Epilogue

The public announcement of the death of the Thornhill Killer at the hand of the special unit of the Fourth Division was received with extreme euphoria by the distressed population of Cordell. We used the picture I had snapped of Darryl with my phone for the press. However, not before doing some Photoshop retouches to tweak his appearance in case he had created this body based on an existing innocent individual like he had done with Tate.

The agents’ morale within the agency had never been so high. For months, they had felt helpless, fighting a losing battle while watching the men and women they had sworn to protect get slaughtered in the streets. Worse still, they would go on missions and watch their colleagues, some of whom they had grown to consider as brothers and sisters, get split in half by beings far too powerful for them to ever defeat.

No wonder so many of them had terrible nightmares. Judging by the database I had put together, a little over a third of the Nightmares that had crossed over had indeed been spawned by members of the agency, mainly the men and women on the frontline. The now compulsory psychotherapy sessions I had with each member on a regular basis helped them cope with the stress and trauma of their profession.

Even with the Squad by their side, some victims still died in terrible ways, but thankfully, rarely during missions. After that battle with Darryl inside the base, a strong bond had formed between the agents and the Squad. I wouldn”t call it friendship, but there was an undeniable protective ownership from the Walkers towards their human colleagues.

In the past six months, Zain had recruited four more Nightmares for our team. To our general surprise, he had deemed that he wouldn”t recruit more than ten in total for the time being. I would have expected him to want to dominate a large group of devoted minions. However, my man was quite serious about running his Squad in an efficient and appropriate way. He proved not only extremely picky, but also thorough in the training his minions received.

In many ways, where Tate was Thomson’s right hand, Zain was his left. The level of trust and autonomy that he had been afforded went a long way into feeding the loyalty he displayed towards the agency.

Nevertheless, I was beyond relieved when, a week after Darryl”s death, Zain was finally able to move into my house. It also opened the opportunity for us to teach my man what a normal life in the real world felt like. From movie nights, to dining in the city, to theme park rides, and a swim in the ocean, I rediscovered so many things through his virgin eyes. Many such moments gave rise to hilarious situations, but all contributed to me falling in love all over again with him, time after time.

Zain was fundamentally antisocial. We would never have a huge circle of friends or frequent double dates, but that was fine with me. I”d always been a bit of an introvert myself, so activities alone with my man suited me just fine. However, to my surprise, my man showed a particular taste and natural talent for dancing, especially Latin dance. To this day, I still cracked up remembering the first time we had gone to a Latin club.

My man had been so ridiculously sexy in his skintight black T-shirt and those sexy black dress pants that hugged his perfect ass in the most amazing way. We”d taken the dance floor by storm, showing off the sleek moves we’d learned during the salsa dance lessons we had been taking. The number of eyes drooling over us, and more specifically over my beast of a man, had pissed him off to no end.

A woman in particular who had shown, without any subtlety whatsoever, that she tremendously appreciated his appearance and sexy moves, earned his ire. To have him flat out tell her to keep her damn eyes to herself had required all my willpower not to burst out laughing in her face. I had always hated those shameless bitches in clubs who thought it was okay to hit on a man they clearly saw was accompanied. I didn”t need to be jealous, ever. My man took care of telling skanks to keep walking—he was already spoken for.

Nevertheless, we did occasionally hang out with Riley and Julia, although Zain considered it as us hanging out with Merax and Letho. For Zain, Riley”s Nightmare had become his right hand. Whereas Letho had become a strange mix of a little brother and an attack dog.

Both of my human colleagues had also taken their respective Nightmares home.

Riley and Merax were officially a couple. I still didn”t fully understand the dynamic between them. Merax was a bully and a dominant. However, Riley was no pushover. I suspected some interesting exchange of power occurred between them in private. As curious as I felt about them, I respected their right to indulge in their kinks. After all, I had my own, including getting spanked, gently choked, bitten, and some bondage.

Julia”s relationship with her Nightmare was quite moving. He was too broken mentally to be left to his own devices. Officially, Julia and her husband—who had no children of their own—had adopted Letho as their son. A genuine affection had developed between the three of them. Letho required a well-established routine to thrive. He needed specific goals for every hour of the day for him to function. Focusing on clear and simple tasks—be they training or relaxation time—kept him from becoming overwhelmed by the chaos that otherwise reigned in his head. His greatest reward was seeing Julia smile.

