Epilogue
VALEN
“You seem to think this is a negotiation.” General Lopez leans forward, his beady eyes searching my face. “It’s not. This is a surrender.”
I return his stare.
Some of the other commanders at the long conference table shift uncomfortably in their seats. My side is barren. I’m the only one here to represent my people.
“I will agree to the terms I’ve laid out. That is all I’ve come here to say.” I lean back, the sun warm on my shoulder.
“You’re aware we have the ability to manufacture a poison to kill off every one of your kind.” The general crosses his arms over his chest.
“I’m aware you have an idea of how to make it, but no way of mass producing it at present. And, if you were to try to mass produce such a thing, I’m certain it would violate any truce we’ve agreed to here today.”
He turns his head to look down the table.
The former attorney general gives him a curt nod.
General Lopez turns back to me. “Then it seems we’re in agreement. All hostilities will end as of noon today. No further action will be taken by either side against the other.”
“I will appoint emissaries to deal with you going forward.” I stand.
The moment I move, their anxiety spikes, the acrid scent of fear heavy in the air.
I ignore it and stride from the room. The boards creak beneath me, the old house in rural Virginia they chose for this meeting deceptively quiet.
I can hear the snipers on the roof above and on the surrounding buildings.
One of them is chewing gum. Another is repeating the same prayer over and over again under his breath.
When I exit into the sunlight, two of them rest their fingers almost too tightly on their triggers. But they know their weapons. No shots ring out. I don’t have to kill anyone today, at least not yet.
I slide into the military Humvee and close the door. The faint scent of bourbon still lingers.
“Is it done?” Captain Howard hits the gas, the engine roaring as we head down the empty street, no other humans in sight.
“Done. Is this the time when you double cross me and try to kill me or is that later?”
“It wouldn’t be a ‘try’.” He swerves around a blockade, the troops stationed there saluting him as we pass.
His overconfidence will be his demise. But not now. As I said, I don’t have to kill anyone today.
We ride in silence, though I can almost hear his quiet seething. It’s rather enjoyable—all his self-loathing and regret a pleasant background to this Sunday drive.
His desperate need to chatter finally overwhelms him. “You should’ve returned her body, if nothing else. She belongs with us, with her people. Her friends.”
“She never belonged to you.”
“And you think she belonged to you?”
I smirk.
“You got her killed. You know that, right? She went there to save you, and look what happened. In typical vampire fashion, you survived, and the human died. This truce is nothing but a smokescreen.”
“She saved your life.”
“What?” He cuts his eyes toward me. “What did you say?”
“I would’ve killed you many times over, but she stayed my hand.
You owe her your life. She wasn’t your friend; she was your benefactor.
A saint, as far as you’re concerned.” I turn to him, the vein below his jaw pulsing rapidly.
I’d rather drain him and leave his corpse for the crows than be subjected to his idiocy any longer, but a deal is a deal. “She was nothing short of your god.”
He grits his teeth, his hands tightening on the wheel. “She meant more to me than you will ever understand.”
“True. I could never understand the inner workings of a wretch such as yourself. Small favors.”
He stomps on the brakes, the vehicle screeching to a smoking halt beside an abandoned farm.
“Out.”
“Pardon?”
He reaches for the pistol on his hip.
I break his wrist easily.
He yells and tries to knife me with his other hand. I redirect his swipe so that he stabs himself in the leg. Another yell.
Maybe I’m not killing anyone today, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun.
“Fucking asshole!” He grips the knife handle as I step out of the vehicle.
I much prefer to walk anyway. The air is nice, crisp and promising snow, a palate cleanser after the tang of his blood.
He’s miles behind me in mere moments, my pace picking up even more as I near home.
Home.
The thought of it makes me feel almost light, as if I could sprout wings like a Corvidion and spring into the air.
The idea of something mine.
And something shared.
She’s bent over a microscope when I creep into her lab, her hair swept up in a messy bun, giving me the perfect view of her delicate neck. I ease closer, my fangs lengthening.
“You realize I can hear you now, right?” She turns, her eyes glinting as she smiles at me.
“Must you ruin my fun?” I capture her in my arms, inhaling her, surrounding myself with her.
“I’ll play along next time. Is that what you want?” She gets onto her tiptoes and kisses me, her adorable little fangs pressing into my bottom lip. I lick along them, drawing blood and sharing it with her.
Her arms twine around my neck, her body warm as I pull her tightly to me.
“How did it go?”
“Worried for me?”
She smirks up at me. “Glad to be rid of you.”
“They agreed. Peace in the Emergence Era. Happy now?” I frown.
“Ridiculously happy.” Her brows draw together, and I sense her question before she asks it.
“He’s alive, my Blood. He’ll just be pissed off for a long, long time.”
“He was already pissed when his top civilian scientists disappeared along with a ridiculous amount of data and samples a month ago.” She sighs. “You promise you didn’t kill him? I felt some glee. Like intense glee from you for a few moments.”
“Just roughhousing. That’s all.” I smirk and kiss her again, wiping away any thoughts or mentions of that syphilitic, engorged tick.
“Bro, you’re already back? That was quick.” Wyatt bumbles in, his familiar stink of patchouli and some sort of pungent strain of marijuana wafting past.
“Go easy on the ‘greasy cheese’ or whatever you’re smoking.” Georgia wrinkles her nose. “Or maybe choose a strain that’s not so skunky?”
“Skunky helps me think. Besides, that’s what the greenhouse is for. I already have some choice seedlings.” He points to the skylight overhead. “We need the good stuff if we’re going to keep shaking and baking on this vaccine.”
