Epilogue
Azrael
Yes, the place was beautiful. Perfect for our legacy to grow and thrive in the centuries to come.
But now, she wasn’t alone.
Little Araelia was skipping and dancing and giggling with her, her dark brunette hair cascading down her back in unruly curls. She had the same eyes as her mother.
“I think they’ll be best friends,” Olivia commented, walking beside me.
I smiled warmly after them, admiring how my girl danced with the little one.
“They already are.” Scarlett had grown a lot over the last few years.
The pain she had gone through had long since faded, except for a rare night or two when she would wake up screaming and we would run together.
She was as free as the hummingbird she admired, her colors bright.
She had told me once, not long after I healed, that she had finally started seeing her own aura. She confessed that she had seen it after she had told me the truth about her masks.
“What color is it?” I had asked her.
She had wiggled her fingers a little, watching it with an angled head. “Iridescent,” she had answered in awe. “What do you think it means?”
“It means,” I had said, “that you are free.”
She hadn’t believed me at first, and why would she?
She had still suffered after that day. She suffered in the thought of losing me.
She had suffered in the fear of how her body would react after what happened in Absolution, which also ‘tragically’ burned down the day the churches were hit.
She had suffered in the nightmares that had lingered.
But eventually, she did believe me. Eventually, she found her aura beautiful and representative of the family I had gifted her.
The first class of the university graduated this year, but not without its issues.
After the first year happened, the ‘practice year’ as Everett called it, we made quite a few changes in the curriculum, enrolling the kids that had gone through that year back into school with as many credits as we thought were necessary to keep them where they needed to be, and although some of them had enough, we felt, to graduate last year, they decided to take another year anyway, graduating this year with the rest of the graduating class, but with a higher standing since they made the choice to take five years instead of four. I respected that.
Ashworth was just like any other University, registered as a private school.
It contained four years of classes that turned any of the remaining Initiates into people like us, giving them the degrees needed to have any job in the world, and with some work and some convincing, it was all above board.
As much as it could be with all the connections we had.
After the churches were taken down, we then began hunting down the remaining rogue Initiates, although it wasn’t hard.
Once talk of our school spread, most of the Initiates came running.
They wanted our training. They wanted to become the best. Those that were filled with tar, who betrayed us, were shipped to our home to stay in the basement until they died of weakness.
Everyone else was enrolled. As for those who had remained loyal to the shadows, but had long since had children of their own, they paid in advance for their children’s spots.
After sitting down with Everett, Jack, Grey, and their beautiful wives, we had all decided that we would take the Blackheart’s approach in this world.
No more masks, no more hiding. We didn’t care who knew about us. We didn’t care who hated us or who admired us, we simply lived. The world could deal with our presence as they saw fit, but what they would never have over us was control.
Malachi, Mr. Bastrom, and the two Elders, Adams and Miller, were still very much alive in Wonderland. At least, their bodies were. I wasn’t going to let them get off so easily for what they did to my family.
They would suffer until I was satisfied, however long that took. Perhaps they would be the first of our ‘permanent’ residence in Wonderland. After all, my wife’s PTSD was permanent, why shouldn’t their suffering be as well?
Scarlett turned a corner and gasped, her smile splitting her face in two.
She turned to me and pointed down the hall before signing “Havoc!”
I smiled softly and joined her moments later, seeing Havoc and Bishop standing in the hall that overlooked the woods. The light of midafternoon was streaming in through the windows, reminding me that it was the perfect day to take my girl for a ride.
“It’s fucking business, Roman, and you know it. If you don’t figure your shit out, don’t bother coming back home.” He hung up and turned to Bishop. “That fucking girl will be the death of him.”
“And Alaric?”
He waved him off. “Alaric’s his own mess. What the fuck was Ro thinking? He knows what this will do.”
But Bishop had caught sight of us and instantly gestured, shutting Havoc up.
Roman. I hadn’t heard that name come up since I had asked about Marla’s cousin. What was he up to now?
Havoc turned and his frustration instantly brightened into a smile. “Hey doll.”
She beamed and danced right into his arms.
He wrapped her up and spun her around, her dress spinning with her.
If it were any other man besides him, I might have cut off his hands and forced them down his throat, as it was, Havoc only saw my wife as a little sister.
His only sister. One that, while she wasn’t in need of protection, deserved to have someone watching her back at all times.