Although he didn”t suffer from autism, his behavior matched many of the symptoms attributed to that condition. As he responded well to the type of treatment used in such cases, we pursued that method. Initially, Julia had believed making Letho play video games would help him vent some of the excessive aggressivity that constantly boiled deep within him. But he had no interest in first person shooters or combat games. Then again, it was a myth that playing video games promoted violence in the real world, just like watching slasher movies didn’t turn people into serial killers. Instead, Letho developed a passion for puzzle and match-3 games, especially those that required the ability to recognize patterns to perform well.

I loved how much the welfare of his Squad mattered to Zain. He had naturally shown it during that battle against Darryl by allowing his team to feed first instead of hogging all that power for himself. That, in turn, earned him their undivided loyalty. My man merely perceived it as him taking good care of his guns so that they didn’t break in the middle of a shootout. Although he believed it and that, in some ways it was certainly true, I also knew that a loving, caring side of him lurked beneath his cynical exterior.

In the years that followed, the services of the Squad were requested to assist with neighboring cities and states. Zain even ended up supervising the recruiting process for some of their local Squads. But most of his time was devoted patrolling the streets of Cordell during the Mist to help prevent domestic tragedies such as the one that had almost cost me my life, stop foolish teenagers or gullible cultists from committing mass suicide in Mist Pacts, and protecting vulnerable Wishes from getting devoured during their cross over. The rest of the month, they assisted local police forces or federal agents in the manhunts against the most vicious criminals or illegal Mist battle arenas pitting humans versus Beasts.

As for me, I was happy. I had a job I loved, which allowed me to make a positive difference in the lives of men and women who selflessly put themselves on the line to protect others. I had an insanely sexy man who was entirely devoted to me. Even after all this time, mind-blowing sex with him still had me speaking in tongues.

The semi dark cloud in my perfect blue sky stemmed from Zain claiming he didn’t want to have children. I was still on the fence myself as to whether or not I wanted any. If I insisted, he would cave in. And judging by the way he looked after his Squad, I didn’t doubt for a minute he would be a great father to our children. My man didn’t mess around when it came to what was his. But we still had plenty of years left to make a decision on that front. For now, I was more than happy to settle on practicing baby-making.

We watched the Mist rise through our living room window. In a couple of hours, Zain would have to go to work. Until then, every single inch of his drool-worthy body was mine. Clad in his Squad uniform so that he’d be ready to head out at the drop of a dime, he closed the shutters, and picked me up in his arms.

I wrapped my arms around his neck while he carried me like a bride to our bedroom.

“Are you prepared to be sacrificed to the vampire?” Zain asked in a delightfully menacing voice.

“I will not go down so easily. Tell that fiend I have learned quite a few tricks to escape monsters,” I replied with defiance, my excitement rising as he climbed the stairs to the second floor.

“That’s okay. He loves to hunt. Nothing excites him more than feasting on prey after a good chase.”

Zain entered the bedroom and carefully lay me down on the bed before stretching his tall frame next to me.

I no sooner closed my eyes than the falling sensation swept me away. Moments later, I gently landed in the middle of a dark forest with leafless, tortured trees, bending this way and that as far as the eye could see. The moon provided the only source of light in the darkness of night. The shiver that ran through me wasn’t due to me wearing nothing but a diaphanous, white negligee.

A howling sound in the distance startled me. I spun around, my bare feet slightly sinking in the strange, padded surface of the forest’s ground. Three hundred meters away, the dark silhouette of a giant bat flew down from the midnight sky and landed on its feet. It shifted into a human form, with red eyes glowing. His mouth stretched in an evil grin, baring a frightening pair of fangs that glistened in the moonlight.

My stomach fluttered, my nipples hardened, and moisture pooled between my thighs at the sight of my most beloved predator.

“Run away, little girl,”the vampire mind-spoke to me in a voice promising a world of pleasure and pain.

Without a word, I turned around and ran.

THE END.

* * *

Did you enjoy a romance with a sexy Nightmare? Want to read more about hot, badass, alphas “not of this world” that turn into marshmallows when they meet the one?

Then you will want to read my Veredian Chronicles series where one courageous girl escaping slavery sets in motion a series of events that will change the fate of her people and that of an entire galaxy.

The Veredian Chronicles is the perfect read for fans of Nalini Singh and M.K. Eidem, pursuing their tradition of strong heroines, treacherous political intrigues, and the twists and turns you didn”t see coming.

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