EPILOGUE KNOX AND PEYTON

Watching my son sleep without a worry in the world is becoming something I savour every minute of. He breathes easily as if this world we've brought him into is filled with wondrous things for him to find. I suppose it is, but it's also filled with everything I am.

As is he.

I've wondered, day after day, who he'll be as he grows. I don't even know if my own dispassionate resolve as a human is based in my gene pool, or in this gift I've been given, or if I've been formed by the circumstance of my life. It doesn't help me understand who he'll be yet. Are we moulded, or are we already us because of the very genetic factors embedded in us? I guess we'll find out, in time.

His hands and arms are over his head as he sleeps, chest wide open to all and any threat. Peyton says that's because he's content. I say it's because he's daring any asshole to come try taking him on. Whatever he is, or will be, he's a Cortez. He'll damn well know how to defend himself as soon as he's able to learn.

Smiling at the thought, I lift my hand from his stomach and back away to sit in the cane chair. Peyton's sleeping, resting while she can, and while she does that, it's just me and him and this light, warm breeze coming from the sea. I look around the old place from my position under the canopy out of the sun and breathe a long, slow sigh of relaxed energy.

My eyes fall closed, and I listen to the lapping shore alongside small breaths from Cade's mouth. They're rhythmic, soothing. Fucking exhausting, in all honesty. Why didn't anyone mention how much kids need feeding and calming and rocking? He barely sleeps at night, and what he does manage is corrupt of true peace. I snort to myself and open my eyes again. Does any Cortez sleep at night? No, that's the time we thrive in. We prowl in that dark, and we enjoy the torment it provides for others. Maybe that's the sign I need to tell me exactly who he's going to be.

"Why don't you go to bed?" Peyton's voice says from somewhere. Her hands land gently on my shoulders, and she slides them down my chest until she's leaning on me. "I can take over for now."

"I'm fine."

"You're not. You've barely been off your laptop for the last two days, and as nice as it is for you to let me rest, you need sleep, too. We're supposed to be on vacation."

Cade takes that opportunity to grumble and squirm.

"It appears Cortez men do not need to sleep," I murmur.

Her fingers drag up my chest until she's standing and walking over to his crib. "They do, Knox. However, they also need to eat. Did you notice how I woke up just before he did? Do you think that's a me and him thing, or a him and me thing? I need to research that. Does he wake because I did, or did I because he was about to?"

"Pretty sure he smelt his mama."

She scoops him up and looks back at me sharply. "Are you suggesting I smell?"

"To him, you do. Pheromones. All I smell is perfume."

"Well, at least it's not vomit anymore."

I smile and lean my head back, remembering a time before this. "We've smelt worse than our son's vomit on each other."

She walks over with him, shushing him down, and sits on my lap. I move a little, letting her settle in. "Do you think of that time often?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

I look down at Cade. "Because it's what made him and because it's where I found you."

"You found me before that. In a church."

"No. I saw you there." I lean in and rest my lips against the side of her head. "I wasn't capable of finding anything before that time." She smiles and runs her finger over Cade's brow as he fusses about fuck knows what. "I now feel that it was then – on that evening of sweet dreams – that the very first dawn of human love burst upon the icy night of my spirit. Since that period, I have never seen nor heard your name without a shiver half of delight, half of anxiety."

"Sweet. Poe?" I nod. "Mmm. I don't think about it much. I think of the time after that, at yours."

"Why there?"

"Because that's where I fell in love. I think it is, anyway. That's where you were more you. And, before you say anything, I know the you you were in the cage was still you, but the you you were outside of it was, and still is, far more loveable. And handsome."

"Could you make that any more complicated?"

She giggles and lifts her bare legs up to rest her feet on the coffee table, cradling Cade between her knees. "Daddy's confused. Poor Daddy," she says, chuckling his chin. He yawns and screws his face up. "And I could probably make it far more complicated if I thought about it. Our beginning was, after all, very complicated. But if you're not sleeping, shall we go for a walk instead?" She looks up at me. "It's cooler now and-"

"Yeah, yeah. I know. The beach."

She reaches her lips and kisses me lightly before standing and moving for the deck. "Come on then. I want that water on my toes again before it"s dark."

I look at her body wrapped in nothing but a light sarong over a bikini and smile again at thoughts of cages and dirt as she walks down from the deck. They're all still crystal clear to me, and whether she wants to remember them or not, I do. I thought I'd want to rid myself of them – clear the tragedy and breathe new beginnings, but I don't. I need those memories like she needs her beaches. They resonate, deep down where everything I am lives and produce something that blends me for her. Some would call it softening. It isn't. I'm far from soft, but what I am, and always will be for her, is devoted. Every breath from my lungs and every beat of this tragic heart, is in her hands. It"s a humbling experience. One I'm enjoying.

She turns in the sand and looks back at me, smiling and still cradling our son as if he's the most precious thing in the world. She's right – he is. And maybe we'll have more, but for me, this is enough. Her and this beach and our son is enough. Time might pass, and business might pull me into the kind of realms I'm designed for, but behind all that will always be them and their safety.

"What are you doing up there?" she calls. "Come on."

I nod and step down from the deck, eyes scanning the horizon and sea just like Dante's would have done in the time he was here with Wren. It might be deemed safe from the world we exist in, but threats are everywhere, all the time. We're defenceless here. Happy, but defenceless. Much as I know she enjoys it, I'm wary.

"Did you accept the position in Manhattan?" I ask as I get to her. She hands Cade over to me and gets closer to the shoreline to splash her feet through the water.

"I was going to, but then I thought about Cade and nannies and I'm not ready. I don't think I am, anyway."

I reach for her hand and tuck Cade into my arm. "You don't have to be."

She keeps walking and stares out at the expanse of blue water. "But when will I be? I can't just be a mom for the rest of my life. I don't want just that; I want to use my work and do good with it. I just … I don't know. Having him has confused my focus more than I even imagined possible. He's my constant now, and you, and it's more messy than I'd like."

"Hmm. Well, I like your messy."

"I don't."

I chuckle and pull her sharply to my side to wrap an arm around her. "Look, I've got us an apartment in Manhattan. It'll be ready next week. Why don't we go, and you can be a mama and do the place up at the same time? That's enough purpose for anyone for a while. When you're ready to do anything else but that, tell me."

She frowns. "I like the mama bit. Not convinced on the renovating bit."

"Then get someone else to do it. Just be happy, Peyton. I don't care a damn about anything other than you two being happy. You need something, you ask. You don't need something, say and it's gone. When we're settled, maybe you'll find the focus and be able to look at work."

She nods. "Okay, but I have some reservations about your work-"

"Not that. Not yet. Don"t push me on it. We"re getting there."

"But getting where, Knox? I haven"t pried, and I"ve given you time, but I don"t want Cade near that kind of life."

I frown and look at him as we keep walking, unsure how much choice either of us will ever have in that. He might be part her, but he's part me, too, and not one damn thing ever curtailed me. I"ll try. I know I will. He"ll go to the right schools, and he"ll see a life other than mine, but if he is anything like me – anything at all – he"ll want the dark.

"Peyton, you"re the one who said you wanted to come to New York."

"I do. I want to be where you are. We both do."

"Then trust me. I can"t work miracles in months. I'll do what needs doing to change the path, but until then, you"ve just got to trust this Cortez knows what he's trying to achieve."

She turns away to stare at her ocean. "And what is that?"

"Peace, Peyton."

And, with any luck, something quieter for us all.