I felt secure in the knowledge that even if I did meet an untimely demise, she would always have the Blackheart brothers standing behind her. Three Kings, forever standing at attention to the Red Queen.
Chuckling, he set her down. “Having fun?”
She nodded and turned to Araelia who had managed to wiggle her way behind Olivia’s legs.
Olivia couldn’t help but smile. “I think someone’s not over their little crush yet,” she whispered as the girl clung to her mother’s leg.
I couldn’t help but smile.
Havoc crouched down, giving the little girl a warm look. “Hello, Arelia,” he greeted.
She hid deeper behind Olivia, clearly too nervous to speak.
Havoc chuckled and stood. “Alright, maybe next time. Hey Liv, Azrael,” he greeted. “How’s it going?”
“Everett’s finishing up some paperwork, so we’re taking a walk around the school to tire these two out.”
Scarlett turned to me, frowning. “Tire me out? I thought we were going to have fun later.”
“We are,” I hummed, allowing my eyes to fall over her body. By the time I found her beautiful hazel eyes again, her pupils were fully dilated, and I knew she was a wet mess, suddenly antsy to leave. “But others need to rid themselves of energy and you are nothing if not a doting aunt.”
Her smile was back instantly. “I love being her aunt and Rose’s. I can’t wait to be Ryder’s aunt too.”
Rae was six months pregnant too, and very excited to have their baby boy.
Jeremy and Stella had also had a boy two years ago that they named Asher, and Ash and Sarah had adopted a three-year-old girl named Casey.
So, the discussions between Grey and Emily had only gotten more serious the day they found out Rae was pregnant too.
As for Olivia? Baby Rose was sleeping in the office with her daddy.
Scarlett couldn’t be happier. I had worried, a little, that perhaps she would start feeling sad about not being able to have children of her own after seeing so many, but she remained firm in the belief that she would never have wanted children either way. Being an aunt was enough for her.
Scarlett turned back to Havoc and Bishop before I could respond. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Weren’t you dealing with some…” She glanced down at Arelia before turning back. “Clients in Wonderland?”
Arelia was learning ASL as best she could. Something my brothers and sisters were more than happy to teach their children.
“We’re actually here to pick up Poppy and Evie,” Havoc explained, causing Olivia and I to exchange a glance. “We were supposed to meet them here.”
“They have their own boy toys these days,” I replied easily, “so they’ve been preoccupied. Why do you need them?”
Poppy and Evie, despite the fact that they no longer needed to babysit us, had found themselves lingering in familiar places.
Evie spent most of her time near the Kingsmen’s, and Poppy near us, but they had their own lives now, their own missions.
Poppy still continued to keep her promise to Scarlett about ‘never letting her out of her sight’, which I appreciated greatly when I was working, and Evie simply cared for Olivia, Everett, and their kids too much to completely separate herself from them, but even so, I was shocked to know they were working for the Blackheart brothers.
“They’re helping us deal with something regarding Taliss,” Havoc answered. “Nothing big,” he assured me. “We just need them for a few hours.”
Bishop pulled out his phone the second it started ringing. “Beckett,” he said before dismissing himself.
I watched after him carefully, my eyes returning to Havoc in question.
He smiled. “We use everyone,” he replied. “Who knew your family would become so…intertwined with mine,” he went on, winking at Scarlett.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re all my family.”
It was just strange seeing them so entangled these days. Something I still had to get used to.
However, I nodded, the tension slowly leaving my shoulders. “I saw them heading towards the cafeteria,” I told him.
He nodded his thanks and he and Bishop headed back down the hall, Bishop still on the phone.
Scar watched after them for a moment before turning back to me in question. “What do you think is going on?”
“Nothing we need to concern ourselves with,” I answered. “But it’s time for us to go. I’ll see you soon, wild rose,” I said to Olivia.
She leaned down to pick Arelia up, a smile crossing her lips by the time she straightened. “You too, Az. Bye Scar.”
“Bye Aunt Scar!” Arelia all but yelled.
Scarlett beamed, waving her goodbye at them both before her heat-filled eyes returned to mine.
The second Olivia stepped back around the corner, I held out my hand to my wife, my cock already throbbing. “Tick tock goes the clock,” I hummed.
She slid her hand into mine. “Our wonderland calls for us,” Scarlett sang back softly, her voice music to my ears.