I’m not sad or remorseful about what I’ve done. I don’t see it as striking down the man who dragged me into this God-forsaken existence.
I believe I am cutting a cancer out from a host that can and will continue to thrive in his absence.
The Head topples over and I release my katana and it falls beside him. Where I’m going, I won’t need it. I turn my attention back to those who sit beyond. I don’t speak a word.
I reach for my mask, and as I remove it from my face, I’m taken back to the very first night I put it on. It was heavy then, with the weight of its forebears.
In taking it off, their weight, the Veil’s weight, goes with it.
Neither Elias nor the Heart makes a sound as I drop my mask.
There isn’t a thing they can say to keep me here.
I have someone special waiting for me.
Epilogue
Lilith
One Year Later
Iwake in the middle of the night, a cold sweat dripping off my brow. Confusion radiates from my head, down to my toes, as I open my eyes to the pitch-black room. I can’t get a handle on my heart sprinting in my chest. Or the feeling of something long, hard, and thick moving between my thighs, hovering dangerously close to my soaked core.
Oh fuck…
Colter’s lying halfway on top of me, with one arm resting around my chest. Our bodies are spoonedtogether, and no doubt that’s why I feel his prodding. But, as my senses slowly return, I notice he isn’t as vocal as he usually is. Not a grunt, a groan, or any sound escapes him. Nor does he react when I start stirring.
He’s still sleeping, and realizing that makes this whole thing so much hotter. Colter Crawford wants me everywhere, even in his dreams.
Well, lucky for him, I’m not about to miss this opportunity.
I rock my hips against him, feeling his swollen head glide through my lips and tease my clit. I bite down on the blanket to stifle my moans, so I don’t wake him.
Sure, I’d much rather have him awake for this, and he’d no doubt prefer it too. But the poor man has so much sleep to catch up on. I can’t take it away from him.
Each thrust becomes easier than the last as my own slick drenches my thighs, but that only makes the game more dangerous. His length grinds against my skin, frictionless, and every back-and-forth motion threatens to split me in half as his cock nudges at my entrance.
What I wouldn’t give to have it happen.
But just as Colter starts to press into me, stretching me wide to take him, the baby monitor on his nightstand blinks its bright green light, and the sound of our daughter’s cries blares out of it.
“What the—“ Colter snaps out of his slumber, just in timeto hear me moan.
A groan instantly rips through him, and his hand finds its place over my breasts to tease my nipples. But the lusty fog quickly washes away, as we hear our daughter again.
“Fuck,” he grunts, pulling back once, before slamming his full length deep inside me.
A spasm of pleasure tears through my body, instantly leaving me begging him to stay for one last thrust. But Colter, dutiful dad that he is, slips out of me and gets to his feet.
“I need to see if she’s okay,” he says. A more labored sentence has never been uttered.
“I know,” I whisper back at him. “Oh, the timing…”
He flicks on the nightlight and grabs his robe off a hook on our bedroom door. “What’s that?” His face already shows signs of him bracing himself for the news he doesn’t want to hear.
“If you stuck around, I’d let you put another one inside me.” I smile, and he mirrors it.
“You’d better not fall asleep before I get back then,” he says, sternly. “Or I won’t be the one getting fucked in my sleep.”
