve never felt what I felt watching her walk onto that stage.
Caitlyn.
She stood under the lights in her modest dress, hair pulled back, award heavy in her hands, and for the first time the world looked at her the way they should. They clapped, they whispered, they craned their necks to see her.
But none of them knew the truth.
None of them knew that the woman being celebrated for saving orchids was already ruined and marked. That last night she screamed my name into the dark, her body writhing under mine, her walls clenching around my cock until I lost myself inside her.
They applauded her brilliance. I stood in the shadows, applauding the fact that she was mine.
The pride I feel watching her bow her head, cheeks flushed with accomplishment, is unlike anything else. It’s savage, primitive, consuming. Pride that isn’t gentle. Pride that is possessive.
Because while they honor her for her mind, I can’t stop thinking about her body. How wet she was when I pushed her against the wall. How tight she still is, even after I’ve filled her again and again. How her lips trembled when she whispered yours .
The ceremony ends. She slips away from the crowd, her eyes finding me instantly, like a compass locked to true north. She looks tired, dazed, overwhelmed. And so fucking beautiful it hurts.
I take the award from her hands before she drops it, sliding it under my arm like it’s mine too. Which it is. Everything she touches, everything she earns, everything she is, is mine.
She opens her mouth, maybe to thank me, maybe to protest the way I’m already leading her toward the exit. I don’t give her the chance. I crush my mouth to hers, kissing her hard enough that the gasps of academics echo behind us.
Good. Let them see. Let them whisper. Let them choke on the sight of their darling scientist devoured by a man like me.
When I break away, her lips are swollen, her breath ragged, her eyes glassy. Perfect.
“Congratulations,” I murmur, low enough for only her. “Now I’m taking you home.”
The ride back is a blur of restraint I barely manage. She sits beside me, clutching the award, cheeks pink, trying to gather herself. I watch her. The way her thighs press together. The way her pulse jumps in her throat when she catches me staring.
She knows what’s coming.
By the time we step into the house, I’ve lost patience. The door barely clicks shut before I spin her into the wall, the award clattering onto the table. My mouth crashes down on hers, and my hands rip at her dress, fabric tearing under my fingers.
“Sebastian—” she gasps, but it’s not protest. It’s plea.
“You stood there today and let them look at you,” I growl against her lips, shoving the ruined dress down her arms. “Let them clap and whisper, like they had a right.”
Her bra falls away. I palm her breasts, hard, greedy. She moans, her nails raking down my chest.
“But they don’t,” I snarl, sliding my hand between her thighs, finding her already soaked. “They’ll never have a right. Only me.”
Her head falls back against the wall, a broken sound spilling from her throat. “Only you.”
That’s all I need.
I hoist her up, her legs locking around my waist, her bare skin hot against mine. I free my cock, throbbing and aching, and slam into her in one brutal thrust. She screams my name, her nails biting into my shoulders.
“Yes,” I groan, grinding deep, bottoming out in her tight, wet heat. “That’s where you belong. Stuffed full of me.”
I fuck her hard, the wall rattling with every thrust. She cries out with each stroke, her body clenching around me, milking me, begging me.
“Do you feel that?” I snarl, pounding into her. “My cock inside you. My seed filling you. That’s how you’ll carry me everywhere you go. Every award, every lecture, every goddamn step, you’ll be full of me.”
Her orgasm rips through her, violent and unstoppable. She shudders, convulsing, screaming my name until it echoes through the house. Her body clamps down so tight it drags me with her, my climax tearing out of me in a roar.
I spill inside her, grinding deep, holding her pinned against the wall until I’m sure she takes every drop.
When it’s over, I press my face into her neck, panting, still buried in her. She clings to me, trembling, wrecked.
“You belong to me,” I whisper, kissing the damp skin at her throat. “Not the academy. Not the world. Me.”
Her voice is faint but steady. “Yours.”
Always.
I carry her upstairs, still inside her, her head resting on my shoulder. She’s too dazed to argue, too content to resist. Tomorrow, the world will keep clapping, keep talking, keep pretending it understands her brilliance.
But tonight, she’s mine.
And it’s time I breed her again and again until there’s no part of her that doesn’t know it.