I undress her like I have all the time in the world, because I do. My bride loves my cock. She’s admitted she’s obsessed. I groan when her hands go around my throbbing erection and she handles me rough, just as I like. Then I start on her nipples, pinching and sucking until she’s crying out for me to “fuck her hard.”
I love this female so much.
Soon, we’re both having yet another seismic orgasm. We’ll do this again in about another two hours. I’m getting a little sore and so is she. It’s good to take a rest.
“I’ve got you,” she breathes against my mouth.
“I know.” I’ve never known anything better. “You’ve had me since I opened the front door.”
She laughs.
And then we fall asleep in each other’s arms. It’s the best moment of my life.
Epilogue
Hallie
“You moved your rider.”
“I did not move my rider,” I say, not looking up from the board.
“Hallie.” Maxon’s voice is warm and aggrieved at once. “It was on the third rank. Now it’s on the fifth. Riders don’t fly.”
“Maybe it’s a very ambitious rider.”
Across the front room, Scar makes a sound that might be a laugh if Scar were a male who laughed. He’s folded into the big chair by the fireplace with his tablet and his traq, half in the conversation and half out of it, the way he always is. He doesn’t look up. “She moved her rider,” he confirms.
“Traitor,” I growl.
He shrugs. “I call what I see.”
Maxon’s looking at me with that crooked, helpless grin. Dammit, this male is so handsome. What did I do right in life to deserve him? I give up the bit and slide the rider back where itbelongs, because I don’t actually need to cheat to beat him. I just like watching him notice.
Four months ago I did the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life—I took a big chance and ran away with enough proof to hopefully take down a Royal Pigment House. I had to literally leave Chronos to accomplish this. I knew I had to get to Timbur, to the miners who were going to be terminated, and show them the evidence and then hope that they would believe me. And thankfully, I picked the correct crew to align with, the Fever Brothers. I knocked on their door soaked to the bone. I sat in this exact room that first night sure I’d brought death into a house full of people who’d been kind to me, planning already how I’d slip away before the danger I carried could touch them.
Now I’m so pregnant I’m starting to show and my days are filled with love, sexy times, friendship and found family.
It’s pretty wonderful. I just hope that we can beat those assholes at House Vaszneth.
“Your move,” Maxon says, smug, because he thinks the rider thing was a real mistake and not me being a menace.
It wasn’t a mistake. I take his Core in four.
I’m notthe woman who hides in this compound anymore. I go into the mining colony now and even into the mine itself when necessary. I know the shopkeepers and the route to the med center. I feel very close with all the brides of the Fever Brothers. I have a life out here, under the two moons, on a remote mining planet I once thought I’d have to flee to keep everyone safe. And I have work. Real work, the kind I came all the way to Chronos chasing and lost the day I read those files.
Most mornings I’m in the daycare with Lila, wrangling the loudest collection of half-Xylan toddlers in the Four Sectors. When her baby comes I’ll take it over, which sounds insane untilyou understand the system we’ve built, because nowadays, there is no version of this house where one woman runs childcare for the whole crew alone. There are simply too many babies coming. So we made a rotation. Naomi takes third day, Jana takes the days the cafeteria’s slow, Roxy when she’s not buried in the lab, Leah whenever she’s down from employee housing, and on and on, a whole roster of mothers cycling through so that every one of us gets to work, or not work, exactly as much as she wants, while the children stay home, cared for by family.
It took me an afternoon and a very large spreadsheet to build the schedule. I’m extremely proud of it. The truth is, I love it. Prior to this, I had no idea how to care for small children, they were very foreign to me, yet I’ve learned I enjoy this age and stage. I feel blessed to be able to be there with all of my nieces and nephews when they are this young, guiding them, and showing them love and caring. I spend my days with babies who are going to grow up calling me family, who already reach for me. I’m getting close to them one sticky-handed afternoon at a time, and I didn’t know a person could feel this full.
And during my extra time, I keep the Fever Brothers’ books.
Which is how I ended up getting closer with Scar, because originally this was his job. But I’d asked if he wanted me to audit the books. He said yes. “This one’s wrong,” I later noted, pulling his tablet over and tapping the column he’d slid across to me. “Right here. You double-counted the equipment lease against the quarterly. It’s a small error, but it’s an error.”
“You’re better at this than I am,” he’d said, with no ego about it at all, and slide me the rest of the quarter to check. And then that morphed into me taking over their financials entirely, for the whole family. It’s a big job, but I’m thrilled, having the opportunity to make sure they are all growing their currency for retirement and no one pays more taxes than are strictly, legally necessary—and making sure their books are blasterproofso none of those Royal Pigment assholes on Chronos can ever sweep down with a make-believe audit, just to torment them.
I glance over at the male quietly sipping his traq.
Beings are scared of Scar.
