Epilogue
Cade
One year later…
The surf is a constant, crushing roar, a huge weight of white foam and blue water that breaks against the shoreline over and over until the noise drowns out the absolute rest of the world.
The sun is cracking low over the horizon, bleeding a brilliant, unpolished gold across the Pacific surf that turns the edge of the water into a sheet of liquid brass.
I stand twenty feet from the waterline, the wet sand cool and packing hard beneath the flat soles of my bare feet. The salt air fills my lungs, clean and cold.
My right calf clenches up, a tight, sudden knot of memory, but there’s no fire left in the muscle.
The tissue has healed clean, but it bears a thick, jagged silver scar where the rattlesnake fangs had punched into my jeans twelve months ago.
It’s a permanent mark, a design carved into my flesh by the flatlands of hell to remind me exactly what it cost to drag my six-foot-four body to this point.
A movement at the top of the white sand dunes catches my eye, and my mind breathes a sigh of relief.
Sadie is walking down toward me.
She’s in a simple, thin white cotton sundress that catches the ocean breeze, the fabric billowing loose around her thighs as her bare feet sink into the loose sand.
Her hair has torn completely loose from its braid, the long, wild strands thrashing against her cheeks in a way that makes her look completely lawless.
Completely fucking beautiful.
And all mine.
Sadie
Cade stands towering above me, his broad shoulders blocking out the harsh glare of the morning sun, his wet blond hair catching the gold light of the surf.
His face is still the same rough, dangerous landscape I found in my barn—the crooked line of his nose, the week of unshaven stubble along his jaw, and those pale, unblinking eyes that see right through the performative masks of the world.
But there’s no smoke in his gaze today. There is no frantic, paranoid mania.
Flint bounds past us, his body tearing through the surf line a few yards away. The big dog bites at the white foam of the breaking waves, letting out a deep, chest-rattling bay of pure happiness that gets swallowed instantly by the vast expanse of the ocean. He has a job now…
Eating waves.
“You’re late,” Cade mumbles, the corner of his mouth twitching into that sardonic, beautiful grin that used to terrify me.
“The tide was high,” I say, poking his chest with my finger. “I had to walk the high ridge of the dunes to keep the dress dry.”
“The dress looks fine,” he grunts, his large, calloused hand reaching out to find my left wrist. His touch is warm, firm, and gentle against my skin, his thumb running over the pale circle where my wedding ring used to sit.
There’s no court clerk on this beach. There’s no preacher, no state-issued license, and no county record book to stamp our names into a neat, administrative grid.
The State of Texas thinks Sadie Briggs is a missing woman, a reckless housewife who vanished into a flooded draw after she executed the local Sheriff during a county blackout after finding out the truth.
They are entirely satisfied with that narrative.
But this covenant is lawless. It’s a border agreement signed in the dirt between two monsters who found out they were the only mirrors that could hold each other’s dark.
Cade reaches into the pocket of his denim and pulls his hand back out. Between his thumb and forefinger, there isn’t a diamond, just a simple silver band.
He slides the raw silver onto my left ring finger. The metal is cold against my skin, a permanent anchor that fits against the scar of my past.
“I kept you safe, Sadie,” Cade says, his voice dropping to a low, quiet certainty that drops the roar of the surf to a distant hum.
He looks dead into my eyes. “And now, I make the same promise for myself. Wherever this road goes... I’m staying on my feet.
No more blackouts. No more running from the fate. Just us.”
A sob builds deep in my chest—not the dry, suffocating grief of the pantry doorframe or the memory of Lila’s burning car, but a hot, primal rush of absolute liberation. I reach up, my fingers tangling deep into the wet mess of his blond hair, and I yank his head down into my space.
“I love you, Cade,” I whisper against his lips.
Our mouths collide under the high, blinding sun. The kiss is a direct head-on smash, tasting of salt, well-water, and absolute survival. It’s the exact same hunger we found in the center of the charred quilt, but the fire is gone. The ash has been washed away by the tide.
Cade
I pull her back into the deep shadow of the dunes, my hands working the hem of that white dress until the cotton is bunched in my fists.
I want her skin against mine under this sky.
When I press her down into the sand, my body pinning hers, my eyes never leave her face. Not once.
I slide into her—thick, wet, and raw—and the roar of the ocean completely drops out of my ears.
There are no sirens, no helicopters, and no fucked up voice from my past. I look dead into her blue eyes, tracking the way her pupils dilate under the blinding light, anchoring my entire existence to the shallow hitch in her breath.
Every thrust isn’t about the primal hunger anymore, it’s the anchoring of my goddamn sanity.
Sadie arches up to meet me, her nails digging into my shoulders, and the entire world collapses down to the single point where her skin meets mine.
As her lips press hard into mine again, the final loop in my skull snaps completely shut.
The men who broke me in my past? They’re all ghosts, dead names written down on clipboards in a world I’m never going back to.
I have my clarity and my freedom. And she’s right here in my center, her arms wrapped tight around my neck, her body leaning its full, beautiful weight into my ribs.
I open my eyes as I pull back from the kiss, burying myself inside of her, no longer afraid of the pleasure.
I’m still a really fucked up guy, and if I had to go back to any of my old life, I don’t know what would happen.
But as Sadie takes my hand, her fingers locking tight around mine, her raw silver ring gleaming under the sun, it’s all fucking okay.
That old world can keep its light and its liars.
We now own the dark. And it’s entirely ours.