Epilogue
Waking up, I touch the cold sheets next to me and smile.
She’s painting again.
I slip out of bed, pulling up my discarded jeans on the floor, and walk downstairs to where I know she is.
I follow her scent, like the siren she is, my blood already pumping to see what she’s painted.
Her work has always amazed me, but lately it’s taken on an even darker edge.
The result of her kidnapping that still haunts me, but she’s also leaned into her own morbid curiosity.
Images of flayed skin, broken bones, rotted entrails, and deathly specters are now a part of her paintings.
She even immortalized my kills on canvas.
My favorite is the moment she painted me shirtless, covered in his blood, staring at the view of my knife in hand.
Tiptoeing down stairs, I find her sitting in the middle of the living room, painting at her easel.
The painting she did earlier leans against the wall.
A painting of an angel, beautifully done, with soft paint strokes.
Ivory as an angel. It’s for my mother. She’s lost all memories of my sister, her granddaughter.
It’s a matter of time before I’m lost to her, too.
She likes to paint, looking at my sister’s and nieces’ graves. She brings them flowers every week. Just like she visits my mother every week. It was Camryn who suggested I stop reading the bible to my mother and remove Ivory’s stuffed toy. It now has a place of honor on the fireplace mantle.
On the nights we stay in the apartment, she paints in the living room, and I watch her from the couch, biding my time until I can fuck her. Tonight is no different. I sit and watch slow strokes, her concentration.
But there’s a new painting on the easel.
Another in a new series. Siren Rising. Mostly abstract images of her and pain.
Some are sexy and sensual, others are dark and horrifying.
Made with all types of media. Including my blood, her blood, my semen, and yes, even the burned ashes of El Jefe.
No one knows but us. The secret between.
She looks beautiful in the luminescent glow, but I also love it when she sits there early in the mornings, the soft buttery light coating her smooth skin.
No one knows but us. The secret between.
Walk into my office. The dark room is filled with my trophies on the wall.
Above my desk is my prized possession: the stitched skin of my enemy with her face imprinted in the tissue.
Grotesquely beautiful. Revenge at its finest. He wanted to mark her, destroy her, but in the end, it’s he who bears the mark of my queen, reduced to nothing more than a piece of dried skin.
Sauntering toward her, I lean down and kiss the top of her head, looking at her painting.
“What are you still doing up?”
She turns and looks up at me, smiling. “I got an urge to paint. Your show was a triumph and as your girlfriend, I–”
“Fiancé,” I correct her.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot for a second.” She giggles, holding up her hand so that the black opal’s iridescent colors flash in the moonlight.
“I’ll have to keep reminding you.”
She stretches, moving her neck, and I step behind her, holding her hips against my erection.
“How are you going to remind me?”
Massaging her neck, I kiss behind her ear. “By making you scream my name.”
“I came in here to paint, not to fuck you, Stefan.”
“Then you should have used your studio.”
She turns in my embrace, wrapping her arms around my waist. “But I like the way it feels here. I paint better when I’m sitting in the moonlight.”
I tug off her robe, wanting to see all of her body, revealing her neck tattoos.
A pearly light bathes them, making them almost glow.
I covered every inch of her upper chest. None of her scars are visible.
Her collar bone, to the tops of her shoulders, and up her neck, every bit of ink is mine, just like she asked me.
I marked her with burned remains of El Jefe’s heart and lungs.
She watched me mix his dark ashes into the ink, preparing to make something more beautiful.
Something to help her heal from his attack.
She lay down on my tattoo table and let me ink her skin for hours.
She cried through each touch of my tattoo gun.
I knew it was more than physical pain causing her tears.
It was emotional. I kissed each drop, tasting the saltiness, wanting to absorb her pain, loving her strength. Loving her beyond words.
Now I kiss each one, peppering my lips along her skin.
“I thought you were exhausted. Did you say something about needing to sleep for a week?” She murmurs the question, reminding me of my words after the last time I came inside her body. “It must be your age catching up to you.”
