Epilogue #2
Sure, according to the state of Montana and the rest of the human world, I was only legally married to Ava Vanderbilt-Mitchell. But what the fuck did I care about human laws? In my heart, I was as much married to Poe as I was to Ava, and them to each other.
I smiled as I waited my remaining forty-five seconds, relishing the filthy domesticity we’d created for ourselves.
The old Lycan would have hated it. Despite the primal play and the promise of having my deviant way with Poe, he would have turned his nose up at being so devastatingly devoted to only two people for the rest of eternity.
But that guy was a fucking lost cause, a man who called himself evil and drowned his emotions in a bottle of whiskey or between a stranger’s legs. The man standing here today had no room for that.
I counted down the last few seconds and descended the steps to the ground, inhaling the freshly mowed grass and the warm summer air.
Yes, this was peace. And I loved every second of it.
POE
I followed her floral coconut scent through the woods, jumping over a fallen log and darting around the trees.
Lycan had always been faster and stronger than me, but I could read people better than he could.
Not that I knew her better, just that I understood the way her mind worked.
She’d want to be caught, but she wouldn’t make it easy.
She’d find a hiding spot and buckle down, wait until we got close before tearing off in the underbrush.
Heavy crunching came from my right, and I snapped my head in that direction, gaze searching for her white skirt. I tried to ignore the bond pulling me forward. Cheating took all the fun out of it. A faint feminine laugh carried over the wind, and I took off.
Admittedly, I didn’t know if I wanted to be the first one to catch her. Perhaps I wanted to throw the game to see what Lycan would do, but the visual of my husband tied to the bed, blindfolded while my wife and I teased him to tears had me half hard and panting.
A flash of white zoomed up ahead, and I picked up my pace. I’d just been about to wrap my arms around her when a shirtless silver-blond blur crashed into her from the side, tackling her to the ground.
“Gotcha,” Lycan said while Ava squealed.
I couldn’t be crestfallen. After all, he’d promised to make me earn it, and in Lycan-speak, that meant fulfilling the whims of his despicable imagination, something I was all too eager to oblige.
She thrashed against him, shoving his shoulders and kicking her legs, pretending to try to get away. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them over her head, slotting his hips between her thighs to hold her in place.
“Fuck, you’ve gotten stronger,” he said. “Must be all that shifter cum you swallow every night, huh?”
My cock jerked at his filthy talk, but she laughed and snapped her teeth inches from his face.
“Better luck next time, pretty boy,” he said.
I sighed and feigned disappointment, but we both knew I wasn’t. Nothing about my life disappointed me anymore. These days, I stood secure in myself, certain that they would never leave me, never disappear, never break my heart and toss me aside.
We were three pieces of one soul, one heartbeat, and to separate us would be a death sentence for the other two. None of us would risk it.
“Get over here and help me.”
I ran my tongue over my canine and thought about fighting him, making him work for it. But in the end, it was their special day, and our wife did love a good primal scene. So I did as he asked. I walked closer and replaced his hands with mine, my knees on either side of her head.
He ripped her blouse down the middle, tearing the fabric from her body before doing the same to her pretty skirt. Now clad in only her lingerie, he grinned and licked down the center of her torso, headed in one deliciously slick direction.
We took turns making her moan and scream in the middle of the woods, spit-roasting her between us, stuffing her cunt and her mouth while Lycan whispered sweet degradations, and I muttered insulting praise. They both set in on me after that, and as our husband promised, he made me earn it.
The next morning, I woke up before them, exhausted and sore in the best way.
Lycan was still curled protectively around Ava, so I let them sleep while I grabbed my journal and my pen and headed out to the kitchen.
I made coffee and walked through the forest to a spot near a stream where I used to come when I was feeling broody and melancholic.
The trickling water used to listen to my woes. Now, it reveled in my peace.
It was no more or less remarkable than any time I’d seen it before, but its beauty struck me in my sentimental little heart.
Here we were, the three of us, on this day.
Home. Safe. Loved. I never thought I’d get to have this.
I never thought I’d ever stop running or stay in one place long enough to admit how much such a thing could mean to me.
But there I sat, still and calm, basking in the early morning air. And it meant so much.
They meant so much.
Tears welled in my eyes before I blinked them back, clearing my throat and sipping my coffee to swallow my emotions. In a world where nothing had ever been permanent, I found a piece of it for myself, and I’d never let it go.
Then I opened my journal and started to write.
It poured out of me, all of the joy and bliss and hopes for the future.
Ava was the burning sun, and Lycan was my steadfast, expansive sky, and I was the steady hum of earth, no longer begging for their attention but now certain that they would light up each of my mornings.
“There you are,” Ava said, tugging a throw tighter around herself as she came to sit next to me on the dirt. She eyed the journal. “Are you writing again?”
I shrugged. “Just some scribbles.”
She leaned her head against my shoulder and hummed softly. “Read me one.”
It wasn’t perfect, nowhere near done. But how could I resist?
So I did.
The End