Epilogue

Epilogue

I glance over at Master Erek as we drive to the Lake Tahoe house, and beyond him at the scenery I’ve missed. This place has become a part of me.

It’s a little bittersweet, returning to this house. So much has happened there. We loved so much here, so thoroughly. And we’ve missed our beloved Master Séverin so much.

It’s been nineteen months since we committed to each other by a blood promise, then signed the contract with Madame Gemma as witness, and I have come to truly adore her, too. In that time we’ve traveled, going to my Masters’ houses in Southern California, London, Germany. We’ve visited the Primal Ranch, where I’ve been entered in the Games a few times, and played well. We’ve been to Italy to go wine tasting, to India to visit the Taj Mahal. We managed to fit in so much in such a short time. And even when Master Séverin was feeling his worst, he insisted Master Erek take me shopping in Paris, to see Stonehenge, and—once he found out I was obsessed with horses as a child—to visit a gorgeous ranch in Spain to see the Andalusian horses. It was all wonderful, but I hated going anywhere without him. Hated that there were moments of our lives he was missing.

I’m lost in my memories of the times we all shared in this place, of the importance of the time we spent together here, when we pull into the garage, and Master Erek turns the engine off.

“Ready?” he asks.

I nod, my pulse racing.

We haven’t been back to this house for months, but we both miss the lake. I miss Mouse. I miss the familiarity. But most of all, I miss my beautiful Master Séverin.

Even as Master Erek hands me out of the car and leads me up the stairs, all I can see in my mind is Master Severin’s face, the sleek angles of his jawline, the enigmatic darkness of his eyes. I inhale the memory of his scent, the edge of citrus that’s nearly as sharp as his chiseled features.

As we step into the kitchen, his scent is there, unexpectedly. Then his arms are around me, holding me tight enough to nearly crush my ribs.

“Master!”

Still holding onto me, he pulls Master Erek in for a kiss, then he kisses my mouth and nips my lower lip hard. When he pulls back, I can taste my own blood, but it only makes me laugh as my system floods with joy.

“You’re here, love,” Master Erek says, beaming.

“A month at that boring-as-fuck spa in Switzerland was as much as I could take,” Master Séverin replies, his voice full of good humor.

“But Master, you’re healthy now?”

“I was healthy before I went, sweet Girl,” he insists. “You know quite well my doctors cleared me in December. I only went because you two wouldn’t stop insisting I rest. But I’ve had enough of rest—and not nearly enough of the two of you.”

“Being in remission doesn’t mean you don’t need to regain your strength, my love,” Master Erek scolds him.

Master Séverin waves him off. “Enough fussing. I swam in their spring waters every day, built muscle, and ate that god-awful macrobiotic diet you insisted on, my little Mina.”

I reach up to stroke his cheek, which has filled out a bit. “You needed to rebuild your immune system, Master.”

He rolls his eyes. “This is what happens when we give our slave access to the Internet.”

“I would have insisted if she hadn’t,” Master Erek tells him. “But we’ll have steak tonight. And champagne to celebrate our reunion.”

“I’ve given Corinne a few days off, so our Girl will have to cook.”

“Happily, Master,” I tell him, and it’s true.

I would do anything for them. Happily. Joyfully.

Master Erek steps away from our embrace to find a chilled bottle of Armand de Brignac—there is always a bottle of their favorite, absurdly fine champagne in the refrigerator. My two lovely Masters have a very European sense of decadence I’ve come to appreciate.

Master Séverin pulls me in and kisses me again, then reaches into my sweater to give my nipple a hard pinch, making me gasp. He growls in my ear, “After dinner and a good nights’ sleep, I am going to do every filthy thing to you I can think of, my dear.”

“Please, Master,” I reply, my body on fire already. My body has missed him as much as my heart has.

“Hmm, we may skip the nights’ sleep, since you’re so eager for me to hurt you, darling.”

“I am. So eager, always. It’s one of the ways you love me.”

“It’s true,” he says, leaning in to nip at my throat, then sucking on the skin until I’m a bit delirious with need.

Mouse comes strolling into the kitchen to squeak at us just then, scolding us for being away so long. My Master lets me go, and I scoop her up and murmur to her, then bury my face in her fur for a moment.

“I’ve missed you, too,” I tell her, then look up at my Masters after setting her back down on the floor. “I’ve missed this place so much. Even though there were some hard times here when…” I have to pause as tears fill my eyes, which, as always, makes Master Erek smile. “When we thought we were destined to lose you, Master.”

Master Séverin makes a mock frown at me, and I love it, because it’s only in recent months that he’s rediscovered his sense of humor. He is absolutely full of the same twisted darkness all of us in this strange life seem to share, but more recently he also has a sense of lightness that had been long extinguished.

“And yet, here I am. Here with my two loves. Healthy. And ready to celebrate by doing some truly unspeakable things to our Girl. What do you think, Erek, love?”

“I think there’s no other option. We each do what we do best. But let us start with the champagne. I’m thirsty after the long drive.”

Master Séverin takes my arm and we move into the living room and stand by the windows. Even in March the view is spectacular, with the ground still blanketed in snow, the evergreen trees tipped in white from a fresh snowfall, and the lake itself a still mirror image of the mountains surrounding it.

“A different season,” Master Erek says quietly, handing us our champagne glasses. “That’s what this is for us.”

“Yes.”

We stand there, gazing out the window at the view, and once more I am overcome that our beloved is here with us, when we’d all thought he would be gone by now.

I can’t help but reflect on how odd it is that we found each other. We truly are a perfect fit, three pieces of a complicated puzzle that, as Master Séverin says often, would never work so well with one piece missing.

My Masters have helped me to learn about myself. Together we’ve found a way to balance my need for absolute slavehood with the natural human need to simply be . For the first time in my life, I feel comfortable in my own skin, whether on my knees worshipping at their feet, competing in the Primal Games, or sitting in a restaurant drinking champagne with them.

I never, ever expected to feel a love like this. Intense. Nearly desperate. I cannot be away from them for long without yearning so hard I can barely stand it. My love for Master Erek is different from what I feel for Master Séverin, but no less meaningful. No less powerful. I believe coming so close to such a terrible loss brings us even closer together.

I never thought I could have this kind of happiness and fulfillment. In fact, I never truly thought I could have anything at all. That’s what drove my constant anxiety; a fear that my life would never be anything but incompleteness and yearning. I didn’t even know what it was I yearned for.

But now I know better. Now I have better. And it’s their love that made me see. That healed me. They both say I’ve healed them, too, in different ways. It’s something we’ve done together, and it’s so much a part of who and what we are.

I turn to face my beautiful Masters. They’re both looking at me, their expressions a bit feral. Raw. And I understand right away that dinner will have to wait.

“Time to play,” Master Séverin says, his dark eyes glittering. “Take your clothes off, Girl. You won’t be needing them until the snow melts.”

Master Erek takes my glass, and I undress quickly and sink to my knees before them, my body eager for their touch, whether it will be gentle or harsh. It doesn’t matter. I’ll love it, regardless. Or maybe, in part, even more so because of these moments of uncertainty. Will it be pleasure or pain? But now, this is the only kind of uncertainty in my life. And as always, it will be exactly what I need. They will be what I need.

Finally, I’m home.

The End