Epilogue
Owen
T he Infernal Union.
I missed the ceremony. Summoned mid-ritual by some fool with shaky hands and a death wish. The ink wasn’t even dry on the sigil before I ended the deal and sent him screaming. Idiots like that don’t deserve to call demons.
I would’ve stayed longer—made him bleed, maybe—but my brother was getting married. And even I have priorities.
I return just in time for the celebration. The afterglow.
Julian’s house has been transformed. Runes etched in gold light shimmer above the archways. Enchanted candles float midair, their flames shifting between colors like they can’t decide whether to burn holy or infernal. Laughter fills the halls. Music curls through the air like silk. For once, Hell doesn’t feel like punishment.
I stand near the entrance, drink in hand, watching the crowd shift and glitter. Souls and demons, fae and mortals, all tangled together in something dangerously close to joy.
Julian and Ophelia, moving through the space like they were born from it. His hands on her waist. Her smile like a secret she finally gets to keep.
She wears obsidian silk—sleek, backless, lined with fine silver thread that catches every flicker of light like spun stars. Her hair is half-pinned, wild curls falling like flame around her shoulders. No crown. No jewels. Just bare feet and the mark glowing faintly at her collarbone, where his soul lives inside her skin.
She is the embodiment of power reclaimed. Of survival worn like armor.
Julian leans in and murmurs something against her ear. She laughs—light, full. And he looks at her like he’s still not convinced she’s real.
It’s almost enough to make me believe in happy endings.
“They look smitten,” Seth says, appearing beside me like smoke with a grin, and handing me a glass of something that probably costs more than most souls.
I take it without looking. “They look disgusting.”
He snorts. “That’s demon-speak for happy.”
“Whatever it is,” I murmur, swirling the drink, “it’s loud.”
Julian’s got that look on his face—like he found the last piece of a puzzle he didn’t know was missing. And Ophelia… Ophelia looks like she finally remembers who she is.
“Honestly?” I add, glancing at Seth, “I’m happy for them. Even if the PDA is aggressively excessive.”
Seth raises his glass. “You’re going soft.”
“I’m adapting,” I reply, dry. “Big difference.”
He laughs, eyes flicking to the dancefloor. “Weird, right? Seeing him like this?”
“I thought the world would end before he smiled like that,” I admit, sipping slowly. “And meant it.”
“And yet… here we are. Happy endings and all.”
“Don’t push it.”
He laughs and walks away. I just stay there. Something inside me feels broken. A piece missing.
I turn to get another drink when I hear a squeal—sharp, sudden, too full of joy for a room of demons.
Ophelia.
She’s running toward someone in the far corner, arms wide.
I glance over. Expecting a cousin. A friend. Another dead soul back from the ashes.
But it isn’t just another woman.
It’s her.
The moment I see her, something in me stills. Not freezes. Not startles. Stills —like the world paused to breathe around her.
She’s dressed in emerald, the color catching the light like fire trapped in silk. Her hair spills in loose waves, dark and glossy, framing a face I shouldn't remember but somehow do. Lips parted in surprise. Eyes that haven’t met mine yet—but I already feel them. Like the moment before a storm cracks open the sky.
She glows.
“My sister got married!” she announces with a squeal, her joy cutting through the music as she races across the room.
She throws her arms around the man beside her and another woman, looping them both into a breathless, spinning embrace. They’re laughing, all of them, caught in the kind of happiness that only happens in moments like this—when pain feels distant and the future feels like sunlight.
The woman lifts her eyes to meet his.
I feel it the same moment she does.
A sudden heat blooms beneath my skin, not soft or subtle, but violent—alive. It coils up my arm like a brand being pressed into flesh, ancient and unforgiving. I glance down, already knowing what I’ll see.
The mark.
Seared into my forearm. Shining.
Undeniable.
The moment I register it, I hear the scream.
Not a cry. Not a gasp.
A scream that tears the air in half, guttural and strangled—like her soul is being torn open.
She stumbles back, clutching her chest, her fingers clawing at the fabric of her dress, at her skin, like she can rip the pain free if she digs deep enough. Her knees give out. Her body twists, wracked with agony she doesn’t understand, and she lets out another raw, broken wail.
Ophelia is already beside her, catching her before she hits the floor, arms wrapping tight around her trembling frame. She’s saying something, voice low and urgent, but I can’t hear it over the pulse roaring in my ears.
The mark is still glowing. Right over the woman’s heart.
I don’t respond.
Because across the room, her sister—Arabella, apparently—is still collapsed in Ophelia’s arms, gasping like the air was just knocked out of her lungs. She’s clawing at her collarbone, nails dragging over skin that now glows with the same sickly-gold pulse I know too well. Like the bond just carved itself into her flesh with fire and didn’t ask for permission.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
Julian appears beside me like a curse I forgot to dodge. He lifts his glass, sips like this is just another Tuesday in Hell.
“I know that look,” he says, casual as sin. “That’s the ‘oh-shit-I-just-got-soulmarked’ face.”
I don't bother denying it.
Because across the room, the girl who just branded herself into my eternity is still screaming.
And somehow, I already know— this is going to be my fucking problem. Soulmark burning. Eyes locked. Of all the people in all the realms… it had to be her.
Of course it did.