Epilogue
Years later
My name is enough to send most people running.
Those who don’t are fools, for they would feel my wrath.
I am the king of darkness. The dark Tribrid they call me, the one who changed the world.
I am destroyed, and countries have fallen by these hands.
Forgiveness isn’t a part of my vocabulary; I don’t grant forgiveness or mercy.
It is best to stay on my good side. My mother thought she was protecting me, keeping my magic from me. That betrayal hurt the most.
She took a piece of me and I nearly killed her by getting it back.
I knew growing up I was different. I saw life differently.
Sure, I came from a home filled with love and everything a child can desire.
My parents would have moved heaven and hell for me.
Yet that was their downfall. Their betrayal.
From the outside, we were the perfect family.
Our lives were great until my sixteenth birthday.
I stopped aging at thirty, but the darkness made me feel every bit of the hundred and one years I have had on this earth.
Sucking every part of me away until I became what I am now.
I used to fear the darkness now I embrace it.
The darkness came for me on my sixteenth birthday, and I found the missing piece.
The one thing I craved, and that was power.
Power to control everything and everyone.
My mother tried to save me, tried to even take me down.
If she wasn’t my mother, the woman who literally gave her life for me.
I would have ended her. That wasn’t her decision to make.
I knew instantly my entire life was a secret; they kept from me.
Astral and the covens came for me once I possessed my power, my mother telling them where to find me. I slaughtered them all and have been on my own ever since. For decades I have roamed the earth trying to find meaning, and I stumbled across my mates.
At first, they feared me. Everyone had heard my name by then, not a country left intact as I made my way through each one trying to figure out my purpose.
I met Ryland first. He was just as evil as me and a werewolf; we continued our reign of terror until we met our other mate.
I was hoping for a woman, not that I was uncomfortable with my sexuality.
It is what it is, and quite frankly, I would fuck anything with legs to fulfill my needs and that of my mates.
Orion, though, was different, weaker. He didn’t agree with my past and the things we had done; he was much older than both of us and knew of my grandfather.
Orion is a vampire and a little old-fashioned, but he was mine even though he annoyed me and frustrated me to no end.
He hated me, but he came to see reason, and remains by my side even when he doesn’t agree, trying to talk me down, trying to change me. Though now I think he has given up.
Sitting on the balcony of my penthouse apartment. I gaze over the City, my eyes scanning as I watch the crowds of people below, unaware of the monster watching them.
I hear movement behind me, and my eyes snap to the glass sliding doors. She hands me a smoke and I light it, breathing in deeply. Enjoying the burn in my throat from its harshness.
“When are you going to go home? Haven’t you punished them enough? They did it to protect you. It is time you stop this, whatever it is you are doing.”
“And what is that?” I ask her, looking back toward the City.
“The destruction, what are you trying to prove? Who are you looking for?” she asks and I sigh. Only she would get away with questioning me like this. I’ve always had a soft spot for her. She listens and doesn’t judge, no matter how much I fuck things up.
“I am not trying to prove anything. I don’t need to.”
“Then why, Thaddeus, why all this?” she asks.
“Because I can, that is why,” I tell her. She shakes her head.
“Your mother said there was still good in you, that we just have to find it, that we can pull you back from the darkness. Now I am not so sure anymore. I can’t watch you destroy yourself, destroy everything you put your hands on.
I am sorry, Thaddeus, but I can’t. I am going home, come and see me when you see sense,” she says.
“You’re leaving already. You just got here,” I say, growling at her. She steps back, frightened.
“I’m sorry, Thaddeus, but please just go home, they will forgive you,” she says before turning away.
“Tell Mom, I am not coming back,” I tell her. She smiles sadly before nodding.
She slips inside, closing the door behind her. A few minutes later the glass door opens again, and Orion comes out before plucking my smoke from my fingers and drawing on it. He leans against the railing.
“What did you say to your Aunty Bianca that upset her?” he asks before passing my smoke back.
“I told her I am not going back.” Orion sighs loudly before peering over the railing. I move behind him, pressing myself against him and reaching around him and grabbing his cock through his pants. His dick twitches in my hand at my touch. I groan into his ear before I pull at his belt.
“Not tonight, Thaddeus,” he says, smacking my hand away. I growl loudly before shoving him away.
“Fine,” I snap, going inside. Bianca is gone and only her faint lingering scent remains. “Ryland?” I yell.
“Hurry up, we are going out.” Ryland strolls out, a mischievous grin dancing on his lips. He grabs his jacket and followed me to lift.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“I just want out of this house, and I need blood” I tell him, he nods.
I won’t risk feeding on him, my hunger is insatiable and as intoxicating as his scent is, I know I won’t stop once I start.
Marking him was a nightmare. I nearly killed him, nearly killed my own mate.
Orion was different; he was a vampire, so I didn’t struggle with him.
Walking outside the breeze makes Ryland shiver slightly.
The snow crunches under our feet as we make our way down the street, looking for my next victim.
Only when the breeze shifts, I pick up the most mouth-watering, intoxicating scent I have ever smelled before.
I follow it before I hear a feminine scream.
Something twitched inside me. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. Fear.
The sound of the woman’s voice sends fear racing through my cold veins.
Ryland, feeling it too, glances at me and we walk around the corner which is an alleyway.
I can see a man standing over someone. The person thrashing violently as the man tries to pull her pants down.
Her scream sends rage through me, but before I can even move, Ryland is ripping him to pieces with his bare hands.
The figure moves and I can’t take my eyes off them.
Stepping into the alleyway, Ryland is pummeling the man, his face completely unrecognizable as human, his blood seeping into the snow.
The figure I realize is actually a woman.
She tries pulling her pants up, looking between both Ryland and me and I can smell her fear.
She thinks we are here to harm her, too.
Ryland stops and looks at her fear-stricken face and places his hands out toward her.
She slaps his hands away. Her entire body is shaking with fear and adrenaline.
The cold is biting at her skin. She is in a waitress outfit, not properly dressed for this sort of weather.
The closer I get, the stronger the scent is.
She is the addictive mouth-watering scent I got a whiff of.
She makes my heart race faster. I didn’t think I needed anyone beside my mates.
I want her, need her with every cell in my body calling to her.
I want to taste her. Wanting to see if her skin is as soft as it looks.
Kneeling in front of her, she cowers back, her hazel eyes filled with fear, I can tell she knows what we are.
I place my hand out for her to take, but she slaps it away.
“Please, I won’t tell, just let me go. I saw nothing, I promise,” she sobs. Her voice is like music to my ears. I could have listened to her talk all day. Sweeping her light brown hair out of the way so I could see her face, she averts her gaze from my onyx eyes.
“Ours,” I gasp.
She shakes her head, and I feel Ryland touch my shoulder, making me look at him.
“We are scaring her,” he says and for the first time I can tell he doesn’t enjoy the scent of fear, at least not from her. The mate pull is strong. Looking back at her, I get up and step back.
“Go” I tell her, and she gets up before running off.
Bending down, I pick up her wallet that she left in her haste.
Pulling out her ID, I read it. Evelyn Harper.
I have never wanted someone as much as I want her, never craved another person more than I do her, she is ours and yet we can’t have her.
She is light while we are dark. Monsters of the night to her.
Something made of nightmares. I have to fight with myself to stop from chasing her down and claiming her.
I thought I was complete until I met her.