Epilogue

 

Five years later…

Joshua

It’s a glorious summer day in a countryside village near Lyon, France. That’s where we fled to start our new lives after I paid for Tamara to be smuggled out of the hospital. Except her name is now Celeste, and mine is D’arcy.

With plastic surgery and colored contact lenses and fake ID, we slipped into our new roles easily. We both speak French fluently now, with no trace of an accent.

We live in a beautiful chateau that was once a medieval fortress. We’re surrounded by hundreds of acres of lavender fields, vineyards, and apple orchards.

My brother remains behind bars. I still have an entire team working undercover who are dedicated to watching him at all times. He’ll never be free again. I managed to recover the money he stole from me, after several years of effort.

We are still in touch with Ruiz and Astrid. Once they fell in love, Ruiz lost the urge to kill. His passion for vengeance was pushed aside by his passion for Astrid. They’re married, and the happy parents of a three-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy. Late-life parenting seems to agree with them. He owns a private security company that I funded. They all fly out to visit us during holidays.

I’m paying for Astrid’s daughters to go to college, and I have a team of men assigned to them too. That was at Astrid’s request. She still worries about her children. She should worry more about what would happen to any man who even looked at them the wrong way. His death would be long and painful.

Paul and Fletcher will be going off to college soon enough. I built an aviary for Paul so he could study birds up close. Fletcher’s a black belt in Tae Kwan Do.

My wife, my slave, my lover, was not able to go to law school, so I created a charitable foundation for her to run here in Lyon. It provides free legal services to battered women, and education and homes for them as they rebuild their lives.

My wife also helps me to plan out my hunts. She loves to do it.

My hunts span the continent of Europe. I have noticed that I am no longer drawn just to men who look like my father. One could say this is a sign that I’m less crazy then I used to be, but then again, I slowly torture and kill half a dozen men a year, so that’s probably giving myself too much credit.

I still have nightmares sometimes. We have a protocol in place for when that happens. She leaves the bedroom immediately, not trying to speak to me or interact with me in any way. She contacts my security team and they tranquilize me and then strap me down until I wake up. It happens every couple of months.

It’s a crazy, fucked-up way to live.

But then, we’re. Both of us, in our own special ways. That’s why we work. We’re two puzzle pieces who fit together perfectly and make a whole. Separated, we’re broken, empty vessels. Together we’re a unit, strong, unbreakable.

Celeste/Tamara and I have three blue-eyed children—Emilie, Francois, and Bastien—who are sweet and happy and deeply loved. I watch them all the time, secretly, searching for signs of madness. I know my wife does too. We have many animals here, and we watch the children play with their pet rabbits and puppies and kittens. They never try to hurt them.

Bastien is intense, fierce and focused like I am, but that is all. He has never shown the slightest inclination toward cruelty. He doesn’t even like it when we scold the animals for misbehaving. He gets right up in our faces and shakes his little finger, chastising us, fearless, if we raise our voices to his puppy. And Emilie and Francois are so kind and gentle, like their mother, that if they didn’t look just like me, I’d wonder who their father was.

It makes me wonder if what my wife believes is true—if I was made into the monster I am, rather than being cursed with it from birth.

But either way, I am still a cruel, cruel man.

That’s why I’m smiling to myself as I walk into the bedroom where my wife has been strapped down to a chair for the last hour. The children are with their beloved nanny, Marie, and I’ve got my wife all to myself until tomorrow morning.

The room is glorious, with flagstone floors, antique silk wallpaper and hand-painted wooden timbers running overhead. Our furniture is Louis XIV style – much of it modified so that I can restrain my wife in whatever position I want her to be in.

She looks up when I come in the bedroom. She’s naked, legs spread open and squirming with need. I have a vibrator inserted inside her, and I set it to go for thirty seconds at a time. Then it stops for a minute. Then it starts up again. Enough to get her desperately aroused. Not enough to let her come.

Very slowly, I unbutton my shirt as she glares at me.

“This isn’t fair, Sir,” she pants, speaking in English because we are alone.

“Oh, how sad.” I mock her with my tone and my eyes.

I carefully fold my shirt and lay it on top of the dresser. Just then the vibrator starts up again, and she cries out, eyes rolling back in her head. “Oh God, please, Sir… Please let me c-c-come… Uh… Oh God…”

I watch with interest as she writhes against the chains that hold her. Then I step out of my pants, fold them up neatly, and set them next to my shirt. Next I remove my socks and shoes. Finally, I walk over and unchain her. “You don’t move until I say so.”

“Yes, Sir,” she gasps. “Oh, oh, oh…” The vibrator starts up again.

With my toe, I nudge the silver bangle on her ankle—the one shaped like a collar. Our little secret.

“What did you do wrong?”

“I got dirt on my collar… But Sir…you asked me to pick herbs from the garden. There was no way for me to keep it clean— Oh, oh, oh, oh…”

I take pity on my beautiful wife, and I grab her hand and pull her to her feet. Then I slide the vibrator out of her and put it on the dresser on a tray next to my clothing. “Hands behind your back.”

She obeys instantly. I deliver half a dozen stinging slaps to her beautiful breasts, and she gasps in pain but doesn’t move. “That’s for complaining. Now bend over and put your hands on the bed.”

She hurries to obey.

I stalk up behind her and grab her by the hips. She’s so wet, so ready for me, that I enter in one brutal thrust. “Who owns this pussy?” I reach around to stroke the tiny pink pearl between her legs, and she moans and pushes back.