The slap to Camryn’s ass makes her squeal, and she dodges me, running naked up the stairs, her pert, bouncy ass bears the bruises from how hard I fucked her yesterday. I ejaculated on those bruises hours ago, and I’m ready to add more. More cum, more bruises.
Slowly, I follow, letting the anticipation build. The last time I chased her was in the forest, and I smile, remembering that moment.
The door to our bedroom is open, but I step inside and she’s not there. I move down the hall to the studio I built for her. It’s empty as well. Like an animal hunting prey, I continue to stalk down the hall until I step into my office library, arrested by the sight before me.
She’s sitting on my desk. The same desk where she sat when she came to me, and I revealed everything about myself.
Her black leather cut is on her naked body, covering her breasts, adding to the badass look she has going with a phoenix tattoo between her breasts, its wings spanned out covering her shoulders.
The leather is new, not worn and used the way mine is, but each patch holds meaning for me, for us.
“The Property of Stone” is stitched into the back with “My Lady” underneath.
When she asked me to get her a vest to match mine, I agreed to have it made for her.
She’s in love with the damn thing, wearing it around the house, and I let her.
She’s not part of the Legion, and she never will be. She’s too precious to me.
I don’t need her to wear it to claim her.
The vest is superficial, a surface sign that she’s mine.
My soul has claimed hers. She belongs to me in a way that is beyond my club, beyond any earthly proclamation, and everyone important knows it.
The seven men that I consider my brothers know it.
Her brother and her friends know it. My enemies know it.
The decapitated and mutilated mummy of El Jefe showed up at one of their compounds, a single owl feather stabbed into his chest with my favorite fleshing knife.
It was a message. A message I knew they would recognize.
A message I want them to embrace. I will exorcise everything they hold dear if they so much as look at Camryn again.
The Legion is in chaos right now, with Riggs taking over and Hadrian still in parts unknown.
The club’s divided loyalties are too much of a threat for me to risk her again.
I’m taking a step back, limiting my visits to the club.
Riggs has to establish his power now. He knows I’m here if he needs me.
I step inside my office, ready to reaffirm that she’s mine.
“What took you so long? Having a hard time with the stairs, old man?”
I laugh, because what else can I do? That smart mouth of hers never fails to make me insane with lust and love.
Just then, her legs open, showcasing that beautiful pussy.
Tender, swollen lips are coated in her wetness.
The bright pink color lets me know she’s been playing with herself.
It’s flawless, ready for me to fuck all night.
When she reaches behind her and picks something up, my world explodes.
The object in her hand ensnares me, holding my attention and making me impossibly hard.
So hard that I start to steadily drip pre-cum.
She’s holding my knife.
The knife. The knife I used to cut her the first time. The knife I used to fuck her ass the first time. I haven’t used it on anyone else. It’s special and reserved for her; always her.
“I want you to cut me.”
“Fuck, Countess.” I step closer, ready to lay her back on my desk and do her bidding.
She holds out her hand, halting me. “You didn’t let me finish.”
Lust vibrates inside me, blood rushes through my veins, lodging in my dick. I’m holding on by a thread.
“Then I want to cut you.”
My knees buckle, almost bringing me to my knees. “You what?” No woman has ever offered, ever dared to flip the tables on me like she does, making me want to bleed for her.
“Will you teach me?”
The supplication in her eyes and the way she looks both dominating and docile is the sexiest juxtaposition I’ve ever seen.
“Don’t tell me that.”
“Why not?” The glint of the knife flashes as she turns the blade left and right. “I like the idea of marking you the way you’ve marked me. I think I’ll enjoy watching your eyes while I gently pierce your skin. Maybe even taste you.”
The groan that leaves my mouth comes from the depths of my soul, freeing something inside me. Something that I never knew I wanted. For her to embrace my dark urges. For her to participate in them with me. For her to be as hungry as I am when it comes to knife and blood play.
“You know, I remember what it felt like inside my ass. Stretching me so wide. The way you cut your hand while you fucked me with it. The way you ate my ass, tasting your blood and my arousal.”