“Just, I don’t know, pat it out before you come in here. I can smell you from a mile away.”
“Super sensitive vampire schnoz. I know, I know.” He returns to his dreaded machine, laying a vinyl plate onto it and setting it spinning.
Georgia swipes her hand across my face. “Don’t keep sneering like that. Causes wrinkles.”
“Not something we have to worry about, my Blood.” I kiss her again and ignore Wyatt’s groan.
Just as I ignore his stink and his infernal screeching ‘music’ and everything else about him as I must. Because Georgia loves him.
As a brother. Which she’s assured me of many times, and I’ve assured myself of by frequently spying on him.
In truth, he has the most peculiar obsession with a large, violent human warrior female.
He practically worships a signed photo of her.
Evie walks in with the other female hanging all over her, the one who is constantly humming in my library. Her musical tastes are garbage, but that is to be expected from humans. I will suffer them if it makes my Blood happy.
Evie’s eyes light up when she sees Georgia. “Hey, I have a new theory about why you and Valen can walk in the sun. Maybe—”
“We are bonded mates. My powers are hers. Hers are mine. I’ve already explained this.” I spent as little time as possible with humans for the great majority of my life. I’m constantly reminded why that was such an excellent decision.
“Okay, sure.” Evie rolls her eyes. “That’s the woowoo—” She waggles her fingers. “—explanation, but there has to be an actual reason somewhere in your makeup.”
“What are you thinking?” Georgia asks.
I slide behind her, pulling her against me, letting her know just how much I missed her.
She makes a high-pitched “hmmph” sound when I press my hard cock against her backside.
“Well, what if the particular symbiotic relationship in your blood has a mutation because of the human component. Valen is half human and born that way—the mutation would have started there. Then when he turned you, you got that same mutation.”
“Then how do you explain Melody?” Georgia asks as I slowly drag her away from her lab mates. “She couldn’t withstand sunlight.”
“Maybe the mutation simply didn’t pass to her. Let’s keep going on the assumption that your DNA was rewritten when…”
Evie’s voice fades into her usual drone.
I don’t need her grasping science to explain why my mate can withstand sunlight.
Obviously, I am a superior vampire to all others in myriad ways.
This superiority was shared with her when I turned her and she became my Blooded mate.
I’ve given these pigheaded humans the answer, and yet they still twist about in the wind, looking for reasons or explanations.
It would be maddening if I truly cared. I don’t.
The only one I care about is trapped in my arms now.
“I know what you’re doing,” she chides me down our bond.
“It’s what I plan to do to you that you should concern yourself with.”
“And what’s that?” she asks tartly.
“Bury my face in your ass until you scream, then fuck you senseless.” I groan when I feel her desire surge, the scent of her arousal its own aphrodisiac.
I give up the pretense and scoop her into my arms, carrying her away from her cadre of friends.
“Ugh, I guess I’ll turn the music up unless anyone actually enjoys hearing all the moaning.” Wyatt sighs.
“Turn it up,” Evie calls. “Loud as possible.”
I kick open the door to our new rooms, the sun streaming in from skylights all along the roof.
No dragon insignias here, no gilded or bejeweled anything.
Just stacks of books, a microscope, a telescope, several scientific gadgets I choose to ignore, and a few of her old family photos I managed to salvage from DC.
Laying her on the bed, I prowl over her, kissing her until I’m drunk on her taste, desperate for every last bit of her.
“What happens now?” she asks as I strip her bare, her skin luminous in the sunlight.
“Now you roll over and I—” I flip her, then spread her legs wide.
“No, I mean with the government, with what’s left of—Oh!” She squeals when I drag my tongue along her wet cunt and then to her tight asshole.
“We deal with that another day.” I lick again, sucking her tender flesh between my lips and sinking two fingers inside her soft cunt.
She moans, her body already taut as I lick and suck, tasting and delighting in her.
When I focus on her clit, my tongue dancing all along that tender bud, she arches her back, her tension rocketing higher until she comes.
I feel her pleasure, the rapture of her release making my cock even harder, my need for her so intense that it takes every bit of my control not to bite her plump ass cheek.
Fuck it. I sink my fangs into her, her cry of pleasure and pain bringing out the beast in me.
I release her, running my fangs up her back, and when I enter her, I don’t stop.
I fill her tight, wet cunt until she’s panting, her toes curling as I grip her shoulder and fuck her hard.
Again and again, filling her as I hold her captive beneath me. My queen. My god.
“Valen.” Her moan is torture, is goading me into coming.
I won’t allow it.
With a yank, I pull her up to me, one hand wrapping around her delicate throat while she arches for me. I thrust harder, bouncing her on my cock as I kiss her, our tongues warring with each other as I share the rich taste of her blood with her. I’ll never get enough of this. Of her.
I cup one of her breasts, squeezing her nipple. She reaches up, her fingers in my hair, her small claws raking along my scalp.
“Please,” she breathes.
Her orgasm is building again, flowing between us, a rising wave that will drown us both. I can’t avoid it any longer, not when my mate needs it, needs me to give it to her.
I keep one hand at her precious throat and use the other to stroke her wet clit.
Her rhythm becomes wilder, her hips locking, and then she’s screaming my name, a guttural cry that makes me feral, makes me lose my fucking mind for her.
I bite her shoulder, sinking my fangs deep as I fill her completely, barely getting all the way in before I spend, my cock kicking inside the delicious confines of her cunt.
She constricts around me, milking me as I groan against her, drinking her, fucking her, living only for her.
My one. My only. Kedves verem.