“You do, Sir!” She gasps with the effort of forming words. I’ve got her so aroused that she can barely speak.

“Damn straight.”

The scent of her arousal is a sweet aphrodisiac. She’s shaved bare for me, and her wet lips embrace me as we move in rhythm.

My beautiful, crazy wife.

She knew she’d get her ankle collar dirty. She went outside barefoot. I watched her on our security cameras. She dragged her ankle through the mud on purpose. She does these little things all the time. Defies me so I’ll have to punish her.

She craves the punishment, the anticipation spicing her pleasure. She knows I’ll never go too far with her. I am a master at dragging her to the edge of pain and ecstasy and then pulling her back just in time.

I am her master.

And she is moaning my name now, begging me to go harder.

I could draw it out, but there’s no need to be greedy. We’ve got all night.

So I fuck her hard, holding her still, pumping into her until I have her right where I want her. Giving her exactly what she needs. I love to pour glorious, mind-bending pleasure into her body, because she deserves it so very much. She deserves the whole universe, and I am dedicated to laying it at her feet.

When she comes, her tight sheath squeezes me so hard I’m tipped right over the edge with her. I explode into her, filling her with my sticky seed. Then I hold her tightly, staying inside her for a long time. Have I planted yet another baby in my lovely wife? I hope so. I love her pregnant, so glorious and ripe and swelling with new life. I love our children, those strange, tender, sweet little aliens who look like me and have been blessed with their mother’s kindness.

I slide out of her at last, and she sinks to her knees and kisses my feet, all the while murmuring, “Thank you for letting me come, Sir. Thank you, Sir.” Then she looks up at me. “Do you love me, Sir?”

Her one insecurity. I can never say it enough, so I say it all the time.

This woman saved me from a life of loneliness, a cold, empty existence that lacked in purpose. I was standing on the top of a mountain, alone, separated from humanity, breathing very thin air, when she came to join me and warmed my icy soul.

She filled my life with warmth and unconditional love. She gave me beautiful children who showed me that I am not made of tainted meat after all. Perfect, kind, adored children, issued forth from my loins, and their happy smiles and sweet natures tell me that I was not born damned.

And I can love them, and I can love her, without wanting to ever cause them harm.

Because she loved me. Because she forgave the unforgiveable and found the good hidden deep, deep inside, where others feared to look.

I smile down at her, and I make sure to imbue my fond look with that hint of cruelty that turns her on so much. “I love you, baby. I love you so much I’d fucking die for you. Now get your ass in the tub. You’re a very dirty girl, and dirty girls need to be washed. And then punished.”

 

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Also by Ginger Talbot:

 

A monster doesn't know how to love.
But maybe she can teach him...
If he doesn't break her first.

WILLOW
My uncle handed me over as collateral for a $5 million debt...
And the beast who claimed me knows no mercy.
I don't know if he has a soul, or if I can melt his frozen heart.
Sergei is a Russian mob boss, a cruel, evil man who draws pleasure from my pain.
My time to find the man inside the monster is running out.
If I don't save him, I won't be able to save myself.

SERGEI
Willow is just a pawn in my war against the Toporov family.
A delicious, sexy little pawn I can't wait to hurt in all the ways I know by heart.
I'm going to make her every nightmare come true.
But Willow has a hidden fire. She has a tender heart.
Too bad for her... Because I'm about to put her light out.
I'm about to make sure she never, ever loves me.

This is a dark romance, complete with trigger warnings! Part 1 of a complete 3 part series.
No cheating, HEA guaranteed at the end of the series. If you love heartbreaking cliffhangers, now!

 

The monster draws pleasure from my pain.
Now, it's time to fight back.

SERGEI
30 days of pain have pushed Willow to her limits.
My pretty prisoner is no longer meek. She's trying to resist.
But my precious prize doesn't know what I know.
Nobody has ever won a war against me.
Nobody has ever bested me.
And she's not going to be the first.
Good luck, little Willow...
Now you're not fighting to escape anymore.
You're fighting to survive.

WILLOW
My captor's rules have changed.
I'm still a prisoner, and freedom seems further away than ever.
I have endured every blow, every harsh word, every kind of hurt Sergei threw at me.
But now I've betrayed him, and I've awoken the monster within.
I have to pay for my sins...or my family will pay the price.

This is a dark romance, complete with trigger warnings! Part 2 of a complete 3 part series.
No cheating, HEA guaranteed at the end of the series. If you love heartbreaking cliffhangers, now!

 

Secrets and lies tore us apart. Can love keep us together?

SERGEI
Willow thought she got away from me, but she was wrong from the beginning, wrong about everything. I find her trying to take down a human trafficking ring, unsure whether I'm there to help her, or drag her down. But from now on, Willow doesn't have a choice. She will be my wife. She will submit. She will play her role. 30 days until she becomes mine forever. 30 days for her final chance to run. 30 days, and Willow will be my wife, mine until the end of days.

WILLOW
Sergei wants me to trust him. He orders me to marry him, and he’s giving me no choice in the matter. But our enemies are circling in, enemies we didn’t even know we had. Evil is closer than ever, so close I can feel its hot breath on the back of my neck. He's hunting me, and there's nowhere left to run. I'll have to face the devil himself—and I have a feeling he will make me pay in blood. I don't know who to trust. Is Sergei the perfect liar... or the perfect lover?

This is a dark romance, complete with trigger warnings! Part 3 of a complete 3 part series. No cheating, .