Epilogue
Caelus
One Year Later
W atching my wife hold our daughter makes my heart ache in ways I never knew it could. The sun is shining on them where they sit on a red picnic blanket in the overgrown grass of my family’s home, both heads of white-blonde hair glistening in the sunlight.
We moved out of here a few months ago, buying our own house just four houses down, it has a big garden and a little fish pond, flowerbeds in the front.
Ozzie likes to be outside, to breathe in fresh air, come rain or shine, she’s out there, staring up at the sky, or shoving her hands into the earth, weeding and watering and planting new life.
She says it’s because she’s free now, and only when she was set free could she enjoy it, the world.
“Never thought you’d be the first one married and a father, little brother,” my older brother Novian laughs, tracing a finger around the rim of his whiskey glass.
“Mm, well, I never thought you’d still be voluntarily playing bodyguard to a girl almost twenty years younger than yourself,” I shrug, his fist collides with my shoulder, a smirk on my mouth as I lift my glass and take a sip.
“Shut the fuck up, you know it’s only because Emilius demands it,” Novian grumbles, knocking back his two fingers of whiskey and banging the glass down to refill it.
“I’m not complaining. Besides, it makes Ostara feel better, knowing her little sister is safe from their family.” Tension forms in my forehead, my brows creasing with it.
The girls’ older sisters have taken over the Stone family and whether by some sort of twisted sense of duty or actual want for revenge, they’re doing everything they can to take down the girl who killed their father.
Even if she happens to be their little sister.
“Em thinks she saved his leg,” Novian mutters, swallowing hard as my eyes come to his.
Emilius has had problems walking since the explosion, since it broke his femur in three places and shattered his tibia.
“Perhaps she did,” I reply, looking down into my glass.
“Perhaps he just wants a reason to keep her here,” Novian whispers.
Head snapping up, I blink hard, staring at him, wondering what he means by that.
But before I can ask, Zoe is striding through the back door, her bodyguard close at her back.
The big fucker stops at the edge of the decking, watching her as she bounces her way past us without a greeting and makes her way down the wooden steps, jumping the last two and skipping through the grass towards her sister.
“Well, she is a good killer,” I say absently, watching my wife smile.
Fuck, all this time and that’s all it takes, one smile from her, even if it’s not for me, and my dick gets hard.
“Yeah,” Novian scoffs, shaking his head before raking his fingers through the dark strands, but when I glance over at him, his eyes are still on Zoe.
“Sure, that’s what it is.” His chair scrapes back, drawing the attention of the girls, “See you later,” my brother grunts and then he’s disappearing inside the house, slamming the door at his back.
I stare after him, my eyes boring into the tinted glass of the kitchen door. Nothing can be seen through it, but it’s as though I can still feel him there, just on the other side of the door, staring out, at her.
“Cal,” Ozzie whispers, soft arms sliding around my neck from behind, her breath fanning my cheek as she rests her chin on my shoulder. “I love you, husband,” she tells me with a coy smile, pressing a kiss to the side of my throat and then laying her cheek on her arm to stare at me.
Leaning my head back into her shoulder, I turn my face towards hers, taking her lips with my own, I make sure to press my words into her skin, “And I love you, wife, forever and always.”
When we kiss, it’s hard to believe we’re here.
Being born into hate for one another because it was in our blood.
Because it was our duty. As easily as breathing we were to think of each other as the enemy.
And now we’re here, joined by marriage, by blood, our lives forever intertwined.
I know my soul could never find another like hers for as many lives as I shall live. Because the two of us are wrong.
Wicked and broken and violent.
But together, together, we’re something else, because her and I are the same.
She’s sick.
Sick like me.
THE END